Taking a Step Back is OK

I won’t lie; this post is not coming naturally. Those who know me well know that it takes a lot for me to not have something to say, or to struggle to find words. I write all the time, but today it’s hard to know what to say. I’ve been doing much more listening than speaking this week. News has been devastating – police brutality, violence, and grieving communities – all against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic, and we have so few ways to be together in all of this. To mourn together, to fight together, to heal together.

I wanted to talk to you this week about some of our current struggles around commercial rent – an area we could stand to regulate much better – but I’ve decided that it can wait. In the face of a conversation around paid sick leave, I fear that workers will, once again, be asked to postpone this type of progress for the sake of the business community. Next week, I will delve into this more.

In light of heinous and tragic deaths of members of the Black community both in Canada and in the USA, I want to share an article published in Bon Appetit this week, featuring Louis Hunter, a restaurant owner in Minneapolis, who temporarily closed his business down in solidarity with protesters. His actions reminded me that there are more important things than fighting for my business. I can let my own struggles slip into a place of less relevance for a while. Revenues are replaceable. Heck, even physical businesses are replaceable – they can be re-built. But people & lives are not. We can (and should) pause when our conscience tells us we need to, so that’s what I’m doing. There are no new menu items this week. There is no big push to do more. We will coast on what we know, so we can take a breath.

Here is an excerpt from the article featuring Louis Hunter's words:

“Since the pandemic, I have been doing takeout and delivery. But last night I closed down because I wanted to be in solidarity with my community. I didn’t want to keep my restaurant running knowing that a man had just died. I just had to stand back for a minute.

[George] Floyd worked in the restaurant industry. As Black people working in the restaurant industry, our food is soul. You have so much love for people. For Floyd to be working in the restaurant industry, he had to be a people-server. He was a good person.”

I encourage you to read the rest of it. You can find it here.

I look forward to turning the conversation inward a bit more next week, but for now, I think it’s OK to step back and listen to someone else’s words. I will, as I’m sure so many of you are, think about what role I can play in this movement. In the meantime, I simply hope there is no return to “normal”. I yearn for everything but normal. Normal simply is unacceptable for too many people. I hope we can seize what opportunities are precipitating during this crisis, and create a more just world.

With love,

Jess