Pocketknife

January 18, 2026

Also had a lot on my mind as far as the happenings where I live (Minneapolis) and wanted to write something down about it before I get caught up in my navel-gazing and news obsession yet again. Anyway, here's what's on my mind:

I found a pocketknife on the sidewalk while walking home from voting in the last presidential election. I picked it up and brought it home, shoved it into a drawer in my kitchen, and promptly forgot about it. Then I settled in to watch the election results trickle in, my cautious optimism morphing into pit-in-the-stomach dread.

Ever since, it's been hard to look away from the news. So much is happening. War, genocide, political assassinations, rollbacks of environmental protections, violations of international law... The list goes on. It's hard to keep up. You can only look in so many directions at once.

Right now I find myself able to look in only one direction: towards my city. I've lived in Minneapolis for eight years, in the Twin Cities for eleven. I lived here when Philando Castile was murdered, when George Floyd was murdered, when Daunte Wright was murdered. Justine Damond. Amir Locke. I'm sure I am missing several people.

The point is, none of those times felt the same as the current situation. There is still immense anger and despair, yes. But there is more fear in the air now than there ever was during those earlier incidents.

And why shouldn't there be? Federal agents are kidnapping people from the street. They executed a woman in front of a crowd in broad daylight. They shot a man as he tried to flee. Did you know that tear gas is banned for use in war, but American authorities regularly use it on their own people?

To top it all off, the president has threatened to deploy the military on a quiet Midwestern metro. Why? The Twin Cities are neither a criminal hub nor an immigration hotspot. This is about retribution against a city represented by the president's political enemies. It's about testing the waters for rolling back constitutional rights in an authoritarian power grab.

It's hard to know what to do. You donate what you can, you protest when you can, you blow your whistle on ICE and report their movements to your Signal chats. You feel a brief surge of joy when those fuckers bust their asses on the ice. You hope it hurts. You ebb and flow between hope and rage.

You think of your pocketknife. I found mine again last week as I did my annual junk drawer declutter. In hindsight, it seems like an omen, finding it as I walked home on election day. Was the universe telling me get ready, prepare?

It's a cheap thing, a little grimy, clearly intended to be purely utilitarian. Not flashy, but you could use it for so much: opening boxes, cutting rope. Hunting, fishing, carving, chopping.

It's really not a weapon, but it could be. In a desperate pinch, it could be one. But that would be a risk; a pocketknife was never intended for that purpose. Your opponent could overpower you and turn your blade against you. They could register your grubby little knife as a threat and turn their gun against you.

That's how I imagine Twin Cities residents in this current situation: like my sidewalk pocketknife. Ordinary but useful, working with purpose. Helping where help is needed. Doing what needs to be done. Possessing a hidden sharpness, yes, but folding that away in favor of peace. Understanding the risk of violence.

The eternal optimist in me wants to believe the situation will improve. Organizers here continue to advocate for peace. ICE has been ordered not to detain or tear gas peaceful protestors (though whether they follow the order is another story). In what is shaping up to be true fascist intruder fashion, Jake Lang busted his dork ass on the ice as he was literally chased out of the city.

But ICE is still here.

A relative asked why I care so much. I'm white. I'm an American citizen. What do I have to worry about? As if the murder of white American citizen Renee Good wasn't enough to prove that everyone loses when fascism comes to town.

Obviously (or so I thought), I care because this is my home. The best days of my life have been spent here. It's heartbreaking to know that since ICE has been here, innocent people have been experiencing the worst days of theirs at the hands of the federal government.

These people are my neighbors. Frankly, I don't care if they are here legally or not. I don't care if they have criminal records. The government's methods of detaining people are neither safe nor fair, and I would rather welcome people with open arms than condemn them to untold injustices.

But again, I don't think this is about immigration. The constitutional violations, violent attacks, and threats from the president suggest there is something more at play. And if ICE can come and terrorize Minneapolis, they can do that in any other city. They already are.

So what should we do? Protest, donate, call representatives, connect with neighbors, organize, take training to be a constitutional observer. Other than that: I don't know. I wish I had some rousing call to action to end with, but I don't. I'm not an organizer or a particularly great leader. I'm just a normal person writing this to bear witness. So I guess my advice is just: be a pocketknife, and wield your blade with care.