We speak with Minneapolis resident Aliya Rahman, who attended Tuesday’s State of the Union address as a guest of Congressmember Ilhan Omar. Rahman was removed from the chamber Tuesday and spent several hours in jail following what she describes as an aggressive arrest by Capitol Police — all for silently challenging Trump during the speech. “There are only two things you can do at the State…
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When Donald Trump made Minnesota an epicenter for his aggressive anti-immigrant assault, Minnesotans offered the nation a powerful and effective model of loving resistance and solidarity. Throughout the sustained resistance to Trump’s occupation of Minnesota, LGBTQ+ residents and activists have played a central role. That role was thrown into sharp relief after Immigration and Customs…
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Official narratives can be deceiving, and that is especially true in this political moment. The Department of Homeland Security has declared that fewer than 500 federal immigration agents are currently deployed in Minnesota, after announcing that its monthslong assault on Minneapolis and surrounding areas, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, was coming to an end. But as Francis, an organizer with the…
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From the very beginning, the United States of America has been at war—not just abroad, but domestically. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with scholar and author Dylan Rodriguez about how the US operates as a nation in a perpetual state of internal war, and how the white supremacist legacy of domestic warfare has reached terrifying new heights in the Trump era.
Resource Links:
Purchase Dylan Rodriguez’s book White Reconstruction
Revolt against the carceral world
COVID-19 pandemic illuminates anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia
Why corporate media doesn’t talk honestly about racism
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host Mansa Musa. In this country, in the United States of America. If we was to put alongside of Germany or any other fastest totalitarian government, it would not be no difference in comparison in this country. Today, we find ourselves in a place where we’re in the constant police, in the form of what they call ICE or any other police force. We find ourselves in a situation where all the institutions that’s in this country right now is being dismantled to the point where people don’t have no jobs, people can’t afford medical people are being forced into homelessness. In the face of all this, we find ourselves at the crossroad of making analysis of what this is and how do we go forward. Joining me today is a Dylan Rodriguez, professor of Media and Culture Studies and UC Riverside and one
From the roof of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, Oregon, federal agents late last month watched as thousands of people marched past the processing center in protest. Families and children were among the daytime crowd, which had gathered for an event advertised as family friendly. When some protesters reportedly crossed the facility’s property line and…
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Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Minneapolis has been on fire.
People in the streets against an onslaught from Trump’s ICE agents the likes of which the country has never seen.
Homeland Security has deployed thousands of agents, unleashing an assault that has ripped apart families and neighborhoods. They’ve killed two people, under shocking circumstances. Both U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Federal agents have arrested 4,000 people in Minnesota alone since they launched Operation Metro Surge two months ago.
KRISTI NOEM [CLIP]: But we’re surging operations because of the dangerous situation we see in this country and because we’re no longer going to allow illegal criminals to damage and harm, to kill, to sexually abuse, to proliferate drugs, and to steal American taxpayers dollars.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Kristi Noem. The head of the Department of Homeland Security. Of course, none of it’s true. But that doesn’t stop her or president Donald Trump from repeating these lines.
And Minneapolis, Minnesota, is just the latest city on Trump’s hit list.
SARAH LAZARE: I mean, there are so many horrific stories.
MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Sarah Lazare is a labor journalist based in Chicago who’s traveled to Minneapolis in recent weeks to cover the ICE attack and the people’s response.
SARAH LAZARE: And really, the federal assault is only growing more intense. Like Chicago was really bad. There were really terrible things that happened. And you don’t want to compare tragedies at all because it’s all horrible. But the federal occupation of Minnesota, just in terms of scale and numbers, is just