What Are You Willing to Accept?
On the Violence We Normalize and the Complicity We Choose
“Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable. Speak out in order to judge with righteousness and to defend the needy and the poor.” ( Proverbs 31:8-9, CEB)
We’re living through a moment that demands we name what’s happening without flinching. Federal immigration agents are killing U.S. citizens. Two people are dead in Minneapolis over the past three weeks. In both cases, the official story was released before the facts—narratives meant to justify, explain away, and make us accept what should be unacceptable. This is a test. Not of our knowledge. Not of our certainty. But of whether we’ll remain morally alert when it would be easier to look away.
When the Ground Shifts Beneath Us
In recent weeks, Minneapolis has become a focal point. On January 7, Renee Good—a 37-year-old mother, poet, and writer—was shot and killed by an ICE agent. She had stopped her car in the street, blowing a whistle to alert neighbors that ICE was operating nearby. An agent shot her three times, killing her as her vehicle was moving. Officials immediately claimed she tried to run over the agent, but video evidence presents a more complex story.
On January 24, Alex Pretti—also 37, an ICU nurse—was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents. He had been filming the operation and helping a woman who had been pushed to the ground by an agent. Video shows officers tackling him, and while he had a legal firearm with a permit, witnesses say he never brandished it. Officers took his gun from him and then shot him in the back while he was face down on the ground—at least ten shots in five seconds.
Both were U.S. citizens. Both were killed within three weeks of each other in the same city. Following their deaths, official narratives quickly painted them as threats: Good was called “very violent” and “very radical” by the President; Pretti was labeled “domestic terrorism” by the DHS Secretary, and a “would-be assassin” by White House officials.
In both cases, videos and witness accounts tell stories that challenge the official narrative. This pattern demands our attention: not just individual deaths, but a system that kills and then spins the narrative before the facts are clear. That portrays U.S. citizens monitoring immigration enforcement as terrorists. That makes grief seem unjustified and turns questions into attacks.
Each death tells its own heartbreaking story. Good’s mother called her “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.” Pretti’s family described the official descriptions as “sickening lies.” Both leave behind children, partners, and communities in grief. But the persistent pattern—shootings, quick justifications that contradict video evidence, denial of accountability, and blocking state investigations—demands something from the rest of us.
It asks: What are we willing to see? What are we willing to name? What are we prepared to resist? Because there’s always the choice to look away. There’s always a reason why complexity should keep us silent. There’s always an excuse that our uncertainty means we shouldn’t speak. But disengagement isn’t neutral. Silence isn’t safety. Accepting official narratives that videos contradict means ignoring what our eyes can see, and it affects our souls just as surely as resistance does.
Moments like this test whether our values are solely built for comfort or if they are deep enough to confront unchosen pain.
In times like these, we have choices. We can remind ourselves that this moment will pass. We can look away, feeling overwhelmed or uncertain. We can fall into silence. Or we can refuse to accept “this is just how it is” as an answer.
The Pattern We’ve Seen Before
History makes it clear what happens when fear intensifies and those in power act without facing consequences: most people stay silent. They tell themselves it’s complicated and trust official explanations. They wait for clarity that never comes and hope the moment will pass. That pattern isn’t new.
In Germany during the 1930s, most people chose silence — including many Christians who believed they were staying faithful by remaining silent — focusing on personal piety while state violence escalated around them. They told themselves familiar things:
“I don’t know enough to speak.”
“It’s more complicated than it seems.”
“Surely the authorities wouldn’t lie about what’s necessary.”
“I just want to focus on my own life.”
By the time the truth became undeniable, it was already too late. Silence had already influenced their souls. Patterns had already been established. Complicity had already become normal.
I’m not saying Minneapolis 2026 is Berlin in the 1930s. But I am saying this: whenever fear is used as a weapon to justify violence, whenever official narratives move quickly to suggest that deaths are unavoidable, whenever questions are seen as threats and grief is labeled as unreasonable — we face the same choice those German Christians faced.
Will we look closely? Or will we turn away?
Most of those Germans didn’t see themselves as complicit. They believed they were being prudent, careful, and reasonable. But they were wrong.
And then there were others—like Dietrich Bonhoeffer—who recognized that when human dignity is attacked, neutrality isn’t an option. That silence in the face of injustice is a decision. That watching from the sidelines while power destroys is a form of participation.
Bonhoeffer didn’t have perfect information. He had to act amid uncertainty, just like we do. But he understood something important: complexity is real, but it can’t serve as an excuse for moral paralysis.
The question is not whether the situation is complicated. It is.
The question is not whether we know the entire story. We don’t.
The question is whether “it’s complicated” becomes permission to accept any explanation power provides. Whether our discomfort with conflict leads us to avoid the conflicts that others cannot escape. Whether our desire for certainty keeps us passive as the pattern continues.
What Resistance Requires
Resistance isn’t about grand gestures or perfect responses. It starts with refusing to accept what’s happening as normal. It means choosing not to let another death just become another headline. It insists that the questions raised by grieving communities deserve more than dismissal. It recognizes that when power acts with impunity, silence from the rest of us is complicity.
Resistance in a moment like this isn’t just an idea. It’s real.
It means showing up — not with ready answers, but with a willingness to see what power wants us to overlook.
It means sitting with people whose lives are directly impacted by what’s happening — not to explain or comfort, but to listen and learn.
It means facing what we’ve been avoiding, paying attention to voices that make us uncomfortable, and sitting with stories that expose the difference between official narratives and lived experience.
It means recognizing who is missing from our conversations — who has been silenced, pushed to the margins, or carrying grief and rage that our comfort has caused us to overlook.
And it means taking action.
For some of us, that might mean using our voices — speaking up in spaces where silence has become the norm, and naming what we see even when it feels uncomfortable.
For some of us, it might mean using our resources — supporting organizations that focus on accountability and advocacy, and making our care tangible.
For some, it might involve leveraging our proximity to power — questioning leaders directly and not letting complexity serve as an excuse for inaction.
For some of us, this might mean transforming our communities into places of solidarity — ensuring that our spaces (whether it’s a faith community, neighborhood group, or other gathering) are recognized as welcoming and safe for those who feel threatened, where individuals can find refuge, care, and the tangible support of a community that upholds their dignity.
For some of us, it might mean showing up in person — at vigils, protests, and spaces where communities mourn and demand justice.
This doesn’t mean sacrificing discernment. It means refusing to let comfort decide what we’re willing to learn or risk. This is the moment. Not someday when we’re more certain. Not later when we have more information. Now.
The Choice
This isn’t an invitation to do more or prove more. It’s a demand to refuse normalization. To keep showing up—for hard conversations, for sustained action, for resistance. To stay connected when withdrawal would be easier. To insist that the work of justice remains worth doing, even when progress seems impossible. Because the pattern will reassert itself. Power will test whether we’ve learned to look away. And when that happens, what will matter isn’t how eloquently we speak about justice—it’s whether we’re still here, still refusing to accept “this is just how it is” as an answer. The wind is blowing. What will you do?
May we be people whose resistance is visible, whose solidarity is costly, and whose refusal to normalize violence grows stronger together.