Sitting with violence

Written By Marianne Mollmann

This morning, my mind is a mess of cognitive dissonance.

I am watching the slowly increasing Monday morning bustle in the park and on the street: people biking their kids to school, runners, strollers, power-walkers (yes, that is still a thing). The sun filtering through the now fully summer-clad trees.

And at the same time, I am holding the memory of the 10 persons murdered by a white supremacist on Saturday in Buffalo, New York. And I am sitting with the fact that the majority of US Supreme Court Justices (plus some sizable part of the American population) believe in the “great replacement theory” that fueled this senseless violence.

Let us celebrate these beautiful human beings. They were whole and complete. May their memories be a blessing. Let us say their names together, again and again.

  • Celestine Chaney of Buffalo, NY - age 65

  • Roberta A. Drury of Buffalo, NY - age 32

  • Andre Mackneil of Auburn, NY - age 53

  • Katherine Massey of Buffalo, NY - age 72

  • Margus D. Morrison of Buffalo, NY - age 52

  • Heyward Patterson of Buffalo, NY - age 67

  • Aaron Salter of Lockport, NY - age 55

  • Geraldine Talley of Buffalo, NY - age 62

  • Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo, NY - age 86

  • Pearl Young of Buffalo, NY - age 77

And let us also be in the pain of their murder and everything it comes from and seeks to build towards. Reesma Menakem defines the pain that is necessary for healing as “clean pain”: when white people confront our silence and dissociation, and people of color have space to address internalized notions of otherness. Let us be in that clean pain. May it help us mend our trauma.

Marianne Mollmann https://www.yogatheworld.org
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