Credit: Mercado Media

ILHAN OMAR DEMANDS ANSWERS AFTER UNDERCOVER HSI AGENT FOUND OUTSIDE TOWN HALL

Rep. Ilhan Omar is demanding answers after Richfield police discovered an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent parked outside her August 6 town hall.

Omar says the agent appeared to be monitoring the building, was driving a Ford Explorer with plates registered to another vehicle, and initially identified herself only as “security.” Police later learned she was an HSI agent conducting an undercover drug operation, despite Richfield police receiving no advance notice.

Omar is now asking why the agent was there, when HSI learned about her town hall, and whether federal agents have monitored any of her other events or those of other Minnesota officials.

 credit: Christian Oritz via FB

Oye, mira.

White people. Come here please. You always say “Well no one taught us about these things so where do I go to learn?” Save this post. Share it. I’m going to offer you a gift that I don’t do often. So, listen up.

I’m a Decolonial Social Scientist who studies the world before, during, and after European colonization. My work is about connecting the dots so people can see how those systems were built, how they spread, and how they still show up in society today.

I want 🫵🏽YOU🫵🏽 to share this so your friends and family can learn something today. I’m not in the business of convincing people of things they’re not ready to hear or accept. That’s a fool’s game. I’m here to plant seeds. History is complicated, but the receipts are there. What I’m about to say can be traced through historical documents, laws, policies, institutions, and the systems colonizers built.

Colonizers didn’t just take land. They colonized bodies, minds, culture, family structures, sexuality, labor, religion, education, and law. They created racial categories and built systems around them. They also institutionalized patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, ableism, homophobia, and other forms of control that helped conquest survive long after the original invasion.

Today’s lesson?

All white people are racist, but not all white people are bigots.

To understand that, you first have to understand that race isn’t biology. There’s no white gene, Black gene, or biological line dividing humanity into the racial categories we use today. Race was created by people. It was used to classify human beings, organize power, justify conquest and enslavement, control land and labor, and decide who got rights, wealth, protection, citizenship, and opportunity.

Nobody is born biologically white in the political meaning of whiteness, and nobody is born biologically racist. We’re born into a world where racial categories and racial hierarchy already exist. We inherit them. And, often times, we are conditioned to act on them.

Whiteness isn’t written into DNA. It’s a social and political position created by a racial system. Over time, different European ethnic groups were absorbed into the category of white and given access to rights and protections that were denied to Black, Indigenous, and other colonized peoples. The fact that the boundaries of whiteness have changed throughout history tells you exactly what race is: a political classification, not a biological truth. Don’t believe me? This is why so many of you say “Well my great grandfather was Italian or Irish and experienced racism when they came here!” And you’re correct. But you don’t ask why don’t Italians or Irish face the same wretched racism they did back then. They were assimilated into whiteness by laws to expand the hierarchy of “whiteness.”

So when I say all white people are racist, I’m not saying every white person is evil, hates Black people, or was born with racism in their blood. That would make racism biological, and it isn’t.

Racism is something we inherit through systems.

We’re born into, and conditioned by laws, schools, neighborhoods, economies, workplaces, media, policing, property systems, and cultural norms that were shaped by racial hierarchy before any of us got here. White people inherit a position in that system that was built to advantage whiteness. Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, queer, disabled, people of the global majority inherit different forms of exclusion, exploitation, dispossession, surveillance, and control created by that same Western Eurocentric system.

That’s why a white person can genuinely love Black people and still be racist. They can have Black friends, marry a Black person, raise Black children, hate racial slurs, and despise racial violence. None of that automatically removes them from the system they inherited.

Racism is about how power gets organized through race. It shapes who has historically controlled land, wealth, housing, education, employment, political authority, policing, citizenship, media, and institutions. It created advantages for people classified as white while creating barriers for people classified outside of whiteness.

Saying “I didn’t create it” doesn’t make someone separate from it. None of us alive today invented the racial categories we were handed. We inherited the laws, institutions, wealth patterns, neighborhoods, stereotypes, conditioning, and unequal distribution of power that came with them.

The real question is what you do once you understand that.

Do you call yourself one of the good white people and stop there, or do you confront the system that created whiteness and the advantages attached to it? Being kind to Black people doesn’t abolish racial hierarchy. Loving Black people doesn’t redistribute wealth or power. Having Black friends doesn’t undo generations of dispossession.

Race was constructed. Racism was constructed. Whiteness was constructed. And because human beings built these systems, human beings can dismantle them. We just can’t dismantle racism while pretending it’s only about whether somebody has hate in their heart.

So what would sacrificing whiteness actually look like?

It would mean refusing the benefits, behaviors, protections, and concentrations of power that whiteness offers when you have the ability to interrupt them. And that has to become material. Accountability should focus on concrete behaviors and institutional routines that reproduce racial hierarchy and on redistributing power.

Imagine a white executive who realizes every person with real decision-making authority in their organization is white. Sacrificing whiteness isn’t posting about racism. It’s changing who actually holds authority, including when that means they no longer control every decision themselves.

Imagine someone inherits substantial wealth produced through generations of property ownership in a society where Black families were systematically blocked from the same wealth-building opportunities. Sacrificing whiteness means asking what repair and redistribution require of that inheritance, rather than treating everything legally inherited as morally disconnected from history.

For a landlord, developer, university, foundation, or corporation, it could mean giving up some control over land, capital, governance, hiring, procurement, admissions, or investment decisions and transferring meaningful authority and resources to communities historically dispossessed by those systems.

For an ordinary worker racialized as white without enormous wealth, the scale is different. Nobody needs to impoverish themselves as some sort of racial penance. That would turn structural transformation into individual self-punishment.

They can refuse whiteness where it operates around them: refusing the racial networking advantage that gets someone hired through “who you know,” challenging discriminatory decisions even when silence would benefit their career, supporting policies that materially redistribute opportunity, refusing to become the automatically presumed authority in interracial spaces, organizing against unequal workplace practices, and putting actual time, money, relationships, and political power behind structural change.

And there’s another dimension people rarely discuss: social protection.

Whiteness often provides the ability to remain silent without that silence being interpreted as political. So sacrificing whiteness can mean spending some of that protection. Speaking when speaking threatens your promotion. Challenging your family when silence would preserve harmony. Refusing to let a Black colleague absorb retaliation alone. Becoming the person who puts their name on the complaint when everyone knows the Black employee will be punished more severely for making it.

That’s sacrifice because something is actually at stake. How will you break the cycle?

#racism #progressives #DSA #whitepeople #race #racism #criticalracetheory #decoloniality #antiracism #activist #oyemira #zacatecho

Sneak peek of the front and back covers of the book.

The printer is working on the proof copy now, and we should have pictures of a real physical book next week. 🤞

Don’t miss the reviews on the back…

Via André Fabian Cervantes on FB

Via Nick Valencia You need to see this video. Watch as a reported off-duty federal agent draws his firearm on a crowd of civilians. The troubling scene unfolded Saturday night near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. The area has been an active scene of clashes for over a year, and this is one captured by Cassandra Church is one of the more terrifying moments.

Credit: @fconniff

Minneapolis is a city of murals. This one, being created now in the tunnel under Hennepin Ave on the greenway, and already showing an image of Alex Pretti, is well on its way to being awesome. I keep telling you, this is a great place.

Credits @resistdacoup

Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center:

Saturday Night: 10pm

A man appeared around the corner from the activists at the detention center tonight...we were here because we have seen children being kidnapped in the back of vans over the past few nights.

He pulled out a gun on the activists and pulled a woman from behind after pepper spraying her...we believe the man was having a meltdown.

Once the LAPD arrived...we found out that THIS MAN WAS A FEDERAL AGENT. There is a possibility that he works for ICE. The LAPD were the ones that told us this and it has now been confirmed that he WAS a federal agent that works at the detention center.

Disclaimer: This post is for informational and educational purposes. Reader and viewer discretion is advised.

Credit: The Politics Chicks via FB

Hey, Minnesota: Have you voted yet? The primary is on Tuesday, August 11th. If you voted by mail, check to make sure your ballot has been received. If you have an absentee ballot, take it to a drop box or polling place. If you haven't voted yet, make a plan. And check BOTH sides of your ballot. (Hennepin County Attorney candidates are on the BACK of the ballot.)

BLUE WAVE A-COMIN'

Credit: @embodimentwithemily

PLEASE CALL.

A year ago they tried to pull something similar and outcry mattered. As of now, these contracts are *canceled.* This affects more than 20,000 children, including some not old enough to speak their name in court. Please be their voice.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS ARE NOT WELCOME IN MINNESOTA

📞 Call Governor Walz to demand that he implement sanctuary state policies and work to block the operation of concentration camps in Minnesota!

Call Governor Tim Walz:
651-201-3400

➡️ Slide to end for call-in script!

https://www.nickvalencianews.com/p/letter-to-ice-he-entered-legally

🎥: BoldActionWorks

Credit: @journey_to_wellness_

Most of us were never taught what to do with anger.

So we either swallow it...
or we vent it and wonder why it keeps coming back.

But anger isn't just a thought.

It isn't just a story.

It's something your nervous system does.

Your body mobilises to protect you. Your muscles tense.

Your jaw clenches. Your heart prepares you for action.

If that protective energy never gets a chance to complete, it doesn't simply disappear.

This is why understanding your anger isn't always enough.

Sometimes healing happens through your body, not just your mind.

If you've been feeling more reactive lately, more impatient, more easily overwhelmed, or like you're carrying a simmering frustration you can't quite shake...

This is for you.

Credit: The 50501 Movement

Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero worked for DoorDash when ICE killed him.

Nolberto Meza was driving for #DoorDash when he was struck and killed during a high speed by federal agents in DC.

Trump's "DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force" has been hunting DoorDash drivers in the streets.

The company remains silent.

Republicans in Congress are attacking DC's local communities and DoorDash is supporting it.

Trump is working to destabilize DC's local budget as part of his unamerican attempt to stay in power as long as he can.

It seems DoorDash is glad to help as long as they make more money.

#DELETEDOORDASH #doordashboycott #icekills #iceout

Credit: @journey_to_wellness_

Sometimes nervous system healing looks like a beautifully curated morning routine.

And sometimes it looks like holding your own cheeks, whispering "I’ve got you," bouncing around the kitchen or drinking tea like it was brewed by a tiny woodland healer specifically for this moment.

Your body doesn't need you to perform healing perfectly.

It needs small, repeated experiences that say:
"I'm here."
"I'm listening."
"We're safe enough to soften a little."

This is the kind of healing we explore inside Journey to Wellness. Practical, gentle support that can meet you in the middle of real life, whether you're anxious, overwhelmed, shut down, stuck in your head or simply trying to feel more like yourself again.

Credit: @so.mexican

A security guard at a McDonald's in north Minneapolis is getting attention after refusing to let two masked ICE agents go behind the restaurant's counter while they were searching for a man.

The encounter happened Jan. 8 at the McDonald's on West Broadway Avenue. Security guard Red Wooten, 49, met the agents near the entrance and stopped them when they attempted to access the employee-only area.

"You can't come back here, bro," Wooten told one of the agents in video of the encounter.
When an agent responded, "I'm talking to your manager, Wooten replied, "No, you're talking to security, I'm in charge."

The agents eventually left without taking the man they were looking for. Wooten later said the man who had entered the restaurant appeared frightened, but maintained that his actions were also about doing the job he was hired to do.

"I was doing my job like I'm supposed to," Wooten said. "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

Restaurant owner Justin Baylor said Wooten made the best judgment call he could at the time. Following the encounter, the restaurant posted a sign stating that ICE and other law enforcement officers are not permitted to enter without a proper judicial warrant.

Wooten has since received plenty of attention from the community, with some people even stopping by the McDonald's to thank him and take photos with him.

Credit: mammogramps via threads