Nevermore.

ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.

ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.

ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Wednesday. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.

They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are cancelling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.

They are smashing windows in cars and homes.

ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.

They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.) I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later. But the community is fighting back.

Protests are happening every day.

Community groups have been leading know-your-rights sessions for months, often to packed venues.

Whistles are being distributed by the thousands, carried on keychains and worn on coat zippers, always at the ready to be blown in warning if ICE is spotted.

Drivers are following ICE vehicles, blaring their horns in warning.

Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait for my takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business.

Anti-ICE signs are posted everywhere. The community is making it crystal clear that ICE is not welcome here.

Parents and neighbors are standing guard outside schools, organizing carpools, and escorting kids to and from school on foot.

Parents of kids in Spanish-immersion daycare (there are a LOT of these daycares here!) are keeping their kids home so the teachers don’t have to take the risk of coming to work.

Churches and community groups are holding fundraisers to buy and deliver groceries to families who don’t feel safe leaving home.

MONDAY.

People need to be fed. Check to see what your local food pantry situation is. Make hot meals for people you know have been out in the cold for hours on end. Emergency kits for field medics need to be supplied. People need help getting to the pharmacy, the grocery store. Help shovel your neighbor’s sidewalk if you’re able. Find a way to do something.

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Open Gmail in your browser

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In the General Tab, scroll down to "Smart Features" and UNCHECK THE BOX. It is about halfway down.

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1) “Prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people — that’s a fact.”

2) “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘boy, I hope he is qualified.’”

3) “George Floyd was a ‘scumbag.’”

4) "[MLK was] just a man ... a very flawed one at that ... a mythological anti-racist creation of the 1960s."

5) "The 'Great Replacement' is not a theory, it's a reality."

6) "If I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic Black woman... I wonder, is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because [of] affirmative action?"

7) Leaders "won't do what is necessary, which is arresting Black criminals."

8) "Black crime is a major issue in our country."

9) "What is the real problem exactly? The real problem is that Black fathers abandon the women that they impregnate."

10) "The problem is Blacks that kill themselves a lot — kill each other in inner cities."

11) "Black crime is a huge problem no one wants to talk about. It's not racism."

12) Black Lives Matter wants to "fan the flames of a race war in our country... This is an outright threat. A full frontal domestic terrorism in our country."

13) "A BLM-incorporated leader drove through the holiday parade" (re: Waukesha).

14) The alleged Waukesha attacker was a "Black supremacist terrorist."

15) Juneteenth "threatens the fabric of our country."

16) "Juneteenth should not be a federal holiday."

17) "We should not be like... "you're acting like a Trayvon'.... 'you're a Shaniqua.""

18) “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot”.

19) The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a "huge mistake"

20) MLK Jr was "an awful person"