I want to express my deepest gratitude for the words of Kelly Hayes, who wrote “The Cost of Staying Human” yesterday after ICE murdered Renee Nicole Good in South Minneapolis, where I live. Below are my own thoughts on this the day following that murder as ICE and other agents continue their over a month long assault on my city and region.
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we’ve been told a story; we’re being told that story right now. it’s a simple story about good and bad. films and tv, books and video games, have tried daily to convince us that there is clear good and clear bad and it’s that simple. not what might feel clear – that ICE is bad. no, this story is meant to tear at our own fabric… there are good protestors and bad ones – violent and non-violent. there are good people (including immigrants, queer/trans folks, black folks, women, etc.) and then there are the criminals. good. bad. this isn’t just the story from the Right, it’s also the story of Democratic Party leadership. they’ve been preaching it loudly in the last 24 hours.
in this moment when the world may feel turned upside down for so many of us, this is the moment to question those ideas and those leaders. when the state says: we’re here to protect you… as long as you protest peacefully, remember that is the same state that sic-ed its guns on us after George Floyd was murdered. those guns, they won’t come to take care of us now. that mayor who told ICE to fuck off. he also loves his cops who kill black people. his are the policies that let those without houses die in the cold, swept away at from every corner with their belongings in a dumpster. these leaders are not suddenly our saviors just because they also dislike a dictator. their armies only know how to march against us.
this is the moment to not just be activated in response to the worst of things. this is a moment to consider that none of this has been working for a very long time; fascism is only new to some of us. this is the moment to really internalize that only we take care of ourselves. the state, the cops, the feds, the sheriffs, they don’t take care of us. no matter how much we ask nicely. no, only we take care of us. we build the world we want to live in; right now in this time, in the cracks, we dream a better life for all our communities.
we are under invasion from sadistic violent forces. we will not keep ourselves and our communities safe with polite requests for their boot to be less heavy. our own ethical compasses must guide our actions and the way that we act differently from each other cannot be excuses for us to turn on each other. the governor and the mayor are not our friends. they never have been. they have also sent their troops to harm us many, many times. so we cannot adhere to their ideas of how we should resist. we need each other. we do not need them.
we have to find a way to not let their disney-fied story of who of us is bad and who of us is good destroy what we are building. and this doesn’t mean we don’t have a politics, we should. and we need to continue to challenge ourselves to evolve and grow in those politics. if you got here yesterday, listen. if you got here a decade ago, reconsider.
but we do that work together in struggle every day. don’t let the guy holding the press conference change that for you or your community. we build the world we want to live in. we will keep building that world, long after ICE and the cops and capitalism are gone.
in solidarity,
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Image: vigil in remembrance of Renee Nicole Good the night of her murder, photo credit: Unicorn Riot
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