Liam

allowing for heartbreak

I suppose the best place to start is right here, right now, in this moment. Every time I take a PDW hiatus, starting back up feels like starting at the very beginning. The blankness of the page is vast and foreboding. Words are slow to make an appearance. What to say rattles about in my brain. Then comes the follow-up who cares. Then hopefully comes a final do it anyway. I guess that’s what this is. This is me doing it anyway.

What makes picking up the pen so daunting this time around is the current state of this country and this world. Being a memoirist or essayist or whateverist that I am feels criminally trivial with all that is taking place in Minneapolis. What does describing some nuanced bit of my life mean as we collectively march into authoritarianism? How can I muster the gumption to write about heartbreak or silliness or love or mistakes or regrets or memories or hopes when this country is spiraling and the monsters continue to take their sledgehammers to the scaffolding holding everything up?

I cannot get the image of Liam Ramos out of my head. This chubby-cheeked 5 year old boy, donned in a cartoon hat and Spiderman backpack, stands facing a salt stained SUV cloaked in winter. His eyes read fear and confusion. His father is being taken away. Liam himself is being taken into custody. He is surrounded by ice and by ICE.

He is 5.

Something primal in me wants to run into that picture and scoop him up. I want to put Liam into my coat and tell him everything is going to be okay. I want to drive off in defiant victory, middle finger to the bad guys, and put Liam back in the arms of his family. I want to deliver him to a childhood of safety, warmth, Saturday cartoons, swing sets, and catching fireflies. I want to melt myself down into a shield so that the boogie man and his henchmen cannot reach that chubby-cheeked little boy.

But I can do none of those things.

And, so, I breathe.

One of the primary ways bad guys get us to treat each other so despicably is to turn other people into something other than “people.” Language is the weapon of choice long before tear gas or zip ties or guns. We become desensitized to language that describes groups of people, generally those with very few numbers and even less political power, as being something other than human. The ever-changing “they” are vermin and terrorists, animals and criminals. Such creatures can then be treated as less than human because the language bombarding our feeds has tricked our brains into thinking that they are, in fact, not human.

We’ve seen this time and again in our history. Nazis with Jews. Jim Crow with Black folks. Indian Hindus with Muslims. Hutus with Tutsis. I myself am part of a group that has long had dehumanizing language used against us - degenerate, abomination, vile, grotesque. And on, and on, and on. The texture and specifics might differ but the principle concept is the same - make the “other” non-human so that violence against them is justified.

So what can I, little Pat Donohue, do in the face of tectonic plates of power shifting? With a new world disorder emerging that treats the most vulnerable people as grave threats? In a country whose citizenry is isolated, addicted, broke, and aggrieved with a president who seeks only domination and retribution?

In the face of such overwhelming propositions, such big questions, I think the answer might be simple:

1. Retain my humanity.

2. See it in others.

If the current forces of darkness seek to strip me of my humanity and expect me to strip it of others in return, then the most potent act of resistance is to stay human. For me, as a writer and artist, that looks like keeping my eyes open. It looks like keeping my heart open. It looks like continuing to write about silliness and love and mistakes and regrets and memories and hopes. It looks like picking up my writing practice after the umpteenth unplanned hiatus. It looks like putting words out into the world regardless who does or does not see them. It looks like allowing my heart to break over Liam Ramos and wrapping words around that heartbreak.

I can only hope that if enough of us hold fervently to the things that make us human, we may survive this moment. We may emerge with stronger communities, deeper connections, and a democracy still standing. The Great American Experiment depends on us. It depends on humans acting human.

Update: Liam Ramos has been released and reunited with his family. This victory came about only because of viral attention. It’s a win for him and his loved ones but it does not negate the sin of his original retention. It does not negate the reality that countless other Liams are currently in fear and separated from their families in this, the richest democracy on earth. This United States of America.