Stop All the Clocks

It’s 6:55 PM and I’m digging through the junk I’ve stored on my antique rocking chair, looking for the hand warmers that I got at the Bold North Breakaway festivities at the World Junior Championships, which I attended just shy of three weeks ago. I rip them out of the package, shake them up to activate them, and shove them into the toes of my boots, which are already cold and we haven’t even gone outside yet. The Bulldogs-Broncos game is still on the TV, we don’t bother to turn it off. I zip up my coat, light a candle, jam on my hat and gloves, and step outside into the sub-zero night.

It’s Hockey Day Minnesota, and we’re headed to a neighborhood vigil in memory of Alex Pretti, murdered by the federal government this morning. There are vigils like this, large and small, all over the state. Ours is a block away and about twenty neighbors show up. Some are planting tea lights in the snow. One man brings a fire pit over in a wheelbarrow.

It’s Hockey Day Minnesota. After half an hour, my feet start to ache from the cold; the hand warmers aren’t making a difference. We go home and four goals have been scored while we were out. We watch the rest of the game like we’ve stepped into some alternate reality where the most horrible thing is an overtime game-winning goal scored against your team. We turn on the Wild game and again, it’s like the outside world isn’t real. Not a single mention of the campaign of terror that’s been waged against the state for weeks.

It feels like the WJC was eons ago. Hundreds of people from nine other countries came to the Twin Cities for the tournament, which concluded with Sweden winning a gold medal over Czechia on January 5th. On January 6th, 2,000 federal agents from various Homeland Security agencies were sent to Minnesota. On January 7th, Renee Good was murdered by Johnathan Ross, an ICE agent.

It’s hard to believe three weeks ago, I was sitting in a cafe having brunch with my friend Jashvina, despairing of the state of the country over coffee and avocado toast. Tonight AJ picked up our dinner from a Mexican restaurant that had to unlock the door to let him in. Three weeks ago I wasn’t paying much attention to what drove by my house unless it was loud. Now, no matter where I am, I’m looking at every vehicle to see if it’s full of agents in tactical gear.

Something has to pierce the bubble that hockey exists in. Over half the Wild’s roster is made up of non-citizens, people whose work status is the same as many of the people harassed, arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps, or deported by DHS. And yet the team, the front office, and the broadcast team continued as if violent arrests weren’t happening within walking distance of the rink. College hockey is the same. Every D-1 college hockey team in Minnesota played today, and if any of them acknowledged the terror and violence that is touching every corner of Minnesota, I’ve yet to hear of it. If the state of Minnesota is going to defend its people from the tyranny of the psychopaths in charge of this operation, then the public colleges and universities have to be part of that fight.

I know that federal agents were already engaged in a campaign of violence against immigrants in Minnesota before the WJC started, but in my head the end of the WJC and the sharp escalation in the campaign are closely linked, and there’s a clear demarcation between my life before and after that inflection point. I am fortunate to live in a warm house and move freely in my community; if I wanted to, I could live in that hockey bubble too. If I stopped caring about others. If I stopped believing that the Constitution means something. If I didn’t know unshakeably in my core that extrajudicial murder is wrong.

I have no delusions that what I’m writing will reach anyone but the people I already know and love, who already know what is happening is unconscionable, so my call to action is grounded in that understanding. Whatever you are doing right now to resist, take one more step forward. If you’re speaking out on social media, if you’re donating to community organizations or mutual aid, if you’ve shown up in the streets, think about what that next step might be, and commit to yourself that you will take it. We have to continue to resist, to keep our neighbors safe where they belong, and to keep these murder gangs from scuttling off in a troop plane to wage war in another American city.

Stay warm and stay vigilant, friends.