I'm Not Afraid to Die. Or So I Thought.

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I often say I’m not afraid to die.

Yes, I do love living. But after years of deep inner work, I’ve made peace with dying – when the time comes.

As I say that out loud however, there’s a hollow ring of hypocrisy. It’s become more evident as I’ve sat with the deaths of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Their deaths sparked national outrage. And a reckoning: how far will a government go when it decides the rules no longer apply to it? (Renée and Alex are two among at least 40 (that is, the ones we know about), killed under this administration’s immigration enforcement. Some shot in the open, others dying quietly in detention, from neglect, abuse, or worse.)

Renée and Alex did not walk in knowing they might not walk out. And yet the question their deaths leave behind is one none of us can dodge:

What are we willing to risk, really risk, in the pursuit of justice?

When a government turns its weapons on its own people, the ones who step forward anyway – who put their bodies between power and the powerless, are saying something the rest of us need to hear: freedom is worth any sacrifice.

Any sacrifice.

That’s where I cringe when I ask myself would I be able to throw myself into a bottomless inferno in the pursuit of freedom and democracy for my fellow human beings?

Where would I draw the line?

Where would you draw the line?

This past weekend, an estimated 8 million people took to the streets across the country in ‘No Kings’ protests - a powerful, moving display of collective refusal.

Showing up matters. Being seen matters. But then what?

One popular commentator, seeing the enthusiasm, especially among white people, for the event, put it plainly and controversially:

“You don’t have to fundamentally disrupt your life when you can show up for three hours on a Saturday, chant, and go get brunch.”

Ouch, it landed hard. Because it’s true.

But that’s not a criticism, it’s a mirror. I hold it up to myself too. Showing up matters. It always has. But preventing the death of democracy will demand more than a Saturday event. The question isn’t whether you marched. It’s whether you would participate in other ways, knowing you might not come home.

If the Trump regime continues down its current road, the stakes for protecting democracy could become as brutal as anything we’ve historically pointed to with horror, whether here or in other countries.

Harriet Tubman risked her life every time she went back. Rosa Parks refused to move. John Lewis had his skull fractured on a bridge in Selma. Gandhi was beaten and jailed. Mandela spent 27 years in prison. Many unsung heroes have died.

And let's be honest about who has always paid the price. People of color. White people (including myself) have been able to watch from a safe distance - or look away entirely.

That distance appears to be closing.

They are coming for anybody now. No exceptions for your zip code, your skin, your passport, your nurse's scrubs. Alex Pretti was white. Renée Good was Black. Both are dead.

They used to leave white people alone. They don’t anymore.

And because of that, there may come a time when white activists willing to walk into that fire, to stand as role models for liberation, will be called upon. That time may already be here.

Democracy doesn’t survive on a Saturday high profile event alone. What it asks of each of us personally - that's the part no one wants to say out loud.

With Love,

Becca

P.S. If what you just read stirred something in you - the anxiety, the anger, the frazzled nerves of living through this moment in history, I want you to know there’s a place to bring all of that.

My next monthly Elevation Ceremony is coming up. It’s a space to decompress, recalibrate, and find your footing again. Not to bypass what’s happening - but to meet it from a steadier place inside yourself. Learn more and reserve your spot.