What a rage-filled heart, an exhausted heart, a terrified heart, and a grieving heart have in common

They are proof that you have a heart

I may be a hope peddler, but I will not lecture you on how to feel right now. The gun thugs are raging through yet another American city. It is not a contest, but this might be their more horrid tour stop yet. They are pepper spraying bystanders and ramming their cars into civilians and busting windows and heads and occupying hospitals and schools and laughing and cursing their way across the metro area. They murdered in Minnesota, though that alone isn’t a new development. They’ve murdered in many places already, although not all murders receive equal attention. In some places, the murderers wear ICE or CBP uniforms, in others they’re equipped with U.S. bombs. I don’t have to tell you about imperial boomerangs. We’re living it.

I will not lecture you because I know, from friends in Chicago and Charlotte and New Orleans and now Minneapolis, that the long term trauma from ICE officially declaring war on your town is immense. Our brains and bodies are not meant to be activated 24/7, to live in fear that you or your neighbors may be next. There are only so many rapid response alerts we can metabolize without collapsing from exhaustion, only so many whistle shifts we can take without breaking down in our cars, so many urgent care requests we can field without losing it in front of our children.

I will not lecture you because the President and Vice President can’t wait, it seems, for the worst to happen to you, so that they can blame you for sealing your own fate. Their sole job, right now, is to tell the world’s simplest story, to stand behind lecterns and call people like you radical leftists and terrorists, to give permission to the men who kill you to call you a f**** b**** after pulling the trigger.

I will not lecture you, because we are not all equally at risk. I’m a white guy. In the eyes of this administration and their state security force, I’m not a target, just a slightly befuddling obstacle in the way.¹ Regardless of the shock troops’ personal ethnic backgrounds, it’s Black and Brown people who they’ve sworn to terrorize, and white women who need to be punished for standing in solidarity. In the eyes of the bro world order, being visibly non-white in public is the worst possible crime, and being a woman who doesn’t know her place is a thousand times worse than merely being a beta male cuck. I may be failing at being a real man, in their eyes, but I’m still a human being. They like to call that woke grandstanding these days, but that’s a weird way to spell an accurate description of reality.

I will not lecture you. But I will offer this.

What you are feeling right now, be it volcanic anger or exhaustion or guilt or confusion or incapacitation isn’t just real, it is sacred. It is your heart reacting, in any number of ways, to its own sudden expansion. You are feeling something deeply, and it may or not yet be pulling you in a clear direction, but in either case it is a gorgeous reminder: You are human. And you are reacting to horrors being rained down on other human beings. You ache for them and rage for them and feel incapacitated on their behalf because that is what human beings do when we don’t turn off the part of us that knows we are made for more than cruelty.

I am so immensely grateful for whatever it is you are feeling. It’s why we will win. And not in a magical thinking, “just hold on hope” sense. In the way that becomes true through action, both those we’ve taken and will continue to take. When I say we will win, I don’t pretend that more people won’t be hurt along the way. I don’t believe that we will win without effort, or constant doubts.

We will win, though, because fascism’s playbook is so immensely basic. It asks its followers to justify the unjustifiable, to deny that they too have hearts, to take actions that the most human part of them knows are wrong. It then reassures them that the worst thing they’ve ever done was good, actually, because the individuals or groups harmed were enemy combatants. That’s literally their only play. They run it again and again, pretending that it sounds fresher coming from J.D. Vance’s smug lips than it did in the original German.

It presents itself as inevitable, that threadbare concept of a plan, because the fascists have a hell of a lot of guns, and because a human being insisting that they don’t care about you inevitably will shout louder and uglier, cursing and flailing and trying to appear as venomous as possible. Not to convince you, but to convince themselves. But it doesn’t actually work on an entire society, not forever, because even thought we are an imperfect species, and even though we can and are acculturated towards terror, it takes so much effort to smother every single part of yourself, save for the venomous bits.

Historically, it’s true. Some strongmen hold out longer than others. Those that do benefit less from the zeal of their truest believers, but from an entire country quieting their hearts in acquiescence.

But we will win, because our hearts may be breaking in a million pieces, but they are not quiet. Everywhere ICE has surged, everywhere they’ve busted heads, everywhere they’ve killed, they’ve been met with the loudest cacophony of collective hearts imaginable. In LA, in Chicago, in Charlotte, in New Orleans, and especially now in Minnesota.

To all of you in Minnesota: I see you, my friends. You are in my hearts as soon as I wake up until the moment I go to bed. I know that you are bone tired. I understand that words of support from the rest of us may ring hollow, since we’ve witnessed such a small percentage of the horrors laid on your doorsteps. But I know that you’ll be out today again, with your whistles and your horns and your cameras. I know that the gun thugs will try their damndest to scare you off the street, but your hearts won’t allow it.

I know you’ll be out, just as I know that ICE and CPB and their bosses in the White House hate that they can’t quiet your hearts. I recognize that assurance doesn’t make it any easier to watch as they inflict as much horror as possible in the meantime. But it’s true.

To the rest of us, whose hearts are also bursting but who might worry that we’re not doing enough: I honestly don’t think that’s the right question. Until we arrive at beloved community, the question of “enough” is only useful or inculcating shame and burn out. The more important question— if you’re noticing your heart today, what does it make you want to do? To reach out, to make life easier for somebody you love on the front lines? To lead a fundraiser in your community? To carry on an activist project that was alive before these particular headlines and will still be needed long after the troops move on? Or to get to know your neighbors now, so that you don’t have to wait for the worst to come your way before you do so?

Your hearts may ache. That ache may be unbearable. But it reveals a truth. You are alive. We are alive. And we are afraid, but far less than we are in love.

End notes:

1. There are so many resource lists traveling around offering ways to support Minneapolis (from nearby or afar). This one remains my favorite. If you’re in the Cities right now, there are so many people who want to help you plug in. If you’re far away, yes give and amplify, but maybe also get some neighbors together to do a shared fundraiser.

2. Ideally after you donate, here’s one more (quite tiny) thing you can do. I’ve made a form for those of us not in Minneapolis to show love to that city’s activists. I’ve got some connections to pass it to and through that community, and I’d love to shower them with as many messages as possible. Want to add yours? This is the kind of project that will be more meaningful with more participants!

3. Unrelated to Minneapolis, but very related to building a better world: If you live in a rural area and recognize that we won’t build the world of our dream without organizing communities like yours for justice, and if you’ve ever considered running for office (or being a campaign manager), the incredible crew at Dirtroad Organizing would love to help you out. Applications are currently open for their next cohorts. Highly recommended!

4. Another announcement: My dear friend and podcast cohost Sarah Wheeler is also one hell of an expert on neurodivergence,families and schools and she’s offering a Zoom course, January 20th, at noon pacific time, on how to choose a school for your neurodivergent kids. It’s a paid course ($25) but Sarah really is the best at this.

5. Thank you, as always, for being here, and supporting this work of knitting us all together. This space, and my free Barnraisers trainings, exist thanks to a small but mighty group of supporters (who also have the best discussions in the world every Friday and who get a bunch of other perks, like free merch). If you value it and can join them, jeez I’d be so grateful.

1. Related: In so many cities that have resisted ICE so far, cis men have been disproportionately (but not surprisingly) underrepresented in the ranks of folks doing the most active organizing/community care work. A massive topic, worth more than a footnote. I’ll likely be writing a full essay about this in the future, and Sarah Wheeler and I are devoting an upcoming episode of our This Week in Breeders podcast to it, so stay tuned.