Of all things, as I beg your patience, I am going to preface my remarks about Alex Pretti with a memory about my mother.
We were in Atlantic City. I think I was 10 years old. Giant casino buffet; there must have been 1,000 people there. At a small table alongside a low piece of wall, a woman sitting by herself began to cough. She was choking on her food.
She choked for a good while, at least 20 seconds. My mother and I were walking by her as it happened. Nobody acknowledged her. The woman’s face turned pink-red. She couldn’t seem to get the choking to stop.
My mom stopped alongside her. As though they weren’t strangers, she said, “Are you OK?”
It took the woman a second. She managed it. Nodded. Managed to sip down some water.
Yes. Another nod. A breath. She was OK.
There was the kindness, yes. But there was also the impact of that kindness, beyond simply offering compassion. My mother, by being present and grounding, had probably helped the woman to center herself. And even if she hadn’t, it was still noteworthy that while everybody else ignored what was happening, my mom was the one whose instincts told her to step in and try to be helpful.
I was thinking of that memory the night before Alex Pretti was murdered in the street.
I was thinking of it because of ICE. People are analyzing the nature of their presence, their headwear, their training (or lack thereof), and their techniques (or lack thereof), but what often gets less attention is their open belligerence – the impatience, rudeness, profanity, and dark swagger – wielded in service of terrifying ordinary people.
Alex Pretti was helping a woman when he got shot. Alex Pretti had stepped between her and some ICE agents. Alex Pretti was offering her a helping hand. Alex Pretti had a gun on him, but he was disarmed by an agent, then shot dead by others. Just like with Renee Good, ICE proved itself incompetent at best, psychotic at worst.
But all who speak now of Alex Pretti say he was a different kind of man. Not a psycho, a helper. Not a Nazi, a nurse. His coworkers loved him. His students loved him. His family speaks of the hole that’s left behind.
Some are arguing that Good and Pretti should have just stayed home, and thus avoided trouble. But there is a moral and intellectual danger in over-ascribing free will to people who lack power. Certainly, Good and Pretti had free will, same as the ICE agents who murdered them. And certainly, on the last days of their lives, they could have just stayed inside. But Good and Pretti’s will was subject to the will of the state, not the other way around. The state sets the parameters. The state is playing a game. The state’s killings are inevitable outcomes of the game’s design. The immigrants and citizens who get hurt and killed during the game have far less latitude and options than the people who end up killing them. To say Good and Pretti were the equals of their killers is a falsehood.
They were not equal in terms of power. They were not equal in terms of leverage. Extremely few of us are.
In fact, tasked with navigating a deadly gameboard, Alex Pretti brought only one advantage. It wasn’t strategic; it was moral. He brought kindness.
Life is deadly. Some people endeavor to make it deadlier. But the strength and tragedy of the kind is that while so many of us seek to avoid the dangers of the world, they go out of their way to make them fewer.
The effort often goes nowhere, or indeed backfires. And it’s easier, of course, to just be unkind. But what moves me about Alex Pretti is the same thing that moves me about my mom on the day of the choking woman — or about any story of those who exercise simple kindness:
Most of us think: keep your head down. Stay inside. Keep to yourself. Stay out of trouble.
But to be kind calls on the opposite set of instincts:
Alleviate the trouble. Think about the other. Be in the community. Outward, not inward.
Keep your eyes aimed at the world.
