It’s August. We celebrate community with National Night Out on August 2nd. I was going to write about Minneapolis leash ordinances for dogs this month. With the events of the year, the nearly weekly shootings, I feel something else should be said instead. But here is where I struggle. As someone who is a non-minority, white, and male, I feel like I don’t or shouldn’t have a voice. I hesitate to say anything because I don’t fully understand the systematic racism, profiling, and state of fear some of the members of our community endure or have endured. There is a problem and it runs deep. One that needs to be fixed. We are all human beings. We are all trying to live our lives.
We should all not have to live in fear of violence. From our fellow neighbors or the ones sworn to protect and serve us. We need to stop shooting each other. We need to start having respect for each other. We need to stop treating each other differently because of how we look or the economic conditions in which we live. I wish I knew what to do to fix the state of our world. But all I feel I have is hope and for myself to be a better person and create a community I want to live in. One where we are all just people, living our lives. Not genders, races, religions, ideologies, class or education. Corcoran is a diverse place. I do not know most of my neighbors but I walk the streets of the neighborhood and from what I’ve seen, for the most part we are good people and I am happy to call this place home.
