MPLS

I rode my bike today, through my uncharacteristically quiet neighborhood and along the Panhandle, littered with eucalyptus leaves that smelled pungent and spicy, and through Golden Gate Park, past the Sunday morning Lindy Hoppers and kids learning to ride bikes, and out to the wind and grey of the ocean until I came to this place:

Ocean Calling asks you to:

1. Select a stone and place it in the chute

2. When ready, pick up the phone and speak to your lost loved one

3. Let the wind and waves carry your words

4. Say goodbye for now and hang up

I came to this phone booth by the ocean because I didn’t know what else to do. I had donated to rent relief and written to businesses that were supporting ICE operations and spoken with my friends and family in Minneapolis every day since this horrific occupation began.

It felt like the only other thing I could do was come to this spot and think of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Geraldo Lunas Campos, and Victor Manuel Diaz — lives stolen by ICE over the past few weeks — and send my love out into the waves, knowing that all water is connected and that these thoughts I sent out into the Pacific would eventually make their way to the Mighty Mississippi.

Apparently I wasn’t the only San Franciscan who had this thought. A chalk memorial to Renee Good was in front of Ocean Calling. I wondered how many more names would be added before this monstrous agency is dismantled.

Rest in Power Renee

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Minneapolis is where I learned to walk. It’s where I learned to march and door knock and walk a picket line. And now its where my family and friends are marching in sub-zero temperatures to protest the kidnapping of their neighbors. It’s where they are patrolling street corners and schools and playgrounds to keep people safe from fascist thugs or — at the very least — to bear witness.

I am unsurprised by how Minnesotans have stepped up during this time. It is not because we are an inherently good people. It is because, as this brilliant essay explains, white Minnesotans finally started reckoning with the contradictions of fiercely loving a place that does not love everyone back. This reckoning, combined with the inherent stubbornness of Minnesotans and their knowledge that if you give into a bully, they won’t leave you alone, they’ll simply extract more,¹ meant that Minnesotans were not going to let fascists operate a large-scale campaign of terror without a fight.

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It feels impossible to write about walking right now while I watch what happens in my hometown, hence this post of rambling thoughts. I’ll leave you with this. I don’t know how this will end. I am not an optimist but I also am not one to succumb to what Sarah Jaffe calls the “pleasures of doom.”

But what I lack in cheery optimism, I make up for in hope. Mariame Kaba wrote that “action is a practice of hope” and the actions of the people of Minnesota over these last few weeks give me tremendous hope. I know from experience that courage begets courage, that solidarity is a powerful weapon, that people can do scary things when they do them together. I love you Minneapolis. Keep fighting. As we say on the picket line “I believe that we will win.”

1. Something that most political and corporate “leaders” seem to still not understand…