A Message from Minnesota
Words matter. What we see is real.
We offer you little in the way of certainty;
just that the country you live in will not always be that country.*
~ from “Rite of Baptism” by Padraig O’Tuama
Dear Friends,
I have lived my entire life in Minnesota. I moved from Minneapolis to St. Paul, settling into my present house forty years ago. Only someone with deep roots here can understand what it’s like to love a place that rewards you in summer with an abundance of lakes and parks, bike trails, and walking paths, before slamming you in January with the wind-chill factor. How diabolical: a number designed to make you believe you’re miserable when actually you’re fine, considering. It could be worse.
Yes, there’s winter. Brisk. But jumper cables, a full tank of gas, and an abundance of kitty litter in the trunk will get you through. Just don’t take out the ice scraper. Ever. It’s a jinx.
If you move here, you will be mystified by the rituals of The Long Goodbye and The Last Donut. Don’t worry. In some future post, I will enlighten you. Maybe. Let’s not get too personal right away. Sometimes it takes a few years.
In the meantime, strangers will shovel your sidewalk, dig out your car, and call out a search party for the glove you dropped.
You’ve heard of Minnesota Nice. Call it Minnesota Normal. What’s happening here is, sickeningly, not normal.
I’ve been working on this post for what feels like forever. One thing happens, then another, and I can’t write through the heartache. Every sentence felt shallow and pointless. Things happening in the streets push their way into my every thought.
Even my grocery lists are not immune:
Yogurt. Peanut butter. What else? Moisturizer. Is Target the only place that carries that brand? I know Target’s on the bad list, but so many Somali women work there. If no one shops there, will the store close? Will they lose their jobs if they’re afraid to go to work?
An overnight forecast of minus 21 degrees. I deploy space heaters, run a trickle of water through the basement faucets, check the pipes. Does Amazon share Ring footage with ICE? Is it safe to use Google to find out?
Friday night, I fall asleep at my computer. Saturday morning, ready to hit Publish, I glance at my phone.
A text from my son.
What we are seeing is real.
~ A woman, 37, in red shirt, light blue jacket, tan beanie and a wide smile. A minute later, Renee Good was dead.
~ A Hmong elder in undershorts, Crocs, and handcuffs, with a red and pink blanket draped over his shoulders. Standing in subfreezing cold, in front of the door ICE agents had bashed in before ransacking his home, searching with no judicial warrant for two alleged sex offenders who had never lived there and were unknown to the family. They drove him around for an hour, questioned and fingerprinted him, demanding to see his ID. Which Scott did not have in his shorts.
~ A five-year-old boy wearing a Spiderman backpack and a blue knitted bunny cap. Despite pleas to leave him with caregivers, Liam was sent with his father to a detention facility in Texas. If, because of “optics,” he is released, does this erase his trauma?
~ A man, 37, in brown parka, khaki pants, duckbill cap, phone. Alex Pretti, lying face down, bullet holes in his back.
What we are seeing is real.
I feel pressured to write a polemic. A screed, outraged and politically charged. But that isn’t who I am.
I don’t use a bullhorn. In meetings, I’m the softest voice in the room. When I speak up, I feel as if I’m shouting.
Two Sundays ago, fifty neighbors crowded into a house three blocks away from mine. Strategy, division of labor, resources, connections. What do we, each one of us, have to offer?
It was a good meeting. I live among people who understand that caring for your neighbor may sound like whistles being blown, raw shouts of Shame! or the crackle of a radio at a schoolyard, warning of the presence of ICE vehicles. It is a quiet discussion among people who recognize that the softest voice in the room might be worth listening to.
It is the poem Renee Good did not get to write.
It is a human imperative.
Words matter.
I’ve spend much of my time on this earth gathering, assembling, thinking about words. What I see is alarming. Words emptied of meaning, deprived of context, beauty, and truth. Stories filtered through the greed-silos of social and corporate media. Banned. Defiled. And, of course, “weaponized.”
Think about that last one.
My immediate association — maybe ingrained during the Covid epidemic, from the way the virus is spread — is “aerosolized.” Cloying faux-floral air freshener. Migraine-inducing cologne. The product a novice hairdresser blasts in your face. Noxious, invisible, toxic chemicals. Teargas.
There is also “atomized.” We are separated, isolated from our communities, believing that we are alone in our fears and sorrows. This is the epidemic of loneliness there is so much hand-wringing about. Young men sit for hours in their basements on social media and are — another association — “radicalized.”
I wonder what drives someone to hide his face behind a mask, suit up in military gear, and join with other men similarly dressed, masked, and armed, to terrorize fellow citizens. What makes someone shoot a poet in the face, or a nurse in the back?
Where do they get their vile words?
AWFUL is the latest acronym for a woman perceived as fitting a certain stereotype. It stands for Affluent White Female Urban Liberal. Renee Good is AWFUL. So is her partner, Becca Good, who is being investigated by the Justice Department.
From The New York Times, January 17, 2026:
Domestic terrorist.
Professional agitator.
AWFUL.
I’ve been called the c-word. The b-word. The p-word. If you’re a woman, you know the sting and humiliation of hearing those epithets hissed or shouted or spoken in a matter-of-fact male voice in your direction.
Years ago, I filed a complaint against a workplace supervisor for addressing me with one of these words. I described it as “a derogatory gender-specific epithet.” It was more than one, and it was more than once, but I was fed up.
He called me at home. “Don’t do this,” he said, his voice rising in panic. “Look how much trouble you’ve caused me. I’ll be flipping burgers for the rest of my life.”
I reported him.
A few days later, I looked up from my seat in a coffee shop near my house. He was standing in front of my table, dressed in combat boots and carrying a camouflage backpack.
“Don’t do this,” he said.
He removed his aviator sunglasses, I could see the smug certainty in his expression. Of course she’ll back down. She’s a p***y.
I changed my routine. Found new places for lunch. Varied my choice of parking spaces. He found me. Again. Again. That smirk. I got tired of filing reports. Besides, didn’t he have the same rights as anyone within a public space? Could I prove that the hang-up calls at midnight came from him?
Eventually, he was fired. The manager told me that, while he could not comment on specifics, I’d be relieved to know that my complaints had not factored into the decision.
“He’ll probably leave you alone. He was terminated for something more serious than a little name-calling.”
After an ICE agent shot Renee Good three times through the windshield of her car, terminating her life, she was subjected to a little name-calling, too.
Her words to the man who killed her were, “I’m not mad at you.”
I won’t repeat what the agent said as he walked away. To do so would be to give him the last word.
He does not get to have the last word.
Friday — the day before I received that text — was the day of the general strike against ICE: walkouts, business closures, boycotts, tens of thousands of people marching in subzero cold. My son, who participates in most civic protests and is a union steward, decided to sit this one out.
“Happy birthday,” I said when I called him. “How does it feel to be 37?”
“Not a whole lot different.”
“You’re getting to that age. Only the milestones count.” I remembered when I reached the point when the birthdays of my children were the only ones I celebrated.
“Stay warm,” I said.
“I will. Love you.”
Renee Nicole Good, age 37.
Alex Jeffrey Pretti, age 37.
A friend asks if I want her to escort me home.
“Thanks for the offer,” I say. “But it’s only a couple of blocks.”
Twilight. The streets are empty. The only footsteps are mine, steady and loud where the pavement’s clear; a sound like the cracking of tiny bones where it isn’t. The cold air amplifies my sobs. The warmth of the gathering shatters.
Mary. You’re old. Invisible. Tiresome. A widow. It’s been almost three years, no one cares anymore. Going home to your cat. Mini’s 22, how long is she going to live? You’ll be a cat widow. Maybe you already are.
My fear when I leave the house? Not that the boiler will blow, or that if I disconnect the cameras, thieves will break in. I worry that Mini, confined to my daughter’s old room for her safety, will die of heartbreak. Or that when I find her small body, I will.
I’m pleased to see Ruth behind the cash register at Target. She doesn’t ask, “Paper or plastic?” She’s already placed one paper sack inside of another, repeating this five times as she scrutinizes my cart. As I unload, she passes each item across the scanner so quickly that I can barely keep up.
“How are things?” I ask. “Were you here when that guy came in to, uh —”
“Take a whiz? No. I saw the video.”
I’m about to say more, about the Praetorian guard of agents who accompanied the ICE commander and stood watch outside the men’s room. The whistles and shouts and profanity from customers. But Ruth is focused on stacking each bag with canned and boxed goods, followed by a layer of medium-weight items, bread and eggs on top.
“I keep my head down,” she says.
Looking more closely, I recognize that hunted look. Maybe she’s 65, or a year or two older. But she’s had this job for a long time. Managers less than half her age are beginning to sidle up, saying too cheerfully, Have you picked a retirement date? and You could take a round-the-world cruise with all the money you must have saved by now. Maybe she’s been transferred from a store in one of the tony suburbs. Given the worst shifts. I’ve seen that look in my own eyes, in the break room mirror.
If the till doesn’t balance at the end of the night. If she’s five minutes late coming back from lunch. Her hands in plain view at all times.
She glances up at the opaque half-dome of the pitiless lens that could determine her fate.
I take off my coat and head upstairs. Mini hasn’t touched her food since I left for the meeting. She’s curled up on the stack of pillows that, until a week ago, she was able to use to climb up to the bed we shared.
Now that I’m sitting on my footstool next to her, she chows down vigorously, turning her head to the side that has a couple of remaining stumps of teeth.
“Mini-girl,” I say. “What can I do?”
I reach down to pet her head, but she pulls back. The instinct of cats nearing the end is to hide from predators. I’m violating her safety zone.
What can I do? I’m signed up for the secure chat. I downloaded the app and wrote down my number on the sheet that went around. Chose a cool handle and a tough-looking profile picture. I await further instructions. In the meantime, I’m operating on my own.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to double-bag everything, so that the bottom doesn't fall out.
*From the book Kitchen Hymns by the Irish poet and conflict mediator Padraig O’Tuama, Copper Canyon Press, 2024.
I don’t need to tell you how hard things are in this moment. That what is happening here in Minnesota affects us all. That what you see is real, that words matter. So do actions, no matter how small they may seem. Tell me more in the Comments.
What can you do? Here is a link with some ideas:
Sending love,
Mary
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Mary I just want to knock on your door with home-baked cookies and give you a hug. I am so gutted reading this. Thank you for sharing your story with us. People need to see through your eyes. I feel both rage and sadness. It is filling us all. Sending a big hug your way. Keep sharing. We are all listening. 💛
My wife and I stopped watching the news every night because it it horrifies us and wears us down to the point where it almost seems normal. But your writing, Mary, about how hard it has become just to do simple things, like go to Target and buy stuff, reminds me that we can't just turn off the TV and have this go away. Even from a thousand miles away your words make it real.