Blog

Visitors to St Paul public libraries in recent weeks may have found an atmosphere quite different from the usual quiet and calm among the bookshelves. On two separate occasions since September, our libraries have played host to competing rallies - on the one hand, members of a hate mob gathered to oppose queer cultural events, particularly Drag Queen Story Hour. On the other hand, antifascists and other community members there to defend queer people and freedom of expression.

Although the far right street presence in the Twin Cities has been beaten back multiple times in the last five years, it is undergoing a resurgence - and its target is the queer community, through a manufactured outrage around drag events.

cw: mentions of CSA, transphobic & racist violence, anti-trans and antisemitic conspiracy theories

Join Hackers Without Borders, Freedom Street Health, and Northsiders for an afternoon of building box-fan filters that can protect people from air pollution and reduce COVID-19 transmission in homes, classrooms, and gathering places.

1pm–3pm, Saturday, October 22, 2022
Cleveland Park (North Russel Avenue & North 33rd Avenue, near North Penn & North Lowry Avenues, behind the Lowry Avenue Post Office)

Filters and masks sponsored by Agaric Technology Collective.

A joyous Saturday morning of story telling by beloved local drag performers for children and families was in danger of being disrupted by a group of Hold the Line MN and Proud Boys. A coalition of counterprotesters ensured the event proceeded as planned, thwarted the Proud Boys in inciting violence, shielded families and children from pornographic images displayed by Hold the Line MN and the Proud Boys, and made sure all attendees were able to leave safely.

cw: virulent transphobia, queerphobia, transphobic rhetoric

We express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine struggling against the attempt by the Russian state to re-colonize them. We condemn both the invasion, and the long campaign of aggression that Russia has waged against Ukrainians.

One of the basic questions aspiring revolutionary groups have to ask is, "How do revolutionary changes come about?", and then ask if what they are doing is in line with their own beliefs about how revolutions happen.

On New Year's Eve, our community gathered for a noise demonstration in downtown Minneapolis in support of prison abolition and in solidarity with incarcerated folks. Officers swarmed the scene, abruptly making violent arrests without dispersal orders. It is an abuse of power to disperse a protest without issuing such an order. Instead of ticketing or releasing folks - which is the norm - our friends and relatives were held over the holiday weekend under probable cause charges, which historically has been used by police to give extra time to justify otherwise unlawful arrests that violate everyone’s first amendment rights to protest.

Conversations during and after the Uprising led to people forming up a Whittier copwatch. In that copwatch, connections were made which helped workers get in touch with union organizers and tenants to revive tenant organizing committees and more.

What are some counterinsurgency tactics you've noticed this summer? What things you have seen people—especially people with clear connections to the existing power structure—do that have led to the demobilization, suppression, discrediting, intimidation, or marginalization of the movement for black lives and against police brutality?  Learning and recognizing these tactics is crucial. Here are some that people named in one big thread.

As the summer born in flames nears its end in Minneapolis, the counterinsurgency playbook plays out much as expected. As symbolic concessions are granted all over, the material reality of racist police violence driven by propertied interests continues.

As discussions of police abolition and how other models of justice could work move forward and gain a mainstream audience, it is important to reiterate that "transformative justice" does not mean centering the harm-doer and their process of redemption.

Please be very suspicious of today’s police strategic leak around the investigation of “Umbrella man” who broke windows at the E. Lake St Autozone during the Minneapolis Uprising.

Ever since the Minneapolis Uprising, different police brutality groups have been grappling with how to deal with the mass popularity of the “Abolish the Police” demand - and the shocking maneuver of the City Council to at least pay lip service to this demand.