Won't You Be My Neighbor?: Woke Antifa's Secret Weapon [View all]

https://www.firewalledmedia.com/p/wont-you-be-my-neighbor


“Come get some food! Don’t let the food go to waste!” the protester shouted into his megaphone. Behind him, three people pushed a dolly loaded with a large box of snack-sized chips and four large coolers through the crowd of hundreds in front of the Graduate Hotel by Hilton, a four-star hotel in the heart of Minneapolis where the secret police are staying. “Fuck ICE! Get food! Get some food for your neighbor!”

Steam billowed into the razor-cold air as they opened one of the coolers and began to aggressively hand hot foil-wrapped burritos to anyone within reach. Protesters took a break from banging pots and pans, blowing whistles, playing horned instruments, rapping on lampposts with small silver hammers, blasting Rage Against the Machine through neon speakers, screaming, shouting, clapping, and/or playing syncopated beats on upturned Home Depot buckets to accept this gift of food and the warmth that came with it: physical, emotional, spiritual.

You hear the word “neighbor” a lot in Minneapolis, and it means something different there than anywhere else I’ve been. When I think about my neighbors, I think about people temporarily living in close proximity to me. Out here, there are wider implications. There’s affection, and a desire to help out that often manifests in the irrepressible desire to provide, to give, to offer. Some people I spoke to during my week-long trip told me this meaning of “neighbor” is a new thing here, established in the wake of George Floyd with thoughtfulness and purpose. Whatever it is, it’s ubiquitous, and not just in activist circles.

Everywhere I went in Minneapolis, someone tried to give me something. At a different hotel wake-up in the suburb of Maple Grove, someone offered me a whistle immediately after arriving; when I explained that I was press, they offered hand-warmers instead. A box of hot coffee sat on the axle of one of the massive snowplows the city used to block off the street, free for anyone who wanted it.

*snip*