Last Friday, January 30, was a classic Hotchkiss day for me. I set my alarm for earlier than usual, intending to study for a math test and work on a history assignment due at 10 p.m. The -4 degree weather made it especially difficult to get out of bed, but I rallied. Realizing it was a Plus-One day when I encountered my floormates adjusting their ties in the bathroom, I went back to my room to change, squeezing into my middle school suit and pinning back my dad’s extra-large button-down—my typical plus-one clothes were at the dry cleaners.
I speed-walked to breakfast, hunkering down in a booth with coffee and my math review packet. Taking a scroll break, I opened Instagram to an announcement that one of the colleges I applied to was releasing decisions that afternoon, just what I needed: something else to stress about. I kept swiping, mindlessly passing over infographics about the protests in Minneapolis, distracted by the pressures in my school life that took precedent. This trance was broken, however, by a tweet from Attorney General Pam Bondi: “At my direction, early this morning, federal agents arrested Don Lemon in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
For whatever reason, Bondi’s statement struck a nerve that no other story or picture that morning had. Like so many of the scenes coming out of Minneapolis, there is no nuance to Lemon’s arrest. The journalist was taken into custody for covering a protest, an undeniable infringement of the fundamental right to a free press. And still, the situation didn’t come up once in any of the interactions I had that day.
Our apparent indifference to national news isn’t any one person’s fault; it’s the distortive effect of our community’s self-containment. As we get deeper into winter and spend long stretches at school, college decisions, history assignments, and the trouble of picking out Plus-One clothes can feel more consequential than anything happening beyond the borders of Lakeville. But when kidnappings, violations of constitutional rights, and cold-blooded murders can’t break through the Hotchkiss bubble to enter our conversations, it’s unsettling. There’s no clear solution, but one thing is certain: we need to expand the limits of our concern.
