“Minneapolis learned a lot from the George Floyd protests and it shows”
“You can’t walk for ten minutes in my neighborhood without seeing them: boxy SUVs, mostly domestic-made, with tinted windows and out-of-state plates. Two men riding in front, dressed in tactical gear. Following behind is a train of three or four cars, honking. Sometimes there are bikers, too, blowing on neon-colored plastic whistles that local businesses give out for free. Every street corner has patrollers on foot, yelling and filming when a convoy rolls by.”
“If the ICE vehicles pull over, people flood the street. Crowds materialize seemingly out of nowhere. The honking and whistling amps up, becoming an unignorable wail, and more people stream out of their houses and businesses. When agents leave their cars they’re met with jeers, mostly variations on “Fuck you.” Usually someone starts throwing snowballs. Agents pull out pepper spray guns, threatening protesters who get too close. If there’s enough of a crowd, they use tear gas. Meanwhile they go about their barbaric business”
“Observers are left to deal with the wreckage: tow an abandoned car, contact family, sometimes collect children. There are lawyers on call, local tow companies offering free services, mutual aid groups to support families after an abduction”
“The local ACE Hardware store posted on Facebook that they’ve stocked up on respirators and safety goggles. What I once considered hardcore riot gear is now essential for leaving the house”
“Exact numbers on detainees are unreliable, but the number of federal agents is roughly three thousand. These numbers are similar in scale to ICE operations in other cities across the US, including LA and Chicago, but what’s new in Minneapolis are the extreme tactics that federal agents are using to repress organized resistance”
“Two days after Good was murdered, DHS overtly referenced a Neo-Nazi anthem in a nationwide recruitment post. Agents seem to feel empowered to say new kinds of chilling things out loud. One told an observer: “Stop following us, that’s why that lesbian bitch is dead.” (He was referring to Good.)”
“There are some heartwarming videos of agents falling down (“ICE on ice!”) but we slip too, running towards or away from them. It can feel kind of slapstick, until you remember that they will destroy someone’s life today, and that they can kill you”
“Well before Kristi Noem announced DHS operations in Minnesota, the neighborhood got ready. It started with rapid response preparation in the park’s recreation center and legal observer trainings at a church. Then it was block-by-block meetings. Small networks that formed in 2020 were reactivated to distribute 3D-printed whistles and practice scenarios for confronting agents. When ICE deployed in December, Signal threads for local alerts quickly surpassed the thousand-user limit, and an extensive mutual aid ecosystem of grocery runs and rideshares emerged overnight. After Good’s murder and Noem’s announcement that the number of ICE agents in Minnesota would triple, everyone I know cancelled their social plans. Lots of people called off work”
“What we’re doing now is this: The trainings have evolved into street medic workshops on protecting yourself from chemical weapons and lessons on digital security; there’s a meet-up to sew reinforced umbrellas as shields from mace and a collection spot for barricade materials. And this is what it’s like: Sometimes you’re chasing ICE off your street, maybe you’re buying groceries for a family, but a lot of the time you’re on your phone. Behind every actionable piece of organizing are hours spent coordinating in Signal threads, calling to check up on someone, scrolling live feeds. At night, over dinner, it’s all anyone can talk about. Did you hear? Did you see that post? Did you read in the thread?”
“I moved to Minneapolis in 2019 because I was looking for a mid-sized city where rents were still relatively cheap. I knew it was a place where people could afford to be punks and experimental artists and career anarchists. I also knew it was a city with “good politics,” whatever that meant to me at the time”
“It’s simply true, I learned, that when you only work part-time, when your main expense is a $400-a-month room in your punk house, you have time to organize. From anarchist info shops to nonprofit worker centers, from the founding of the American Indian Movement in 1968 to the first formations of Anti-Racist Action in the 1980s, grassroots organizing undergirds the culture of the city in a unique way”
“Trump officials have made it clear that Operation Metro Surge is as much about seizing migrants from their homes as it is about repression of dissent to fascism”
“One tactic of fascism is to shift the scales of political alignment: centrists become stalwarts of the radical left; moms become “domestic terrorists.” Everyone with a whistle becomes antifa. And actually, that last part is correct—or at least it should be”