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On June 27th, Sophia Rashid, a Muslim woman, took her four-year old daughter out to eat in Stillwater, a town on the St Croix River about 20 miles east of St. Paul. Stillwater has two main industries: bars & entertainment - and the Stillwater state prison. The prison, where human beings are forced to work at twelve cents an hour and face punishing medical neglect during the pandemic, is a breeding ground for both multi-racial solidarity against state-sponsored slavery - and segregation and white supremacy. That night downtown Stillwater would be made unsafe by bikers with ties to a white supremacist prison gang - sparking a strong reaction from Stillwater workers and residents.

The horrendous murder of George Floyd - and the powerful Uprising that followed, inspired action from some Twin Cities workers. On June 16th, workers at the Seward Co-op Grocery store on East Franklin Ave staged a brief walk-out in the parking lot to demand Justice for George Floyd and the abolition of the police department.  

During the opening months of the COVID 19 pandemic, frontline healthcare workers at St Paul's United Hospital (part of the Allina Health system) took measures to protect themselves, their families and the public they serve. These efforts were vehemently opposed by management. Among other positions they took, management insisted workers use their personal scrubs instead of the scrubs readily available at the hospital and used by doctors, physician assistants and some nurses.

Fellow educators and I encountered many former and current students in the street at the end of May fighting for justice, and now our workplaces are bringing in so-called experts from everywhere but Minneapolis to introduce us to the ABC’s of identity and privilege. These paid hacks are not the leaders we should be turning to.

I have learned through living in homeless camps that the true war on fascism and the state starts with feeding and sheltering the people you were taught to fear and learning to love those who have suffered the most.

The backlash from white Minneapolis progressives to radical demands/actions like the encampments, the George Floyd Autonomous Zone, and abolishing the police has taught me a lot about how a lack of real solidarity makes it easy to abandon radical ideas when comfort, control, and security are threatened. 

The most clear lesson I learned (or re-learned) this summer is that if we wait for policy change or permission from capitalists and politicians we will never end houselessness. On the other hand, If we continue to assert our human right to housing through occupations and direct actions we can make sure every person in our region has a warm home.