Non Sequitur

D sent me the link to Bruce Springsteen's new song "Streets of Minneapolis" about half an hour ago.

Both emails in my inbox since have been about this.

All that D told me about the link he sent me was "Well here's the most Erik thing ever." Apparently my friends agree.

One of them is also in Minneapolis and says ICE is on their block today.

At work this morning, when a colleague said they were off on holiday and worried that they were changing places in the U.S., my manager took the opportunity to tell me that for all that's horrible, Minneapolis and Minnesota are showing the world how to handle a thing like this and I must be proud of them.

And I am. I nearly choked up at that.

But also, I wish they didn't have to be. Normal life hasn't been possible in Minneapolis for months. Fundraisers I've contributed to have sometimes had grim updates about people who've disappeared, either directly to ICE or by having to make the horrible choice to "self-deport" which is another way the fascists are getting what they want.

I have to save reading Margaret Killjoy for when I have tears to spare. Some of them are happy tears, some are accompanied by real laughter and knowing smiles (having to bring the car battery in the house overnight like it's a baby animal!), but so many tears.

The shortest version of what I saw is this: a few thousand federal officers are occupying Minnesota right now. They’re in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the suburbs, and even some of the smaller towns. No one wants them there—I’ve never seen a community half so united as the people of the Twin Cities.

ICE is there to kidnap black and brown people. They’re not subtle about their racism...

In response to this, many vulnerable people have essentially gone into lockdown... The networks that are looking out for them are far and away the largest, most organized, and most successful networks like these I’ve ever seen.

Since abductions happen quickly—often stealing people in two or three minutes—the response needs to be just as fast. And it works because when people hear whistles and car horns, they start looking out. They come out of their houses.

It works because everyone knows what is happening is wrong, and everyone is willing to risk their lives to protect people.

Time after time, ICE has tried to abduct someone, only to be scared off by Minnesotans in pajamas and crocs.

But this spirit of “if your car is broken by the cold, strangers will save you” was presented to me by multiple people as the spirit that animates the resistance to ICE. Some people are trapped in their houses, so other people try their hardest to help them, whether or not they’ve got enough experience, whether or not they’re ready...

This style of organizing works because the overwhelming majority of people in the city are very actively opposed to seeing their neighbors kidnapped. There is no shortage of people willing to yell at ICE.

Today I:

• woke up late. I, very unusually for me, was so tired when my alarm went off that I set a new one. For some reason, I decided to make it five minutes before my first meeting, my team's usual check-in. So yeah, I did not make that.
• got dressed and downstairs eventually, triaged email and Teams messages.
• did my morning chores: open the curtains, empty the dishwasher, make breakfast for me and a pot of tea for the household...
• got halfway through the dishwasher when my work phon rang. Actually rang, not a Teams call. How odd!
• remember as the guy starts talking that I agreed to do an interview but forgot to put it in my calendar
• the interview is with rail industry press rather than my usual audiences of general public or politicians, so I got to drag some of the technical vocabulary out of my brain.
• had a little cry at lunchtime about Alex Pretti
• had two absolutely brutal meetings this afternoon, for a total of three hours: more technical stuff. I have looked at so many diagrams of train stations...and there weren't any breaks in that 2-hour meeting!
• walked Teddy with V, as a nice antidote to all the thinking and trying to decipher engineering diagrams (some of which were labeled by hand).
• made dinner by chopping all the veg in the fridge that needed using up and roasting it (some wrinkly peppers, half a head of rubbery broccoli, a few carrots I didn't know we had, mushrooms that were best before last week...) into a serviceable dinner
• helped D do a Tesco order for tomorrow
• read too much news
• had a shower
• went to bed late and now can't sleep