Recently Vice President Vance said this:
“There’s been this weird reaction, unique to this city. It’s not a common thing across the United States of America. A very Minneapolis-specific reaction to our enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
He went on to disingenuously complain that he’s trying to understand what it is about “Minnesota that has become so chaotic.”
Well it’s very simple V.P. Vance—ICE has made Minnesota chaotic.
There’s something about seeing a young mother, Renee Good, shot dead, in the face, while trying to obey conflicting instructions from masked, heavily-armed thugs; hearing Secretary of Homeland Security Noem call Ms. Good a domestic terrorist, immediately after her murder (with no other information known); seeing peaceful protestors decried as instigators and agitators; seeing the elderly and children being arrested and sent out of state; seeing masked, heavily-armed thugs pull people from their cars, their places of business, their homes—without warrants; seeing masked, heavily-armed thugs breaking the law by profiling people based on the color of their skin and detaining them (this includes citizens)…
That’s not even the half of it.
So if Minnesotans are acting “weird” and refusing to stand by while their basic civil rights, and their Constitutional rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights, are being walked over by ICE then it should be obvious to everyone what is causing the chaos…The masked, heavily-armed thugs who have been sent to our state as instigators.
Vance wants us to accept and go along with what’s going on. But the Bill of Rights (which is part of our Constitution) tells us a different story, and the Bill of Rights demands a different behavior from Federal officials towards us, citizen and non-citizen ALIKE.
The real question is why Vance, who swore an oath to the Constitution, thinks it weird that Minnesotans want to exercise their Constitutional rights and peacefully demand that the government honor those rights—for everyone in our community.
If the rule of law is going to work, it has to work for everyone in this country, every day—no matter how inconvenient that may seem to the Executive branch of our government.
Minnesota
Minnesota is not a perfect place. I have lived enough places in the US and abroad to know that no perfect place exists. But I’ve lived about 45 years in Minnesota. I didn’t just stay here because Richard was cute and the biking paths were great.
What we have here in Minnesota is a group of people who mostly mean well and want to get along, and who want to see that everyone receives a chance to do well and be safe.
We also have a history of welcoming recent immigrants. From the Vietnamese boat people to Hmong and Somali refugees—all these groups have enriched the state culture, just as Italians, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Blacks in the Great Northward Migration, and other groups did in earlier decades.
Just as the Native American population (which pre-exists all other immigrant groups) has enriched the state culture.
We are a state that values freedom of speech, and works to mitigate and erase hate. We believe the poor and weak deserve our protection.
We understand that if everyone doesn’t have legal rights no one does. Other locations across the country are experiencing this as well.
What Can We Do?
If you didn’t know what I just told you is happening right now in Minnesota, then its time for you to find news sources which report facts and actual events. Minnesotans are protesting peacefully with whistles against masked, heavily-armed thugs.
MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) is reporting on what is happening. So are other sources. Seek them out. Become involved politically in your community. Help at a food bank or other volunteer organization that is helping those in need in your community.
Ask your neighbors if you can get groceries for them.
Those last two are simple things that will have an impact on your community’s fear levels.
Call your state and federal representatives and tell them you’re concerned about the lawlessness of ICE. (Fun fact: Minnesota has only 2.2 percent of immigrants in our population, whereas states like Florida and Texas have 5 percent. Ask yourself why ICE has been sent to MN? Do you really need any hints?)
If you haven’t already read Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, now is a good time to read or reread it. It’s a short book on how tyranny rises and takes over the political realm. You can read it in about an hour—and then think about it the rest of your life. Snyder gives you concrete things to look out for. I first wrote about this book in 2017; sadly we have moved closer to tyranny than ever before.
Read more history in general. You’ll realize that things happen in cycles. Humans keep falling into traps because people in power prey on our fears and weaknesses. When you see the beginning, middle and end of a cycle in reading history, it might give you ideas to avoid those cycles in the future, or exit them more quickly. We’ll see.
If all goes badly, history might give us a glimmer of hope for the future.
And fight for history and social studies in the schools. Not the redacted and sanitized history the the Trump administration has been foisting on us. Having dark moments in our history is not a fatal flaw. Failing to look at and learn from those moments is fatal to the transparency necessary in a democracy.
Remember elementary school is the best time for citizens to start to discover what the country is about, and how to make it better. Yes, make it better—understand that the country has flaws but it is worth working to push it forward.
In our current situation pick one thing to focus on to help your community and lend your support to that.
To all my students and friends from around the world who have written to ask if I’m OK, thank you for your concern. I have not written recently about any of this—despite the fact that democracy is one of “my many enthusiasms,” (and my blog is about my enthusiasms), because I’ve been recuperating from a physical therapy injury that prevents me from sitting at my computer for the length of time necessary to create a cogent argument.
There are thousands of Minnesotas and others across the US making these arguments. I encourage you to listen to them.
Understand why Minneapolis and Minnesotans are being “weird.”
Ask yourself why you aren’t?
In Rob Reiner’s “The America President” (1995), President Shepherd says:
America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight.
We all need to keep that in mind as we go forward peacefully demanding our rights. Know your history, know your Constitution, know your rights.
Art and Sanity
In the past several months I’ve tried to end my posts about art supplies and materials with experiments and suggestions for projects.
Never forget that art is a political action.
It may seem personal, and you may not share your art publicly so it seems private; but art, and the making of it, is still a political action—getting your thoughts, views, and observations down on paper.
Art, even done privately, broadens your understanding and awareness. If you’re working with intention and really looking at the world around you, then you are developing your critical thinking skills. And these critical thinking skills are essential to have when understanding what is truth, what is reality, and what is your moral obligation to the world.
Art changes the person you are—the person who goes out into the public.
Making art is part of your right to free speech, even if your art is private—art is a safety value for you to work out your life, and observe your life and surroundings.
So the project I’m stressing today is the importance of keeping your drawing practice active every day.
It’s important that you not let fear of your present circumstances, and worry about the future, rob you of the joy and strenuous thought and creativity that your drawing practice gives you.
If you are prone to doom scrolling, put down the phone and join a community group that does some good in your area. Enjoy the connections you make within that group. Journal and sketch about those moments.
And remember you get to have a moment to catch your breath.
Comments will be turned off for this post. Why? Minnesotans have real work to do and don’t need to spend time engaging here. I don’t have the physical health to engage with people who refuse to see what is going on.
