Donate (to them, not me)

There’s so much need, in your state, in your town or city, in your neighborhood. While folks are trying to help connect donors with causes, even just in Minnesota, in the response to the ICE occupation, there’s hundreds of options:

Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory

Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

Because sometimes all that choice can be paralyzing I picked one that hadn’t reached it’s goal in the Mutual Aid category and started a monthly donation. If you’re able to contribute, and can’t deal with so many choices, you can give here, or give somewhere local to you.

Donate

This is my third one of these weekly reading round ups, and they’ve been largely focused on Minneapolis at least on their surface. But my criteria has been sharing local voices and independent journalism talking about how people are experiencing the boomerang of American policy for decades coming home.

Right now that’s focused in Minneapolis, before that it was college students being snatched off the streets, protestors being kettled by police and assaulted by counter protestors expressing their support of genocide. We’ve gone from unaccountable masked goons disappearing people from the streets, to those same masked thugs extrajudicially executing us. That escalation is precisely because they are losing.

Meanwhile, our shared humanity is on display when we show up, write, donate, share, or scream in opposition. A building up, not a tearing down. And while it’s always easier to destroy than build, the power is in building, destroying is an act of weakness.

Reading

There is no such thing as other people’s children by Erik Hane

But I believe that the response from Minneapolis offers a glimpse at why, in the end, we are going to defeat fascism in the United States. Minneapolis is no stranger to responding to violence from the state, and we do not wait for sclerotic elected officials to lead that response. The activist tradition is quite strong here, especially since the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. I remember so much about that summer, but what has stayed with me is a simple refrain: “There’s no such thing as other people’s children.”   

…

They can sense this. We can see them re-running calculations in their heads, every time we turn them away by being willing to stand there, get in the way, observe and document their evil. This enrages them. As we saw this morning, they are now killing us for it.

That, of course, is terrifying. But if we mean what we say about solidarity, what choice is there? If every abducted child is our own, if every person they want to make disappear is someone Minneapolis cannot and will not live without, the decisions on how we must respond have already been made. And as reports appear that ICE is planning to do this elsewhere, I believe these other places will be making the same decisions, because they have to. We all have to.

There is no such thing as other people’s children

It is intolerable

Remember too the James Baldwin quote that I love and reference whenever I can

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. Or, I am saying, in other words, that we, the elders, are the only models children have. What we see in the children is what they have seen in us–or, more accurately perhaps, what the see in us.”

James Baldwin
Notes on the House of Bondage

The Last Dance of an Empire by César Omar Sánchez

Today, we bear witness to the decline of another empire: the United States of America—the belly of the beast. As it weakens, it reacts violently and ruthlessly toward its own people. Diabolical as it may sound, the beast is no longer distant. It stands exposed before us, lashing out as it falls.

And so we say it clearly now—this is the last dance.
Not another cycle. Not another illusion. Not another promise of reform that preserves the same machinery of exploitation.

The Last Dance of an Empire: Why This Time the Music Must Stop - Los Artes de Omar, Cesar Omar Sanchez

A poetic and uncompromising reflection on the decline of the American Empire, drawing parallels to fallen empires of the past and declaring this moment as the last dance toward systemic rupture and transformation.

The Badge Is a Burden Not a Privilege by Justin Briley

Democracy, ultimately, depends on our faith in each other. It requires us to trust that we can, despite all odds, build a good republic. And we need police who believe the same thing. The badge can’t be a shield to hide behind when accountability comes knocking. It can’t be a wall of silence and inaction protecting the mighty from the people’s justice. It’s a shining burden you carry into dark places where those who wish to do harm to others hide. You pin it to your chest with the understanding that it comes with the obligation to uphold a higher standard, not permission to excuse a lower one.

No civilian should be excused for executing innocent people under a fig leaf of fear. Nor should a soldier, for that matter. Neither should a cop. And when the violence comes, police must do their duty without fear or favor.

The Badge Is a Burden Not a Privilege

The power of state violence comes with the obligation to uphold a higher standard, not permission to excuse a lower one.

Alex Pretti’s Killer May Be Part of His Union by Sarah Lazare

In addition to “holding [Border Patrol] accountable” for what Dadabo called “a human rights crisis,” AFGE organizers like Potter and Dadabo would now like to see a separation from the Border Patrol union. “I don’t want to sink AFGE,” said Dadabo, who has remained an active union member and steward even after her union’s collective bargaining agreements were dissolved by the Trump administration. “This is not about that. The purpose of a federal union is to protect the public good. If we’re not doing that, then we’re failing.”

Cold City, Hot Heart by Hamilton Nolan

This is a city full of activists and strong labor unions and, generally speaking, one of the most organized cities you will find anywhere in America. That characteristic, combined with the utter grotesqueness of the racist ICE assault on the city, has inspired the people of Minneapolis to plan a day of action which just may go down in history. There are many good reporters in this city who have documented the causes and the planning and the goals of the movement that has come together to build something that may, may, may be unprecedented. You should read their work. I am only here to bear witness. If the general strike goes down, it would be a shame to miss it.

Save some time by not reading

Skip the NY Times both sidesing the Nazi guy’s Nazi coat, a piece they really wanted you to know about them writing so they shared it directly to your inbox.