"In a Democracy, The Fundamental Civic Unit is Neighbor"

How you can organize and prepare thru lessons from Minneapolis

A line from Jelani Cobb stuck out to me this week: “In a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is neighbor.”

It was a line that spoke directly to me! This is what I’ve been writing about these last 3+ years. We need to get to know our neighbors to keep ourselves and our communities safe.

Usually, I’m writing about it in terms of disaster preparedness in the form of a natural disaster. But in this case, we are seeing government-imposed disaster across the United States, especially in Minnesota. And what we are seeing there is hyper-local organizing specifically to protect their neighbors.

Cobb, staff writer at The New Yorker and dean of the Columbia Journalism School, was speaking on Stacey Abrams’ podcast, “Assembly Required.” The context in which he said this line was describing the fugitive slave patrols in the North during the time of enslavement. He says this:

“When I teach the Fugitive Slave Act, I would talk about the tremendous response from people in the North when these fugitive patrols would show up and try to grab people and drag them back into bondage. The case in Boston, where 2,000 people would come out to prevent a Black man to be returned into slavery. And my students will say that ‘all these people were abolitionists,’ and I’m like ‘no, people had a wide array of views about the question of slavery.’ What they did not tolerate was the idea of their neighbors being ripped out of their community. In a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is neighbor.”

First, let’s highlight that Cobb is comparing ICE to slave patrols. We’re often talking about what we’re seeing in terms of Nazi Germany, which is apt, of course. But the comparison to slave patrols shows that this has happened before in the United States, that authoritarianism has always been here, hiding in what looks like a democracy. But also, it shows that there has been a civic duty to protect our neighbors.

Certainly, segregation has created a situation where our neighbors are much more likely to look like us. But what we’re seeing in Minnesota right now is that more and more people around the state are seeing the entire community as their neighbors. But beyond that, there is a very clear organizing principle of connecting hyper-locally to resist ICE. In a country where only about a quarter of Americans say they know all or most of their neighbors, this is harder to do. But Minnesota is showing us how to do it and why it’s necessary to get out of our homes and connect with the people around us.

And so, taking a page out of how Minnesotans are organizing, here are my suggestions on how you can organize your community to protect one another.

You may be saying, “But I’m not an organizer.”

My answer to you is “YES, you are!” If you have the ability to make connections between people, you can be an organizer. I had always been hesitant to call myself an organizer, even when, for years, I had been the person to start the affinity group or rally like-minded people around a cause. It honestly wasn’t until I participated in Garrett Bucks’ Barnraisers Project cohort a few years ago that I felt confident with that title (don’t get me started on how long it took me to call myself a “writer”).

Know that there are so many other people out there feeling the same as you, but they’re persisting. And also know that you’re surrounded by people like me (and Garrett and many, many others) who are out here to both cheer you on and serve as a resource (seriously! I’m super willing to chat with anyone who wants to jump into organizing).

Now onto what you can do to prepare your community for resistance/ICE

This is where the “in a democracy, the first fundamental civic unit is neighbor” idea comes in. What we are seeing in Minnesota is that they are doing hyper-local (i.e., block by block) organizing by way of Signal. Anytime there’s an 🧊 presence, a message goes out through Signal, and those who are present all have whistles and tools to immediately sound the alarm.

Here are some steps to start your own community safety group!

Step 1. Find your “center” of community

This is the place or group of people you are already most connected to—this is your starting point. This could be your neighborhood association, your place of worship, your kid’s school, your book club, your workplace, or whatever qualifies as “center” of community for you.

Step 2. Find some co-conspirators

Put out some feelers on who could work alongside you in organizing. This work is better done in community and is way easier to strategize, so find the people you can start working with.

Step 3. Find others in adjacent/other neighborhoods or communities doing the work and learn from them

There are almost definitely other groups organized near you. Find them and connect with them! There’s honestly no formula for how to do that; it’s likely going to come organically. For example, a friend is in conversation with someone doing this work in a neighborhood community and remembers you are organizing something, and puts you in contact. Something like that. You’d be surprised how quickly the connections can snowball by just putting out feelers with the people around you.

Also note that if there’s a community network already created that you and your co-conspirators could join, go for it! No need to reinvent the wheel!

Step 4. Expand your network

Begin to expand your network in a cautious way. Signal is currently the most secure way to communicate with your network and might take some convincing for folks to download ‘yet another app,’ but it’s worth it.

A couple of things to keep in mind when expanding your network:

• Be careful about who is added and how they’re added. The security of Signal is compromised mainly by someone leaking information. So if your group is dedicated to community safety, you’ll want to have some kind of protocol (e.g., they need training to be added), and if it’s a larger neighborhood group with no training requirements, make sure it’s spread word-of-mouth between trusted folks.

• Make sure there is a stated purpose for the group. When there are a lot of people in a group, if you have no limits on content shared, it can get out of hand really fast. So be clear on what content is and is not allowed in that group to keep it clear for important info.

Step 5. Put your plans into action

Now’s the time to put your plans into action, whatever those look like. This could be community safety plans, mutual aid organizing, or planning actions.

For some groups, it could be organizing various other actions, such as the hundreds of folks who staged a protest at Target a couple of weeks ago by buying salt and then returning it. Read more below on other ways to organize.

Myotus, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Other ways to organize

You may not be in a position to specifically organize community safety, but you have skills and abilities that you can contribute. Think about what you can do logistically and emotionally. Some ideas include:

• Mutual aid organizing — Mutual aid fundraisers and assistance are what keep many immigrants and others who are afraid to leave their homes afloat. Find a way to support or coordinate mutual aid efforts to help with supply donations or raising funds for rent support.

• Organize small or large actions — There are ample creative ways to take action not only against ICE itself, but the corporations that are helping them (e.g., the hotels that our housing agents use, the companies they rent cars from, etc.). Here’s the list of corporations to target (includes Target)! The folks I referenced above who creatively stopped business as usual at Target are the perfect example. Or be like this drummer posted up outside the Hilton housing ICE agents. Or it could be just sharing what you are doing to boycott these companies on social media.

• Raise money for and volunteer with organizations supporting immigrants — This goes along with not reinventing the wheel! There are countless organizations around the U.S. doing incredible work to support immigrants. Volunteer with them and take their training. If you’re a lawyer, your services are needed to serve as a guide in your community. If you’re good with kids, offer your childcare services at trainings and other gatherings. If you’re an artist, find out how you can use your creative skills to assist the organization (making signs or event posters?).

• Join a protest! — This sounds so simple, but it is as important as anything else to show up and demonstrate that you are not afraid. The Administration is counting on us to obey in advance. I urge you: do NOT obey in advance. Show your support and solidarity by showing up. If you don’t want to walk among the protestors, bring them hot beverages, doughnuts, or something to show your solidarity.

• Visibly show your solidarity — This is similar to protesting, but it is also an everyday practice of wearing something or showcasing that this is not right. Get a t-shirt that says F*** ICE or whatever or buy swag from one of the immigrant rights orgs you’re supporting.

• Advocate for a National General Strike (esp. if you’re a business owner) — I was reminded of this because one of my favorite local wine shop’s newsletter not only told details of their current flood-induced renovation, but also their work to organize other business owners around the idea of a General Strike and a very specific declaration that ICE is a domestic terror organization and that anyone who has a problem with them saying this is welcome to not come back. I signed up for their wine club then and there (something I had been intending to do, but ya know, a plug for anti-fascism is something I cannot ignore).

Also…how you can support Minnesota

While we absolutely need to lay the groundwork to protect our own communities, there is no doubt that Minnesota is very much experiencing the heaviest toll under this occupation. Along with all of the suggestions above, I suggest you look at ways to support Minnesota from afar in these ways:

• Donate to rental assistance funds — Countless people are being forced to shelter in place so they don’t put themselves and their families at risk of being kidnapped by ICE. Therefore, they’re not able to go to school or work. Donate to emergency rental assistance funds so they won’t be evicted! All funds donated to this Church of the Incarnation of Minneapolis fund will go directly to families who need it for rent.

• Donate to this Immigrant Rapid Response Fund — In addition to rent, families need food, transportation, health care, and other basic needs, legal services, and education and advocacy trainings. The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has a fund that distributes to community-based organizations that can identify recipients and distribute funds.

• Donate to organizations on the frontlines — Tending the Soil, a community-based organization in Minnesota, is fundraising for to directly support community organizers for resources (community monitoring and documentation of ICE raids, legal trainings, de-escalation practices), legal defense and bail support, and rapid response and community defense (emergency funds, transportation, food and safety gear, and communication/organizing infrastructure).

Want more to choose from? There are countless ways to support. This site has a detailed list of ways to support rent relief funds, mutual aid funds, food support, pet and animal support, union member support funds, and diaper funds.

And thank you all for looking at for your neighbors!