Reflections

 
Image: a gorgeous lino cut of a much larger than is accurate loon attempting to drown a bald eagle in what I must assume is a Minnesota lake. She is pushing the eagle down with one webbed foot. The art is entitled "el pueblo unido" (the people united) by Jamas Sera Vencido. It is dated Feb 12, 2026.  EDITED TO ADD: my friend jiawen pointed out that "jamas sera vencide" is actually the rest of the phrase "will never be defeated." I feel dumb. I have literally shouted this in the street, so I should have known. The artist did sign this at least, though I can not read their signature. But, if you repost this, just be sure to include the signature.

I've been knocked out of the revolution by a head cold.

I tested, it is not COVID, but even so I don't want to infect the good people at the Food Communists so I have stayed home from the resistance. In fact, I have been face down since Friday.  So much phlem; so disgusting. I can not wait to get over this. Sadly, too, this cold is the WORST Valentine's Day gift I have given my wife in our 40+ years together. Do. Not. Like.

Instead, I spent part of today catching up on some correspondence. 

I am still struggling how to explain everything that's going to my Japanese pen pal because things here are sort of mundanely exceptional. Her last letter ended with the line, "I heard an ICE agent shot and killed a woman, I heard she was one of the members of the movement to get ICE out of town." 

True, but we all are, Eiko. We all are. Like, in a way that is almost unimaginable.

I can't even answer the question "what did you do today, Lyda?" normally any more. What did I do? I spent a couple of minutes sewing some hearts onto my high-vis vest. I got the idea from the other mom/protector at my school bus stop patrol. The buses we are guarding are full of largely elementary age kids and, you know, their lives are scary enough right now. Also, the corner that I've been assigned is next to a business where workers regularly wear reflective vests, so it makes us stand apart. I had already sketched "Legal Observer" onto the back of mine, but I decided the hearts are actually a lovely addition. Makes it clearer why we are there. 

I answered a Discord video call from the mutual aid folks who are doing laundry for people too afraid to use public laundry spaces or go to the laundromat. I signed up to be a driver and they have been going through the painstaking task of following up on the OVER SIX HUNDRED volunteers and vetting them all to make sure that they are real humans and are actually sincere in their desire to help. This is doublely important right now because ICE is weaponizing our kindness against us. After all, a bunch of plain-clothed shithead ICE agents pretended to have car trouble in order to lure a literal Good Samaritan out of their house in order to abducted them. These fucking fuckers. Also, their "worst of the worst" narrative kind of collapses when you are luring out helpers. Like, yeah, I'm sure there are some hardened criminals who would help you jump your car, but it's not a good look. It's right up there with kidnapping children to use for bait.

Then, fueled by my rage after having read about that, I spent some time trying to decide if I was well enough to go to the AFL/CIO MN protest at Stewart Park today. I decided not and then lay around coughing and miserable, regretting my choice in Signal code-name. Like this was my chance, y'all! Did I pick some deep Marvel cut? Or an obscure anime reference like the otaku I am? No. No, my code-name is really kind of dorky, even if I did choose it for a reason that makes sense for the people who met me in Real Life (tm). Ah well. We can't all be Mouse or Spider-Man. 

And this all sounds so crazy without context. 

It's going to be a weird letter, y'all.

 The news continues to be not great... and hopeful, all at once. 

ICE is supposedly shipping some 700 of its roughnecks off to other parts of the country, but if anything they seem to be sending the slackers away? The ones who are making their quotas seem to still be on the ground and out in force.

The mutual aid folks I work for, the Food Communists, had one of their deliverers get boxed in by ICE vehicles on Wednesday, demanding to know where they thought they were going with all those groceries and where did all that come from anyway? The driver apparently made oblique noises about having come from a food distribution warehouse and the ICE agents said, "You mean that church over there?" clearly indicating the church basement that my folks operate out of. And, then, apparently, getting their lines directly out of the villain's playbook, the ICE guys added, "Shame if anything were to happen to that church." Then they threatened to dump all the groceries the next time they spotted this guy. The Food Communists are keeping (and I am not inflating this number) 13,000 households fed. If that network went dark, people would suffer.

That threat happened on Wedensday afternoon. When Mason and I wandered in for our usual shift on Thursday we were told to go away until later in the day in order to keep the numbers of volunteers low so that everyone could be protected. The organizer there was really shaken by the threat and was wearing a bulletproof vest. By Friday (today), I saw some activity at the church as I was driving home from the mosque. Y'all you'll never guess what I saw!  The Food Communists were being visibly protected by VETERANS FOR PEACE. This is a bedfellow in the revolution I would not have predicted, but here we are. 

As I've started saying, "Worst timeline; best people." 

Meanwhile, at the mosque today we all heard from another organizer that apparently the Goyim Defense League, actual Neo-Nazis, have rolled into Midway and, last night, apparently, stabbed one of the peaceful protestors at the Bridge Brigrade (which is what we call the loose collection of people who pick a random highway overpass bridge to hold up signs on) two blocks of my house, at Aldine. The protestor is okay? But, STABBED. JFC. The irony, of course, is that even though a lot of the sentiment is "F*ck ICE," around here I would say that a good 75%-85% of the signs say things like "We love our immigrant neighbors" and "ICE Out, Love in." Not sure why the antisemites have a particular beef with the anti-ICE people, but maybe they think we're all being funded by someone from one of their conspiracy theories. Who knows. F*ck those f*ckers. Also NOT WELCOME here.

Speaking of my mosque duty, I have finally personally been handed a heart-shaped donut by someone who was driving around doing nice things for the protectors. The mutual love here is really something special, y'all. It is life giving. In part because it's so random and so loving. This person was wearing a hijab and so perhaps she was especially doing nice things for folks in front of mosques or other Somali-immigrant places, but I wouldn't swear to it. She seemed like she had a car full of donuts and was just handing them out to people she saw protecting, which is so 100% Minnesota's response to this crisis. She was so pleased to be helping us help others. Like, so many smiles. So many thank you, no THANK YOUs getting bandied about. It was delightful. And given that I spotted my second ever "definitely ICE with those bandanas over their faces" vehicle, a really, really welcome bit of joy among all the fear and tension.

This part is fully difficult to explain to people not from around here. Like, you don't understand the random, chaotic, yet somehow fully organized nature of this resistance.... and how much goddamn love is going into every moment of it. The Veterans for Peace showed up for the Food Communists! Like, within two days!!  And it feels like for every stabbing or act of shitty Nazism, twenty thousand more people are haphazardly driving around and handing out hot cocoa and donuts to people with whistles (an exaggeration, surely, but it is absolutely HOW IT FEELS on the ground.) Sure, one guy flipped us off, but the the amount of support and genuine acts of kindness outnumber the bullshit a thousand fold. 

I believe we will win.  I believe we will win because this community is standing strong and continues to grow and is motivated not by hatred or greed, but by LOVE and kindness and community. When those sh*theads realize that their bonuses aren't forthcoming, their health care will never actually kick in, and their paychecks bounce, their motivation will evaporate. We will still be here keeping our neighbors safe. We'll still be making cookies for each other and feeding our hungry and sheltering our vunerable and singing. 

Speaking of, I have to tell you one other crazy thing. 

People actually now have forms they give each other in case they go to a high-risk protest or an event where they think they might be arrested or detained. Our neighbors came over last night with one and a set of keys to their apartment. This form is terrifying, you all. It says things on it like, "If you don't hear from this person by ___ time, contact the following people..." I felt extremely honored to be handed this responsibility, but holy crap. What is this timeline? How are we in a place where my literal neighbors have to hand me a list of who they were with and who should take care of their cats in case they are disappeared?

Of course, we had this solemn exchange of information and what did I say when they were leaving? "Have a good time!" (God, I felt stupid.) Also, the "speaking of" of all this is that I believe they were headed to what we colloquially call "band practice" here in the Twin Cities. Band practice is the folks who set up outside of hotels that are hosting ICE personel and make as much noise as possible all night long. Every grain of sand in the gears, my friend. Every grain of sand.



A tiny sign on a stick no larger than a chopstick with the words, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."