Author’s note: this is my website, and as such I will not censor myself nearly so much as I do on third-party-controlled social media sites. This post and many others will contain political, societal, and religious views that many will not agree with. You’re welcome to comment, or to keep browsing the internet at large. This is my little corner.
Hello, friends.
It’s been a while.
I had another post scheduled for this last Friday, but then this came roaring into my head and I could not ignore it. The other post has been rescheduled to February 11th, so keep an eye out for that later.
Since we last spoke, several personal things have happened, including losing my job and going through the slog of bureaucratic nonsense to get Unemployment approved. Here in the States that’s a bit of a process. Then I had to migrate my entire website, blog, and everything over to a new website builder and hosting site (two separate entities this time), and that took a great deal of finagling.
But, more than any of that, is Everything Else. The world at large.
As I sit here, officials in the United States government are scrambling to backtrack on their labeling of Alex Pretti, the man recently shot many times and killed in Minneapolis, as a domestic terrorist and assassin. They could not have picked a worse person for their victim-blaming and alternative-fact smearing. It ends up that Pretti was a pretty stand-up guy, who spent the majority of his life in service to and helping others.
And I wish he were the first and last, but instead it seems like, though the most recent, Pretti is part of a growing trend of violence from a militaristic branch of the government that seems to be controlled directly by Trump and his circle. ICE and CBP seem to be operating under their own set of rules. Something far afield from what a good slice of the population has experienced from the States in the past.
Unfortunately, this isn’t new. State-sponsored violence is all-too-common in United States history, especially among people and communities of color. I’ve only become semi-recently-aware of some of the things like the Tulsa massacre, and the MOVE bombing, but I’ve been aware of the unequal treatment of peoples and communities in this country for some time. I saw first-hand my BIPOC friends get spit upon and sneered at simply for being as early as middle school.
I’ve seen what happens when people with hate in their hearts get ahold of the most vulnerable members of our society. I’ve read the articles, the missing ads written by good friends and found family… there is a terrible amount of violence out there directed at those who are simply living.
I’ve heard the arguments for the violence, the killings and blatant murders. There seem to be legions of folks waiting in the wings to point fingers at the victims and paint them as anything but innocent.
The problem is that, even if Silverio Villegas González had some traffic tickets? That was no reason to execute him. He was scared. Even if Pretti kicked out that tail light, that’s no reason to shoot him close to a dozen times. Even if Good was being “antagonistic” by some points of view (I disagree), she did not deserve to be gunned down.
I made this graphic for my social media the other day:
I want to make it clear that I do not stand with our leaders on this. That I think ICE should be disbanded, CBP disbanded or defunded, the police restructured… I’m pretty much full ACAB at this point. I'm certainly an anti-Capitalist and anti-fascist. Though this is a new level of violence from these particular agencies, it’s not new to POC and those communities. This is the States they’ve almost always known. I hate that we’re all living in it now.
And I’m going to do everything I can to resist, to not obey in advance, to use whatever platforms I have and whatever meager voice I can raise to say, this is enough. This is fucking enough. We should never have reached this level of violence, this level of chaos. We’re tearing families and communities apart. We’re failing an open-book history test.
I’m currently making my way through this article, and I would highly recommend it already to others. It’s full of great ideas: https://chriscookie.com/2025/04/30/what-can-we-do-a-hierarchy-of-20-things-to-resist-fascism-part-1-of-3/
I’m working hard on number one (survive). On number two (thrive), we’re getting there. That’s why despite the world being on fire, I keep writing. I keep making art. I made a new website, and am re-launching my Creative Business. I’m planning more and more books (see my ‘What’s Next?’ page), and devoting hours to them each day.
I’m trying to stay for good, to make my mark and be a presence in the world, despite all this. Because joy, success, and the ability to thrive is in itself an act of revolution toward this horrid regime.
Alex Pretti was about two months younger than me, almost exactly. He wanted the people who had murdered a member of his community to leave, and then he was executed after helping a woman to her feet. His last words, to our knowledge, were, “Are you okay?”
I’m not okay. I haven’t felt okay since we re-elected this douche pickle, and I don’t think I’ll be okay until we remove him and all his nominees and selections from seats of power. We need to purge this cancer from our society, before it kills and displaces more of us.
Do what you can. Fight the fights you’re able.
Make art.
We will win this. Have faith.
Thank you for listening. I’ll talk to you later, my friends.
Danielle Berggren
Comments