One Year.
Some experiences in life come at you so intensely, so quickly, and change so rapidly that, in the end, you feel like an overhauled vehicle; stripped and rebuilt from scratch. It has been a year with WCCO, and the last time I felt this way was after completing graduate studies at Syracuse (during which my writing ability was torn to the studs and remodeled completely).
Professionally…
The journey with WCCO-TV has been incredible, and it’s one I look forward to continuing. The team I work with is world-class. Second to none. It’s fostered the kind of development that I’ve been seeking for years. Not always easy, but always rewarding.
The first leg—the final stretch of 2019—saw me looking for my voice again. The jovial presentation & playful demeanor I’d developed was built on a particular conviction that my job was to inform, with a strong air of fun; that sports served to insulate the viewer from the world around them, if only for a moment.
Minnesota United Football Club qualified for the Major League Soccer playoffs. So, too, did the Minnesota Twins make the Major League Baseball playoffs, as did the Minnesota Vikings... snatching joy from New Orleans (again—very sorry to the Saints faithful… it’s been rough on you). All joy in the Upper Midwest.
Then…
2020.
Hong Kong protests. Wildfires in Australia. The specter of global armed conflict. Kobe Bryant’s death—all in rapid succession—and the lives lost in that helicopter crash didn’t just take the wind out of our collective psyche’s sails… the sails were left shredded. This was January alone. As we started to cope with a world recently robbed of a cultural icon, SARS-CoV-2 brought the world to its knees.
(side note: ever tried getting up from the ground too quickly? Doesn’t go well.)
While we yet again faced a world vastly different from one most of us had known… we were brought, yet again, face-to-face with the same demon that’s lurked among us for as long as any of us can remember. None of us could escape watching a man die, the life squeezed from him by the same racist societal system that, time after time, presents itself in every possible way. No entertainment, no sport, no distraction could pry us away from George Floyd’s pleas… because SARS-CoV-2’s rampant spread saw to it that we were offered no respite.
My voice needed to evolve, and me with it.
I had to once again become comfortable with blazing a trail forward, trusting my own convictions to lead while knowing support is never far away. I needed to make sense of the world again, and to help others do the same. Knowing that my overall identity as a young black male coupled with my personal identity can carry overwhelming power when used correctly, I was more than willing to be of service beyond my chosen wheelhouse. This caused a kind of growth I could not have foreseen but, because stay-at-home orders left us all with no bedfellows but our own thoughts, feelings, demons and hopes… it was fated to happen.
Long story short: I now know the full strength of my voice, as well as its potential.
The society in which I live found itself naked. The shear force of May 25, 2020 peeled away a veneer of what it thought of itself, forcing everyone bear witness, and charging all to try some introspection.
Personally…
Taking care of myself and seeing to it that my needs are met and boundaries respected… a relatively foreign concept before 2020—meaning I’d fail to address anything out of line until it became unbearable. This extended to nearly every one of my relationships. Acquiescence for the sake of avoiding conflict, a misunderstanding of what it means to value self… amounted to self-betrayal. Making efforts to pursue what I want, while setting aside what does not fit me and my (ever changing) path became the critical lesson. Late 2019 was the catalyst, but sitting at home granted me clarity to identify this and the will to see it through. I’m much more able to put my foot down, draw boundaries, and to guiltlessly prevent them from being crossed repeatedly without direct intervention.
Every year on earth grants more confidence and more wisdom. I become more self-assured because I know what I can represent. A renewed sense of purpose brings an increased sense of what I need to fulfill it.
This fills me with pride.
I’ve had numerous conversations about the state of our world—particularly as it pertains to race. More often than not, the results have been overwhelmingly positive. We are all ripe for change because between virulent racism and a virus whose properties continue to elude us… our lives depend on it. Mortality is a powerful motivator.
Should we desire it, we can individually cut through the noise—the noise which expresses more outrage over the destruction of a physical structure than toward a society that willfully blinds and deafens itself to cries for help… the noise which assumes that because a life is devalued, other lives like it must also devalue each other… the noise that continues to place us at odds with each other by deliberately missing the point of an event, circumventing any attempt at critical thought with violently reckless glee…
but we must each desire this.
It is possible to influence each other for good. We just all need to find our personal catalysts.
Next…
I grant myself compassion. Overdrive has been my default. Might stop to smell a rose or two.
And…
I’ll try to move away from the kind of deadpan statements I tend to make. The way Minnesotans work—if your words don’t convey almost overwhelmingly positive feeling, they’ll almost immediately be perceived as displeasure or, worse still, as an insult.