Choose-your-own-adventure this Full Moon
and cleanse your spirit while remaining connected to this here earth.
I am writing to you from a part of the world that has been permanently changed. If you live here in the Twin Cities with me, I think you know what I mean. Going out in the world just feels different. People are different. We are relating to each other differently. Something has been confirmed about this administration and something has been confirmed about us. Not all of us here feel the same way at the same time, nor do we agree across the board about every detail, or even most details, but we agree about the value of human life and caring for the stranger and we know we can spring our bodies into action when times call for it. We will never un-know that.
We live in the space where subjugation is still happening as JD Vance announces the withholding of Medicaid funds and nobody believes ICE has truly gone, because when have they told the truth before? Other places may feel normal, but here it may never feel normal again. And it turns out that that is okay. Because resistance puts you in community with others and that’s what we have been longing for anyway. So if you are living somewhere that feels unchanged, I offer neighborism as an antidote.
I have great gratitude for the early conveners of protests. Early on I relied mainly on Indivisible, back when Elon was first disassembling our civic infrastructure through DOGE. I needed to show up and be counted in the hope that sheer numbers would encourage defections. I hoped even more people would show up the next time. And that did happen. Raising voices, as scary as it is, gives others permission to raise theirs too. As a protester I have faced below zero temperatures, frozen toes, but no pepper spray or tear gas. The majority of the work is friendly, you are shoulder to shoulder with like minded folk and it’s energizing.
To go out on the street these days is to walk through your dreams. Everyone looks familiar. The woman in the red wool coat tells me that she she shows up for these events in between traveling to Eau Claire, Wisconsin to clear out her late mother’s home. I look at her cat-eye glasses and the sly smile gives me and think we must have had our kids in same after-school art program or something. She says the work of cleaning out with her siblings is just so exhausting.
The two sister brushstrokes standing beside me in the basin of Powderhorn are both very alike and night and day different. One with dark hair and the other light peeking from beneath their knit caps. They include me in their banter, winking and grinning with clear, recognizable faces. We march in place to warm up and perhaps we all look the same in our winter coats and boots. They brought chairs and warm drinks as if on the sidelines of a sports game and harken a million different connections between us even as I know there isn’t one.
The woman all in white stands and films our poet laureate. She turns to me after the words have ended and points to her backpack, “I have snacks, if anyone needs them, send ‘em my way.” And then she says, “I don’t know you,” as if just realizing it. I can’t tell you how many times people have stopped me, “Do I know you from somewhere?” Every passing person seems to have stood in some crowd beside me somewhere before, the filaments of our connections are delicate, more felt than truly visible to the eye, because once you get up close, it’s like you know them from your dreams.
Of late the protesting has become more decentralized. The initial goal was to get as many people out at once with our unified message, now it has morphed into as many causes as there are consequences from the ICE incursion. Each person has to prioritize the cause and method which is closest to their heart, because on a given Saturday, there could be many actions happening at the same time. Some demand Minnesota corporations to speak out and protect our neighbors, others seek our local government to lengthen the eviction timeline to keep people in their homes, there are the art projects (like the butterfly above), singing actions that seek to reclaim a space from the ICE abductions that happened there, vigils and memorials to those who have been lost, and fundraisers to help pay rents after weeks of being unable to work.
Another action designation that Serwer describes in the article are of those providing mutual aid to neighbors. This includes delivering groceries, taking kids to school, washing laundry, giving rides to appointments, both immigration and medical. Seeking relief funds for people who cannot work right now. This activity has migrated to all sorts of sectors of the city, but I first started seeing it in school communities. People connected through children as parents provide mutual support and create the organizational structure. But then I started hearing about infrastructure growing through neighborhood action, grocery stores and restaurants hosting networks of support and then other organizational modes sprung up via renter unions, singing resistance, neighborhood groups, people creating networks right where impacts were unfolding.
My foray into this type of action started as a ride along with a friend providing mutual aid to her neighbors through a school group. During this time I have not been taking reserve teaching shifts as my skills have been eclipsed by need, both the student’s and my own. Now I have signed up for my own driving shift taking a kindergartener and a second grader to school. The needs will continue even as metro surge has scaled back, because the damage has social and economic domino effects that will stick around. So I feel the need to tag in so others can tag out.
The third designation of action Serwer points to in his article, are observers. ICE Watch can be intensive or casual. As I understand it, some of the early observing followed caravans out from the Whipple Building in order to alert neighborhoods as to where ICE activity was heading. For most people, ICE activity just happened across their path. A whistle heard outside your home or building and suddenly you are outside in your robe and slippers recording what was going down. The call for this work has changed, as initially the nature of the activity changed. The center of the action moved out to the exurbs and outstate.
Here in Minnesota we benefitted from wisdom gathered by the people of Chicago, LA and Portland, people came here from those hot spots of ICE activity to advise us from their experience. I’ve been to my own ICE watch training where the protocols for reporting sightings and responding included an adherence to legal observing, demonstrating constitutional rights over obstructing operations. The point is to witness in order to protect constitutional rights and encourage that behaviors are held to use of force standards, are accountable when standards aren’y met, and communication their whereabouts. Observers also try to share the identity of those abducted for the individual’s family and friends because consistently ICE is disappearing people without due process. This infrastructure and model can be leveraged and replicated all over the country as an asset to protect fair and free elections and to build civic resistance to whatever happens if an election is not honored.
There is so much going on right now, you can play choose your own adventure. See the list of updates below. And thank you to add your own thoughts in the comments!
Update on Department of Homeland Security’s funding shutdown- We are entering the 3rd week since the deadline passed (as written about in my previous post). The White House has not been responsive to demands for limits on federal immigration agents and Noem is refusing to make any concessions to how ICE operates in our communities. Democratic leaders report that Republicans are ignoring the guardrails the public demanded, while the GOP try to leverage increased risks of domestic terrorism from US assaults on Iran. Meanwhile judge after judge across the US are frustrated by a lack of ICE complying with court orders. Complaints starting from here in Minnesota, but then spreading across the US to other states. Are they purposefully ignoring orders or is it an issue of “overload plus incompetence plus and attitude of disrespect?” The earliest any action can happen is on Wednesday when a vote is scheduled. DHS employees have been receiving paychecks at half their pay, their first fully missed paycheck will be March 12. Unaffected by the shutdown are ICE and Border Patrol agents because of billions of dollars appropriated in last year’s spending bill, the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” (see more below).
Eviction Crisis- We have reached a point in the road where the crisis has changed. The vulnerable now have spent two months in hiding and are vulnerable to being evicted. Immigrant communities are facing the worse economic situation since covid. People are working to raise money to help those affected and showing up at the city council to get the eviction timeline extended. We didn’t go out on the streets to just see them evicted now. How can we keep supporting our neighbors?
HCMC Crisis- As mentioned above JD Vance announces the withholding of Medicaid funds and that plus the cuts in the BBB, specifically medicaid and in addition Minnesots Republicans repealed a Minnesota Care eligibility for immigrants that all led to higher uncompensated emergency room costs for hospitals, especially HCMC, because it is a safety-net hospital which by mission and legal obligation treats low income, uninsured and vulnerable populations. The loss of HCMC would be huge, for those populations and because it is our premier trauma hospital. It provides specialized and comprehensive care as the best trauma hospital in the state. The kids from Annunciation were sent there and survived as a result of the care they received. It holds much of our state-of-the-art equipment. Our doctors are trained there. The closing of HCMC cannot happen, that would be a travesty for our state. What can we do to save it?
Save the BWCA- during the height of the ICE occupation of Minneapolis, Representative Stauber brought forth a novel use of the Congressional Review Act which to undo 20 year mining ban. It hasn’t been used in this way before but the House passed a bill that would allow TwinMetals, a Chilean mining company, to mine for copper in the BWCA watershed. There is a high occurrence of pollution from copper mines. This bill is not the last stop gap to the company but it would open the way for the rule to be used against other public lands where greedy companies, whether foreign or national, and allows a reckless president for other public lands to be opened up in this way. It has yet to come up on the senate floor, but it is thought that it could come up at any moment. Call your Senators and tell them to vote no on HJ Res 140 or delay, delay so that the 60 day window runs out for it to come out on the floor.
Taking action at County Boards all over the country- It is local governments across the country that will most clearly see the consequence’s of the billionaire tax cuts in the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB). Where our local government agencies will come up against the fiscal shortfalls of the cuts and will have to cut services or figure out how to raise funds. See above with HCMC. See also the costs associated with the mess that ICE leaves in its wake. We need our boards to speak up about the consequences of extending those billionaire tax cuts and consider where we go from here. We should work to repeal or significantly amend HR1 or the BBB.
To other delegates out there. I have become a delegate to build support for A People’s Agenda. That means it is time for me to engage candidates around the agenda. Asking questions like How do you plan to extend public healthcare options? How do you plan to make childcare affordable? How will you prevent private equity from driving neighbors out of their homes? How will you protect Minnesotan’s from infringement of due process? How do you plan to support public schools given their underfunding? Engaging candidates now around these issues will influence legislation for years to come. When ISAIAH engaged this process in 2017 it led to the organized trifecta of 2023 when almost all of the items that were passed were straight from the people’s agenda.
Embody the energy of the good neighbor- Meet up with your neighbors. Share food. Create networks. Eat together. Take one of Singing Resistance’s trainings to become a pod leader and sing together. Serve food.