EVERYONE CAN FIGHT ICE: HERE IS HOW

A Practical Handbook to Opposing The US Gestapo.

ICE have doubled down, flooding Minneapolis with thousands of federal agents and expanding what the state is calling an aggressive enforcement operation that is, in every real sense, an occupation. Tens of thousands of people have already taken to the streets in protest, but federal forces keep pushing forward; detaining citizens, breaking into homes, and dragging people from their cars in ways that is bigger than any one city or any one death.

This is where showing up matters. If you can be in Minneapolis or another protest site, don’t treat it as an optional weekend errand but as a necessary material response to something that’s trying to normalize force. A place where your body, not just your scrolling thumb, counts as evidence that people refuse to leave the streets to federal agents without a fight. And if you can’t make it in person, show up online and in your community in ways that go beyond social media posts: amplify local organizers, share first-hand reporting, support legal funds and bail funds, and refuse the tidy narratives that frame all this as just another news cycle. We cannot let ICE’s presence calcify into the new normal. Fascism in America is no longer creeping. It is here.

There is a mental cul-de-sac you can drive into whenever the words activism or fighting fascism appear in your consciousness, usually online and usually while you are already tired. The cul-de-sac looks like this: I don’t know what to do, which feels like indifference but is actually closer to overload. It’s not that you don’t care, rather, you care to the point that caring itself becomes kinda paralyzing. The prospect of trying and discovering the humiliatingly small size of your actual sphere of influence, feels somehow more unbearable than doing nothing.

Except that’s bullshit. Total bullshit. It’s a trick, a stupid and insidious way to keep people stuck. The reality is movements are ecosystems. They need people who do paperwork, who babysit for exhausted organizers, who research the names and communities of ICE agents. They need people who send one email or make one phone call or just answer yes when someone asks, Hey, can you help with this one thing?

Nobody feels qualified. Nobody feels ready. But activism isn’t about who you are, it’s about what you do. And what you do can be something small, but something small is something real and small is still movement.

Every movement has its leaders, the ones who write the statements, call the press, stand before the crowd and say, this is why we are here. But a movement is not just the sum of its rhetoric. It is the person who brings the bottled water, who tapes signs to the backs of people’s jackets, who stands at the edge of the protest handing out masks and snacks, gauze and earplugs, things that are needed but not dramatic enough to be documented.

There is the one who keeps the records, who writes down who was arrested and who needs bail, who has the phone numbers memorized and a steady voice when panic rises. The one who texts, who checks in, who says are you okay? There is the medic who shows up with gloves and bandages, who washes the pepper spray from burning eyes. The driver waiting three blocks away with the engine running, just in case.

Movements are built by those who stand in front of microphones, yes, but also by those who sew, who cook, who type. Someone makes the flyers. Someone designs the graphics. Someone calls the city council, again and again, their voice patient, unwavering. Someone watches the livestream from home, updating social media with locations, warnings, safe routes. Someone reminds everyone to eat.

There are those who do not protest at all, who stay behind to watch the children, to prepare the legal defense, to make space for those who do. Those who open their homes, set out blankets, listen. There are the ones who put their bodies between others and danger, and the ones who carry the weight afterward, who sit with the grief, who understand that anger and exhaustion and sorrow are all part of the same thing.

A movement is not just a moment. It is not just the speech or the confrontation or the victory. It is the persistence, the daily work of care and organization. And it has always been this way.

Any movement that can’t hold space for single mothers or disabled people or the chronically overworked is a movement that has basically given up on half the population before it’s even begun.People want to help. People want to be part of something that matters. But if the only options we believe are available to us is to spend six hours on our feet in a crowd inhaling tear gas, we are closing the door in the faces of a lot of people who would show up in a second if you just gave them another way to do it.

And there is always another way. Someone has to watch the kids. Someone has to keep track of ICE movements. Someone has to send texts, write emails, make spreadsheets, document what happens. Someone has to check in and say, Hey, you’ve been on the front lines for three weeks straight, do you need to crash on my couch and eat something that isn’t a granola bar?

Not everyone has to fight. You can show up with backpacks of Gatorade & protein bars. Everyone can do something. And that collective something really matters. The movement isn’t just the people in the streets. It’s the whole invisible network of people making sure the ones in the streets don’t collapse.

Here is a list I’ve collated of potential roles. It is limited by my experience & imagination. Feel free to chip in more in the comment section as well.

POEM OF THE WEEK: Winter Poem by Nikki Giovanni

Until next week - Be Excellent To Each Other 🤘 dg

PLAYLIST

Spotify🪀:

Apple Music🍎: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/on-my-brow-and-i-loved/pl.u-d2b0LoYTB1VW4K