Dearly Beloved
We are gathered here today to get through this thing called ICE
Our Best Subjects
A teaching colleague and informal mentor of mine, Judith Hamera, says that our job in moments of interregnum - when the old order, with all its cruelties and comforts, is turning toward the new, but we’re not there yet - is to consider ourselves as subjects of history. She’s right, of course, and I still find it prickly: what do you mean I don’t control what happens? What do you mean I should think about not just what to do but how to to see and hear? What do you mean I am not in charge of my own destiny all the time?!?!!?
My individualist indoctrination bristles at the idea that my future is wrapped up not just in yours, but in the decisions of people with way more power than me. Solidarity is overlapping webs. Witnessing is both subjective and poignant.
Rate Your Driver
Here is an experience I had a couple months ago; a Lyft driver and me as subjects of history with each other for 20 minutes.
I was in Philadelphia for a day to show some of Perfect City’s work to the awesome Peoples’ Budget Office. I was arriving on a flight from another city, part of a brief, civic art nerd tour, instead of taking the train from New York like I normally would, so I ended up in a Lyft from the airport to the site.
The driver and I fell into an easy rapport. We talked about the rising prices in NYC, where he’d grown up, and how even in Philly it was getting hard to make ends meet. We didn’t make a connection to the current admin, maybe because, really, both major parties have contributed to this current economic struggle, if not the full-scale fascist affront we find ourselves in now.
He mentioned that his girlfriend and their kid had moved to North Carolina to be with her family and because it was cheaper. He said he’d just taken a job with DHS that came with a bonus that would mean his daughter would have a good Christmas, and he could see them for the holidays before he went to training.
I felt my heart soften and harden at the same time. Was the way he said “DHS” and not “ICE” a little furtive? Was I imagining that? Is this the banality of evil Arendt was talking about, or a whole different kind? Not the banality of the paper-shuffler, but the banality of withholding the basic comforts and needs from so many that it finally makes sense to take a job like that so you can have Christmas with your kid and partner. The banality of the agency that offers better pay, masks its cruelty in kind words.
I was subjected to the person, before shipping off to possibly do something terrible, not yet masked; not the social media post I already agree with. His humanity got in the way of my internalized slogans. Maybe I wish I’d said, “I hope you don’t kill anyone.”
What To Do?
I have been trying to imagine, too, what it feels like to be at the south end of a moral compass, perhaps because it seems like there aren’t a lot of options.
It’s obviously a long stretch from the Lyft driver to Stephen Miller or Kristi Noem. But is the Lyft driver the one who shot Alex Pretti, around the block from where I stay when I visit my folks in Minneapolis, near Little Tijuana’s, where I’d go as a teenager because it was one of the few places open late when I was growing up? The masks they wear make it easier to imagine one of them as him, pulling the trigger again, again. Not thinking of his daughter, or his girlfriend, maybe just how cold it is and how little sleep anyone on the team is getting because of the drumming and the chanting all night outside the Hilton. Everyone in your face all the time. I thought I was just taking a job.
What we can hold is what we can cope with: does compassion for the ICE agents help us keep us safe? Alex Pretti seemed pretty compassionate. What happens beyond words inside you, what chews at the guts of your guts when you hear that Alex Pretti’s last words were “Are you okay?” Should someone have asked you that more often?
I asked my friend C in Minneapolis how to support people there. She said: organize your block, your building, get your people together and get ready. If you want to know more, please find me.
You’ll Be Hearing from us Again
As an aside, another Minneapolis person of my generation posted recently: “You know how people from Minneapolis like to talk about their hometown way too much? I apologize in advance for the next several decades, because we will be insufferable.”
Perfect City’s New Look
Perfect City, the working group I started in 2016 with a group of awesome, born New Yorkers, is getting a logo makeover. A new website is coming soon, and we are reaching out to new cities to become part of our network. I started writing this from Anchorage, Alaska, where I’m working with the National Civic League, the public library, the YMCA and the community councils of Alaska. This past weekend I was in Dayton, Ohio as part of the Westwood Rising neighborhood plan and exhibition. This spring I’m beginning work with NYC’s Civic Engagement Commission. See you there!
Spotifyless Playlist: Windchill Edition
“Friend to Friend in the Endtime” - Lungfish (Anchorage Coffee Shop)
“Whip Poor Will (Bonus Track)” - Songs: Ohia (Dayton Coffee Shop)