longer.blue

Please take the time to read and share this post my son, Alex, so passionately wrote. Friends - if you have not heard (and from the sounds of it, many of you have not), ICE agents murdered a man, Alex Jeffery Pretti, a 37 year old ICU Nurse in broad daylight yesterday. He was legally observing ICE’s actions while defending a woman who was knocked to the ground. He was pepper sprayed, tackled by a group of ICE agents, pistol whipped and shot multiple times, several of which after he was already lifeless on the ground. If you have not seen the video or have chosen to ignore or turn away, I STRONGLY urge you to not - to look directly at what our Government is doing to us, and that means ALL of us. Because what happens on the streets of one city is invariably connected to every other city, street and town, it affects each and every one of us on a fundamental level; and that means YOU! 🫵 This sham administration has already spun this event in a way that claims Alex brandished his firearm and attempted to murder federal agents. When you watch the video, from every angle, it is VERY CLEAR he did not. He held onto his phone with one hand and while he did have a concealed firearm, it was registered, never taken out of its holster and lawfully protected by the 2nd amendment. ICE agents attacked him, overwhelmed him and after he was on the ground, one agent disarmed him while two others murdered him in cold blood seconds later. If this is hard and heavy to read, good. It should be. We need to stop ignoring these atrocities and pretending this is normal or that this is a thing that doesn’t affect ALL of us. It does not matter if you were born here, came here legally or illegally. ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL and NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL. EVERYONE DESERVES RESPECT, DIGNITY AND THE RIGHT TO EXIST. I am so angry that there are masked, undertrained cowards that have been given the power by the DHS to come into our communities to terrorize and dehumanize good, caring people like those who live here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The anger and outrage from those protesting is warranted and has been provoked by countless policies from this administration to strip basic civil rights from marginalized people in the name of white supremacy. I am angry and you should be too. YOU SHOULD BE TOO!! I am also filled with a tremendous amount of sadness and grief for the communities being marred by the actions of these tyrannical few, for Alex Pretti, for Renee Good, for the countless unnamed immigrants, black and brown people that have been terrified to leave their homes for the last several months for fear of being detained, ripped from their families, their homes and treated in ways that we can only imagine… and if ICE is murdering people in broad daylight, you can’t tell me what they are doing behind closed doors is any more humane. I had this workout circled as an elevation day; increasing the gain and resistance every half mile. I found that every notch I added of resistance, the more motivated I was to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep putting one foot in front of the other and standing up for what is right. Every step filled with the same anger and sadness detailed above, multiplied in ways that I cannot describe through words alone. But as I crested the pinnacle of this workout, I was filled with a sense of hope that their illusion is crumbling. That momentum is shifting and that the hearts and minds of the masses is seeing these policies play out for what they truly are. That through hardship, we rise, we endure, we overcome. There is no sense or reason for why - why people have to die or be hurt while simply trying to exist, but this is the world we are living in, and the numbers of those of us who know that and feel that in our bones FAR outweighs the numbers of the tyrannical few that are enacting these inhumane policies and actions. Every little action we take to love and support our neighbors, every step we take to denounce tyranny in all forms increases the collective resistance and allows momentum to swing in the favor of what is right, what is true and helps build a world for ALL human beings. If you voted for this administration or not, that time is behind us and we need to look forward to what comes next. You are allowed to change your mind in the face of blatant evidence of wrong doing - you are allowed to do the right thing and stand with those fighting for their right to exist. And “doing the right thing” is not a subjective matter. YOU know the right thing. We all do. When we look deep within ourselves and have the self-awareness and empathy to understand that what is happening all over the country to vulnerable, marginalized people THIS IS NOT RIGHT. Resist tyranny, resist hatred, resist violence, white supremacy, the lies and gaslighting of what your own two eyes can clearly see. Watch the videos, say their names and never ever, ever give up ❤️