Perilous Times

We are in perilous times.

I found two definitions of the word, peril: (1) “the possibility that you will be hurt or killed or that something unpleasant or bad will happen”; (2) “something that is likely to cause injury, pain, harm, or loss.” Peril connotes danger, risk, hazard, and jeopardy. It derives from the Latin word, perīculum, which means “test and trial.” If we think about the Latin meaning and start there, the emphasis changes.

To inhabit perilous times means being put to the test.

I am not an etymologist, but I am interested in the word and how the old meaning can offer some insights to recast how we might show up in this world.

When the ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good at 34th and Portland in South Minneapolis, several blocks away from the site of George Floyd’s murder, I immediately felt my nerves turning raw. And now in the wake of the massive 1.23 Minneapolis General Strike, we found ourselves, Minnesotans, pulled back into the darkness, having to bear witness to the killing of Alex Pretti.

What precipitated in Minneapolis and statewide—the surge—is state terror. Legal scholars and human rights advocates are describing this historic moment for what it is: an act of state against the people, starting with the most vulnerable, immigrants of color, and those defending the life and human rights of immigrants and doing so as rights-bearing subjects of this Republic to uphold the US Constitution and defend democracy. ICE/CBP is like shrapnel:

Operation (proliferation of) Lawlessness
Operation (intensification of) Militarization
Operation (normalization of) Rightlessness                                                                                                                   Operation (multiplication of) Abuses and Harms - Bodily and Psychic

W. E. B. Du Bois, in old age, facing the anti-communist wrath in the late 1940s, not dissimilar from what we are up against today, assaults on all things the federal government deems threat to the national security state, defined state terror, especially war, “a planned murder.” 

What is the antidote to this act of state—its paralyzing violence?

I asked my college-age son, a student of Latin, about the word perīculum. He knew the meaning. He also understood, when I explained to him why I am doing what I am doing: looking up the word and digging deep into the meaning of the word—in search of something to help achieve clarity. I reminded him that this word shows up in Harry Potter, the book series he read and reread growing up. It refers to “the incantation of a charm” that would allow a caster of this magic “to shoot red sparks” from the wand. It essentially serves as a warning.

We are put to the test, and we have reached the point beyond issuing fair warning. What is a human response to this chaos? Toni Morrison, in the short entry “Peril,” written in 2008, spoke of stillness. She said that this notion “can be passivity and dumbfoundness,” or for that matter “paralytic fear.” But stillness, she wrote, “can also be art.” Be still, she urged, and pay close attention to the message from the cutting edge, its meaning and significance. Morrison was referring to the necessity of saving “the besieged writers” and “ourselves," too, who are engaging in creative practice and “plying [the] craft near to or far from the throne of raw power, of military power, of empire building and countinghouses.” She elaborated:

"Certain kinds of trauma visited on people are so deep, so cruel, that unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, or rights, or the goodwill of others, only writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination."

Morrison’s words are like shooting red sparks in the dark sky above us. She uttered, “perīculum”! Now we do all we can to respond, as creative people always do, to mark our way out of this world—toward the triptych of knowledge/art/life—to set afoot a moral imperative, our own cultural operations against state terror. The arts and humanities can become the antidote to paralyzing state violence.

As I step into the role as new Faculty Director of the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub, I want to thank Amanda Steepleton for holding this space as Interim Director for six months. I very much look forward to working with Amanda, Anna Freyberg Oertel, Amelious Whyte, the Advisory Committee members, and everyone participating in The Hub Residency Program and other collaborative initiatives.

Always peace in the struggle,
Yuich

The ideas expressed here are not of the University of Minnesota, but belong to the author. Jayne Cortez’s “Cultural Operations 1992” was my source of inspiration.