Three Earths Framework
Say it's here where the pieces fall into place
In the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro Area, this winter had a very different flavor. For those of us who could, we got outside, we got together, we were busy, witnessing and resisting the hell being wrought on all of us, but especially on our neighbors of color. A paramilitary police force roamed our streets terrorizing those with black and brown bodies and harassing, arresting, and, in two cases, killing white bodies that got in their way. Any usual January would have us entering the hibernation cave to digest the experience of the past year. But this year, when the surge began on January 6, we put aside our New Year’s resolutions and figured out how we were going to step up and meet the moment. Therefore our wintertime introspection was upended by the urgency to respond to the moment at hand.
During those days of brittle action, a refrain from history chimed through my head—It was the long cold winters of do-nothing, that led to the long hot summers of violence.
Between the years of 1964 and 1969, brought a series of summer riots across American cities. They came to be called “the long hot summers.” The unrest began in Harlem and Watts and spread to other cities in subsequent summers, fueled by slow progress of civil rights, high unemployment, lack of housing, and mistreatment by law enforcement. In Minneapolis, our unrest came during the summers of 1966 and 1967 and was experienced on Plymouth Avenue on the Northside. During that time, American soldiers came and occupied the streets for a week or two to keep the rebellion down. The same as was happening all across black communities of the US. It was Harry ‘Spike’ Moss, a leader of The Way (later called The New Way), a community organization founded in Minneapolis in 1966, who voiced the phrase on a news show at the time. I encountered the quote in this 20 minute clip from a PBS Program called Cornerstone that tells the history of Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis.
The phrase captured something that couldn’t be put out of my head.
It was the winters of do nothing that led to the long hot summers of violence.
It became a mantra of sorts and it motivated me as I pulled on my layers. It echoed in my ears when I would have preferred to stay in. And I couldn’t help but think, that making these efforts of getting out, against what the temp and the season and our instincts called for, was the antidote. The action that would set the course for a new world.
One important step in manifesting the world we want is looking closely at what we have been manifesting already. And I would argue that these past 20 years or more have brought intense focus on the institutional practices and structural barriers that have perpetuated the inequity and injustice in our society, and it has only worsened. I included an illustration this cycle of disinvestment and distrust in my last post for the Full Moon. The only way to loosen the grip on these patterns that keep recurring is by understanding through seeing the stories for what they are and recognizing that they are self-fulfilling.
It was the killing of Jamar Clark in 2015 so close to where I lived that finally woke me up to the fact that the trajectory wouldn’t undo itself. It would require more than just good will, it would require facing injustices and taking action even when it was uncomfortable.
Jamar Clark had been yet another young black man killed by a police officer. Only this time it happened just 3 miles from where I was lived. He was killed on Plymouth Avenue just 3 blocks from the 4th Precinct police station. Protests sprung up immediately and lasted for 18 days. I never joined the protests, but I had friends who did. I decided it was time for me to really learn about why these patterns kept repeating.
Despite living so close to the Northside, I had no relationship to it. I wasn’t exactly afraid of it, it was just someplace you didn’t go. I had lived nearly 28 years in this city and it was the only part that was a no-man’s-land. It felt like a Wilderness I was not supposed to enter, so that is where I started.
I learned about the riots on Plymouth Avenue from the Cornerstone Documentary, the unrest of the 60s gave the Northside its reputation. From early on, the Northside had been where the newcomers would live. It had a history of being welcoming to immigrants of all walks of life. It was home to the Minneapolis Jewish population first before Black Minnesotans arrived and for years those communities lived side by side there. The Way was a black organization that moved into a storefront on a bustling Plymouth Avenue in 1966 and brought cutting edge social organizing and the Minneapolis Sound. About 40 years later, its address was occupied by protesters after Jamar Clark was killed. In the 1980s, the Minneapolis Police 4th precinct physically replaced The Way in its location on Plymouth Avenue, and is the concrete reality of a self-fulfilling prophesy.
This year was cold winter months of Do As Much As You Can Do. The bears did not get to slumber and we have already come to the opening of spring flowers and the end of hibernation. This winter is the result of having viewed the patterns, and having decided to do something different.
Here we are in Earth 2.
The dreaming of the future will happen without the hibernation. We didn’t get our hibernation, but neither did we get a winter of do nothing.
Updates Section:
Epstein Files. On May 11, Survivors testified at a “shadow hearing,” an unofficial congressional hearing that House Oversight Democrats held less than three miles away from where many of Epstein’s crimes took place. They called for changes to the Crime Victim Rights Act, speaking of the plea deal that allowed for non-prosecution and was kept from victims. Dems released a report on the same day entitled “The Price of Non-prosecution” which is an analysis of the plea deal brokered by Alex Acosta. It allowed Epstein to continue abusing minors for another 15 years.
10-year ICE and CBP Funding Package - (this section was formally called “DHS funding shutdown”) Republicans in the House have adopted a reconciliation package to bypass the Senate filibuster called S. Con. Res. 33, which would be the guiding document for the funding of the Pentagon. It would set up a $70 - 72 billion spending package for ICE and CBC to last the next 10 years and get past future objections to funding. They are utilizing the reconciliation process that allows the bill to pass the Senate with a simple majority—51 votes. The reconciliation process depends on political support and the strategy could backfire if some are unwilling to support the kind of spending that the Department of War is demanding. Senate is targeting final passage in early June.
Save HCMC - “Gov. Walz and Minnesotan Lawmakers reached a bipartisan budget agreement late Wednesday…” from MPR
Save the BWCA - Here’s what you can do to help according to Friends of the Boundary Waters. And it really does make a difference to send those letters and make those calls.
Election November 2026 - We have an important job to be able to talk about fraud in this state. Of course, fraud makes us feel angry and helpless, but the trump administration is using fraud as a spectacle of cruelty and political strategy. They are using it not because they actually care about prosecuting it, but to erode trust in our government and social programs and as an excuse to gut them. As a place to start, the Minnesota Legislature just created an Office of Inspector General and passed a bill which was actually introduced a year ago by Sen. Heather Gustafson, and just now was signed into law. Republicans finally decided to move on it. Here is this Reformer Commentary how privatization has played a key role in fraud.
Moontime Updates- The Full Moon rolls around on May 31st. Until then, I will be traipsing around the Lake District of the UK with one of my kiddos and Josh and then I will be headed to the DFL State Convention in Rochester as a Faith in Minnesota Alternate where we will be endorsing candidates for November’s Election. I plan to post a travelogue which will be completely different than these posts. In the meantime, have a great Memorial Day.
for your musical solace and consolation:
“Call it Dreaming” by Iron & Wine — YouTube or Spotify
“Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul Simon — YouTube or Spotify