Friends,
I just received this from Phillip Cryan, a former student who lives in Minneapolis:
I got an unexpected, heartfelt “I love you” this afternoon from a Latino neighbor driving by in an SUV. He was stopped at a red light, and saw me trying to read his vehicle’s license plate. He knew that meant I was out patrolling for ICE, so he rolled down his tinted windows to shout out with a laugh “we’re not those assholes!” And then he thanked me for what I was doing and told me “I love you,” pumping his fist to his heart.
I got an unexpected, heartfelt “I love you” on Friday afternoon, at the vigil in front of the State Capitol, from an elder whose wisdom I revere, and who I had thought I’d just barely been getting started on the project of hopefully getting to know.
I got an unexpected, heartfelt “I love you” on Thursday morning before dawn, at the protest in front of the Whipple building (ICE’s central staging location here), from one of the original members of the Planned Parenthood North Central States union bargaining team I spent 2022 and 2023 in the trenches with, fighting for a first union contract. She had on a much better mask and goggles than I did, for the pepper spray we were about to get hit with by jackbooted ICE agents hoping to provoke peaceful protestors to respond with violence.
I didn’t get an “I love you” from him, but a neighbor on my block who has always seemed to be the type of strong, taciturn Midwestern guy who would be mortified at the suggestion of any physical or overtly-emotional connection with another guy readily accepted when I asked if it was okay to give him a hug yesterday morning, when we got back to our block after having both raced to a nearby corner where ICE agents with long guns had been reported (but they were gone by the time we got there). And he wept in my arms.
This is what is happening in Minnesota right now. The horror, grief and fear we are all experiencing every day, watching our neighbors get hauled away by reckless, cruel, masked paramilitaries; trying to protect one another; and knowing that what they did to Renee Nicole Good could happen to any of us, is generating this: unexpected, heartfelt new connections of not just solidarity but real love. At a massive, simply-incomprehensible scale. Good people coming together in all our fear and vulnerability and care and kindness and bravery, discovering the transformative power of our love for one another.
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