Kenosha

While not all is not known about Kyle Rittenhouse, the boy who killed two people and wounded a third in Kenosha last night, it seems clear that he was living out a dream. He dreamt of becoming a police officer, with all the honor and responsibility that entails. We have seen pictures of his cherubic face beaming from his junior-sized police uniform, of him carrying his cherished military-grade assault rifle. A 17-year-old with a vision for the future. His parents must have been so proud.

But then, this narrative of protecting and serving met the real world. He found himself in the midst of people agonized by what the police actually do to people of color in this country, people without power who die when they show up in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or do the wrong things according to a powerful, dominant, white story.

This story has dominated our policy and politics for hundreds of years. Kyle’s narrative told him that people protesting injustice were criminals, were enemies of the peaceful white privilege he took for granted. Privilege he had no choice but to take for granted because that was what his heroes on the police force took for granted.

Consider what his parents must now face as the events of last night unfold before our eyes. Their son, who seemed old enough and competent enough to handle his own weapon, went out into a chaotic world to be a hero. They may or may not have consented to this, but there he was. In the heat of the moment, some action, something yelled, something thrown, something that looked like a weapon, caused his arms to raise up, and his finger to squeeze in the way he’d been taught, and people died.

You who are reading these words: I ask you to consider everything I’ve said. The deaths and maiming were caused by a boy, but the actions of the boy were caused by a story. Boys at the age of 17 do not have the judgement to know where the boundary between story and reality lies. I am not saying that he is not guilty; what I am saying is that we are all guilty. We propagate the stories, and we school our young in them. Even our anti-stories fuel what becomes reality—what can become the reality of an August night in the year 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA.

Perhaps you are accustomed to the virtue in situations like this being on one “side” or the other. Death takes no sides, and cares not a whit about your political position. Life, for that matter, works the same way. The question we should be asking ourselves is: how did we arrive at this insane place, and how do we, together, find our way back to sanity?