Dwelling in Probabilities

How are things in Minneapolis/the Twin Cities/Minnesota and environs? Honestly: really bad.There have been some wins but people are burning themselves out to the core to foil kidnappings, help people who can't leave their homes, help children who've been kidnapped, help children who are left behind when their parents are kidnapped, help pets whose humans have been kidnapped, help small businesses survive, help people who can't pay rent pay rent, deal with legal challenges, etc.,etc. We're going on three months now and we have bus and train stop monitors, school bus monitors, people doing deliveries, people chasing these fuckers around despite harassment and retaliation, people doing donation drives, people doing fundraisers, people protesting at the Whipple Building (where they're holding folks who've been kidnapped), people waiting at Whipple to help folks who've been released with no winter coats (in MN winter) or phones, people protesting at the hotels hosting ICE (hello, Hilton chain!) and on  and on. There are so many heroes. 

But in three months, we have collectively been:

• Shot and killed.
• Regularly teargassed.
• Threatened with guns.
• Beaten (also by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, so not just ICE)
• Had ICE kidnap legal observers, harass legal observers by showing up at their homes, harass businesses, etc.
• Had a huge portion of our population go into hiding, which means they need food, toiletries, rent paid, pet food, diapers, and so forth.
• Families have been broken up and traumatized.
• There are horror stories about pets and livestock left to starve.
• Small businesses are closing or on the brink because they've lost workers or their workers are stuck at home.

How long could your state's economy survived if the federal government wages war on you next? This is what we're up against. Add to that, Minneapolis's biggest public hospital network is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for a combination of reasons and if they go under, there goes most of the medical care for the uninsured, low income, etc, folks. Not to mention, it's a huge employer. I use their system myself and while I can go elsewhere, a lot of other people can't. That's the other part of all this: our systems for everything from housing to healthcare to the arts are taking/going to take a gigantic hit from all this. And where will the money come from to rebuild, assuming this ends soon? Not the feds, clearly. 

That said, here are a few places where small donations help a lot. Please donate if you can, book if you can't. "Everything little bit helps," as the bus stop monitor I spoke to the other day on my way to drop off toiletry donations at the Pride Cultural Center Pantry said. 

• Twin Cities Pride has rainbow Resistance Loon t-shirts that they're selling as a fundraiser for the food pantry.
• Music for Good - local musicians teamed up to produce protest songs for a mutual aid fundraiser.
• DreamHaven Book GoFundMe - Greg Ketter is donating all new donations to local foodshelves and school book drives.
• ICE Hurts Animals Too - animal rescue for abandoned pets/help for folks stuck at home.
• The best overall fundraiser list - Stand With Minnesota
• The multi-faceted approach, not just donations - Naomi Kritzer's "How to Help if You are Outside MInnesota"

How am I personally? Well, I'm writing this despite having a horrible cold on the anniversary of Jana's death so please assume that I think it's pretty damned important. Big thank you shoutout to everyone who's been helping so far! More cheerful posts soon, I hope.

 Last week, I had a look at the Hennepin County Library's recommended reading list for Pride and noticed that while it included a number of perfectly fine titles, there was not a single book by a Minnesota author. Minnesota, for the record, is home to a large group of queer-identified authors who include an Edgar Grand Master, a Tiptree Award winner, multiple Lambda and Goldie Award winners, even Minnesota Book Awards winners. St. Paul Public didn't have a formal list at all. So I girded my loins and called them both out from the Queen of Swords Press account, pointing out the Quatrefoil Library (now one of the largest queer libraries in the country) and the Tretter Collection (one of the largest LGBTQ+ archives in the world, both in Minnesota, would like also be happy to help. Quatrefoil chimed in and now we have a starter list!

How did books get selected? I/Queen of Swords Press suggested a bunch of folks, then Quatrefoil Library added more, then Hennepin County Library made the final selection based on the following criteria: authors on our lists with 3 or more current titles in their catalogue. Bear in mind that they "deaquisition" pretty enthusiastically, so maybe check some books out once in awhile to keep them in circulation. At any rate, a starting place! Now let's see what St. Paul Library comes up with.