one thing today

Shawn Jackson and his wife, Destiny, both 26, said they were driving home from a son’s basketball game when the family found themselves caught in a clash between protesters and federal agents in North Minneapolis. The couple sensed the encounter could quickly spiral out of control, they said, but when they tried to turn their car around to exit the blocked-off street, they were surrounded by federal agents. “From the side, the front and from behind me, it was nothing but ICE,” Mr. Jackson said in an interview on Thursday. One agent told the couple that they needed to get out of the area. Ms. Jackson said she and her husband responded that they were trying to do exactly that, but their path was blocked by agents coming up the street. Then, agents let loose on the crowd, the couple said. The crowd-control grenades went off around them and one tear gas canister rolled beneath the car, Ms. Jackson said. A concussive blast — from the tear gas canister or another device, she wasn’t sure ...

  Miguel, a young Latino man, was in a subway station and saw a father with his young daughter in his arms jump down onto the tracks right before a train enters the station. Miguel jumped down onto the track and saw the child underneath a car in front of her dead father.     Please don’t look back at your papa, baby girl. Look at me, look at me.  I can’t get under the track with you.  I need to stay here and help you.  And please, young one, leave your back pack behind.  I can see it is stuck.  It don’t matter.  We will get it later.  Come to me.  Come to me like a puppy.  Pretend you are a cute, little, hungry dog.  I help you.  I don’t have big words.  But I know something.  And I need to tell it to you.  You will be good.  I promise.  I promise you, pretty little puppy girl.  I will save you.  You will go home today to your mama and  family and your toys and bed. Come to...

 

An actor who did my fav play I've written ... in 2013 ... Rent a Beatnik ... sent it to me after I thought I had lost it forever. It's great when you re-read something after a very long time and it's better than you remembered - he says.  One of the niks recited the following nutty poem in a party scene. The ad above was real.  I love that it says badly groomed but brilliant.  a popcorn puppet strolls down the shrinking street long shadows the color of softness show the way the day waves goodbye a silver spot of falling fluid neon light  buzz saws beneath hard winter skin  as beauty follows the body’s leave adorned by the dying old man dawn in the cryptic crossfire spin of growing dusk   there grows in him and yes, in us a rise, an edenic sense of tribal events  commencing themselves  to the word we proclaim ”earth”  we catch a crazy itch here of unsung subterranean sounds   as lightning sizzles the bones of shattered names  and bur...

 

“…when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”  —  Audre Lorde Audre Lorde was an activist who dedicated her life to confronting all manner of injustice. She  made it clear in her writings and speeches that silence is the oxygen injustice breathes. Power thrives when people doubt their own eyes, when they’re told that the story they witnessed isn’t the story that occurred. And that’s why Lorde’s words feel even more urgent today. We live in a time when institutions rewrite events before the truth has even settled. When videos contradict official statements, and people holding cameras are treated like threats. When accountability is promised in press releases but avoided at all costs in practice. In moments like these, speaking out becomes more than expression. It becomes evidence.