#100 - Close To Home: Turning Anguish Into Action | Solo Bonus Brief

Hi y'all. Things are off the rails in the U.S., and I'm here because what we need most in dark times is each other. In this release, I'm sharing excerpts from an earlier-this-week Patreon drop where I discuss how I'm coping and making my feelings of outrage actionable, specifically my fury toward federal agencies like ICE and Customs & Border Patrol whose history of violence against citizens of color and undocumented immigrants pre-dates the Trump Era (by a lot). I talk about how I'm investing in community and local action, and how you can, too. Let's follow Minnesota's lead and plug into active response networks in our own communities. Starting now.

Referenced in this episode:

• Find local organizing networks via Indivisible, 50501, NoKings.
• Critical Incident: Death at the Border (documentary)
• Keith Porter - Say his name & share his story.
• Heather Cox Richardson | Letters To An American | YouTube
• More on 'Triple isolation' | DD #12 and DD #13
• Tressie McMillan Cottom - IG

Transcript

Candice Schutter: 0:01

Hey y'all. Welcome to the Deeper Pulse. I am here with an episode that I dropped earlier this week on Patreon to subscribers to the podcast. And I wanted to share it here today, because this is no time for me to go radio silent on the main feed. I'll be sharing only about half of the episode's content because some of what I share reveals community action plans that will do much more long-term good if they live behind a paywall. If you wanna hear the full episode, you can gain access to it and some other recent releases at patreon.com/thedeeperpulse. Tressie McMillan Cottom says, the end of a way of life doesn't have to mean the end of the world." It is the end of a way of life in America for a lot of white folks. And I say white folks because Black and Brown folks live in a different America. So really it is like waking up from a cult spell, y'all. Like what many white folks thought America was, it's not. It's actually the thing that it's always been to other people, an Imperialist, white supremacist patriarchy. But I'm not making light of the intense cognitive dissonance that folks go through when they realize, oh my God, this is not what I thought it was. Probably familiar to a lot of you listening to this. If you're in that place, Tressie words are helpful, just as they would've been when exiting any other high-demand group, or an abusive relationship or whatever. The end of a way of life doesn't have to mean the end of the world. Just a new reality. We're gonna get through this too. And just as it was with the'cult'ure series, the best way for us to get through it is by coming together. Those of us who have done the work of self-regulation and have had resources to access the privilege of things like therapy and mindfulness practices and all these things. If not for what then this? Right. But the aim is remaining vertical despite being dysregulated. Like mindfulness isn't about getting to this state of still contemplation. It's about being able to function while living through shit times, where we are being called to act in situations that are extremely unsettling. And there's just been so many things snowballing. And what's particularly kind of in our faces right now is the Trump administration's war on immigrants and people of color. And ICE and Customs Border Patrol agents; there's two different federal agencies that are taking actions. So the recent execution of Alex Pretti was by a border agent, not necessarily an ICE agent. But when we talk about defunding or abolishing ICE, we're sort of talking about the whole mechanism, the system of power where there's lots of noise around law and order and immigration, but it's really an opportunity to engage in ethnic cleansing. I mean, let's just call it what it is. Many people have been killed in ICE or Customs Border Patrol custody, but most of them are people of color and we haven't heard about them. If you haven't watched the documentary Critical Incident: Death at the Border, it's streaming on HBO Max. What we're witnessing right now is a very long-standing culture of unchecked brutality and power abuse in the Customs and Border Patrol Agency. Another buried story of note that's more recent is Keith Porter, who was killed by an off-duty ICE officer in LA. Apparently, if I understand it right, the officer lived in the same building as him. But I didn't even hear about this man's death until after Renee Good was murdered. And now Alex Pretti. And so, the stories that have been erased and hidden show this same pattern of brutality. The Nazi playbook was based on segregation in the United States, and Hitler was a big fan of those programs and took a lot of notes from us. So the system of oppression has always been and now it's been made more visible And anyone who stands in the way of that system is a threat to the system and is therefore expendable. And now white folks are standing in the way of that system. And here we are. The consequences are being laid bare. This is full blown fascism. Don't believe your eyes. We decide what's true. It's very Orwellian. There's just so much that I could say that is being said already. And there's no reason for me to repeat the things that you can get from much better sources, who are more informed, who have been doing this work for much, much, much, much longer than I have. So I'm not gonna go into a monologue about the system of injustice in the United States. I just instead wanna say the names of some of the people who we know are recent victims. Sweet little, Liam Ramos, who you may have seen the picture of the little five-year-old boy with his little bunny hat who was detained, used as bait. And again, the narrative is that Liam had nowhere to go, nobody wanted to take him. Which is an outright lie. There were loved ones who were begging to take care of him while dad was detained, and they don't care. And so, there's just so much right now. And I just wanna share with you where my head is at and how I am approaching all of this. My focus, the three words that are guiding my choices in 2026 are close to home. That I need to focus on shoring up connection and community, investing in the networks that exist right under my nose. Like the ones that I can touch, that I can experience in the flesh, the lives that I can impact on a daily basis and the lives that can impact me. The relationships that we build close to home are gonna be the thing that gets us all through this, however it goes down. For better or for worse. And I follow Heather Cox Richardson really closely. I know a lot of you do too as well. If you do not, I really, really recommend either following her on YouTube or subscribing to Letters to An American. Her daily debriefings are absolutely invaluable. She's very grounded. She delivers historical context along with the day's news. So I follow her really closely, and I really trust her perspective on this. And she's very clear. Like this idea that we've never been in this kind of polarized situation in the United States is false. That we have actually been very polarized in this country, and we've gotten through it before. I mean obviously digital media changes the way it happens, but we have had this level of polarity, right around the Civil War. And we can get through this. Will we get through it depends on what we do in response,'cause we haven't had this sort of fascist authoritarian takeover situation specifically happen in this way. So what we do matters a whole hell of a lot collectively, like how we show up to this moment. And it's gonna get worse before it gets better. We know that. And so, what are we gonna need most when it gets worse? And we can look at Minnesota and we can see exactly what it looks like to create networks, to interface with one another in a way where we truly have each other's backs, truly. And let Alex Pretti be an example of somebody who, yeah. I mean, he was, he was standing there filming. But where he inserted himself was when the ICE agents began to assault a woman, and he stepped in to protect her. So there's a big movement in Minneapolis. They're not calling themselves protestors. They're calling themselves protectors. And Alex Pretti was protecting this woman from an assault. And he ended up becoming the victim himself. Now, that's the worst case scenario, right? That is always a risk that we face. But what's the alternative? To just let people be assaulted? That is not a reality that I can stomach. I feel, personally, based on my values, a responsibility and a duty to show up for my community. And the only way I can show up for them is if I know them. Is if I have relationships with them. Is if they trust me. And we need to build those networks. And Minneapolis is doing it, and they are pushing back in a big way. But these close to home relationships are key. So that's one of the big pieces I wanted to emphasize today. And I'll talk a little bit more about what I'm doing here close to home just to offer some options in terms of things to look at. I'll do that in a moment. But first let me just plant the other seed. The second thing that I really wanna mention today is reliance on the value-driven instinct that says abso-fucking-lutely we have a duty to others. All of this is connected so much to the'cult'ure series and everything we did in terms of unpacking sort of the indoctrination, not just of wellness culture, but of all these cultures who are hyper-individualistic. All about the individual journey, the solo journey, the project of self. And it's all about like the individual. This idea of keeping our eyes focused on what we can do for ourselves so that we don't dare turn and look at the systems that are failing us. So we either stay insular in our own little worlds, trying to tend to our needs. Or we turn to tribalism and point fingers at each other. Again, it's all a distraction. And now as fascism descends upon the United States of America. It's not just coming. It's here. It's happening. We're in it. We are learning quick-like, or we better learn quick-like, that we have to come together. And not only do we have to, but we need to teach ourselves to remember how to. You know, Minneapolis, the reason why, this is so important, the reason why Minneapolis is doing such a phenomenal job at organizing and responding to the situation that they're in, is because of George Floyd and the aftermath of what happened with his murder in 2020. And obviously, there was a distrust in the police, and the community had to really come together and build these networks and these response teams and all this stuff. So they've been working on this for years. So the federal agents didn't just march into their city and they like, were able to just kind of pull this together and work in coordination at the drop of a hat. Like people who have for decades been working on organizing, have led the way and created these coalitions. And now fortunately, we can do it quicker because we can follow the model of these organizations and replicate it in our states and communities. All of that to say, getting involved sooner rather than later is like the best idea possible. There are, I promise you, in your community somewhere, however hidden, however made invisible due to lack of funding they are, organizations that are already doing the work. So getting to know, who are the organizers in my area? You can go to Indivisible and find local groups. You can go to 50501 and find local groups. You could go to the No Kings website and find local groups. But find the groups in your community who are already doing the work and go start building relationships. Find out what they're doing. Support them with your dollars, your time, your energy. And see if you can build some relationships so you can figure out what role you're gonna play. That's one thing that I'm doing is teaming up with these organizations and the local organizing initiative. That's key. The local piece is key.'Cause a lot of folks are going online and they're just finding mass protests that are happening nationwide, and they're not paying attention to the work that's happening on the ground in their community. So find and seek out those organizations. I live in a really small town, in a red state, and I can find ways to engage. So regardless of where you live, it's very likely that you can find ways to connect to similar types of actions if you feel so moved. One of the organizing groups that I'm involved in is the Rural Organizing Initiative, uh, Julie Llama who were on the podcast. I've been working with them much more closely. And when they do intakes with folks who are interested in working with the organization, they ask questions like, do you wanna do something once a month? Once a week? Twice a week? Like you name it. What do you have to give? And we'll figure out a place for you. So you don't have to have a lot of time to get involved in this. But these small things that we do, they build upon themselves. So we need to build the coalitions and start investing before the crisis comes to our doorstep. One of the things that many local communities are doing is creating ICE response teams. Again, using models that have been created, practiced elsewhere. When the Civil Rights movement was really kicking into high gear, on college campuses, specifically Black college campuses, they had these underground training programs where they would bring in activists, and they would do these trainings. They would have'em stand up to people pretending to be racially harassing them, physically taunting them, putting them in the position that their nervous systems would be put in so that they could practice maintaining a nonviolent composure. And they could practice resisting using their bodies without resorting to aggression and violence. So these are the types of things that in Minneapolis, they're training folks to do. And these programs are being replicated elsewhere. Now those are, that's the extreme example. I'm not saying if you go to an ICE response team training, that's what you're gonna be doing. There's a multitude of roles and responsibilities, and if you get to know these local organizing groups, they'll tell you what you can do. They have so many things for people to do, and not enough people doing them. Not enough volunteers. Lots of concern, but not enough action takers. So I am encouraging you in a very direct way to get involved in your local communities. Also to Find social connections,'cause it's also important to plug into joy. When I say like, go be with your community, it's not just go be with your community and talk politics. It's holistically invest in the relationships. Physically move, dance, and sweat together. Share what's going on in, in your lives, not just your feelings around all this shit show that we're living through, but around your daily lives. What's going on with your families? Get to know each other so that you can show up for each other in ways that are really useful. You know, driving your kids to and from school or bringing a meal when somebody's having surgery or whatever. Get to know one another in a multidimensional way. And share more with each other. I have group threads. I have people, we trade articles that we're reading with each other through texts and whatnot. We're intellectually and politically engaging with each other as well. And not just operating in our little vacuum.'Cause it can feel so lonely and so isolating and so excruciating to be alone with these feelings. So yes, I'm inviting you to get more engaged in the resistance. And I'm encouraging you to invest more in relationships in a way that can serve you and others in every way long term. And those two things intersect when you live in a totalitarian culture. This brings me all the way back to the'cult'ure series. Do you remember, some of you might, and most of you probably won't'cause I threw a lot at you. But Alexandra Stein, who wrote the book, Terror, Love, Brainwashing, one of the concepts that she described as somebody who had been involved in a cult and has studied totalitarian cultures in general. There's actually two episodes on Deconstructing Dogma on Patreon, like really early on. I'll link to those in the show notes. And Alexandra Stein talks about how totalitarian culture creates what is known as triple isolation. It's a sense of isolation from the outside world, so outside of our own insular bubble, our totalitarian bubble. Isolation from each other within it, which is kind of what I'm talking about where we all silo ourselves off and suffer in silence. And then isolation from ourselves internally. That sort of doubling of self where you have like your cult self and then your internal self. So we could say like MAGA people are doing that. But I would argue that we also do that culturally in terms of, we have our performative self, like who and how we're supposed to show up when we go to work. And we're not supposed to talk politics. And when we go hang out with our family. And we present ourselves in social media in this certain way. Like the presentation of the self on the outside, that makes everyone comfortable because we're humming along with the system and we're not calling out all the bullshit and we're not disrupting the status quo. Like that doubling is a similar thing. So I'm feeling distressed and distraught and the toll that it's taking on my internal body is something that I can't talk about at work or at school or with this particular group, right? Defying those scripts and speaking about the things is part of breaking the totalitarian spell. Letting the inside self be shown on the outside. It's uncomfortable to show that part to others because, uhoh, why is she bringing this up here? But that's How we restore that connection between people who are within the totalitarian culture, is suddenly we start telling the truth and then they tell the truth. And this is what happened with the'cult'ure series, right? It was like dominoes just started falling like crazy because it was like, oh my God, I'm not the only one, right? We can do that here as well. Figure out that we're not the only one. Build those connections, invest in those connections. And then ultimately, show up to say, I defy this regime. I will not stand for it. And the ways we do that depend on our situation, circumstance, level of privilege, all those things. I think that it is important for us to each sit with, what are my values and am I walking in them. Actively? Not just behind closed doors, whispering about it. Am I actively showing up to this? You know, a thing that has been a meme forever. What are your grandkids and great-grandkids gonna say that you did during this time? And I think it's a really important question. Not to shame us because we're not doing enough. But to just really take a beat and think about that. What do I want to be left in my wake? What do I want my legacy to be when it comes to this time? Whether or not it's impactful enough or not, whether or not it works isn't really the point. That's a cop out. We might not win this fight. So the fuck what. We've gotta do, what we've gotta do. And we can stand together in our values. And it will be much, much, much, much easier, will be much, much, much safer if we do it in critical mass. And I am probably preaching to the choir here. But I need pep talks. I need to be reminded of the obvious things on the days when I just sort of feel like I wanna collapse in despair. And so if nothing else, this is a pep talk I'm given to myself. Um, yeah. Let's just do what we can. And then maybe see if we can take it an inch further than that. Because if we wanna grow in our capacity, we have to invest. Let's take that motivation we find around bettering our bodies and our minds and our spirits, and see if we can better our communities. Even if it means taking a hit in body, mind and spirit. When I wait in bumper to bumper traffic to go to an organizing meeting, to hear our Secretary of State speak about what's going on with the voter rolls. And how he's being bullied by the DOJ to release the voter rolls. And how he's standing up to Pam Bondi. And why it's so important he get elected. And he needs us there in the room to help mobilize people to show up, to make sure he can continue to protect us. I don't wanna do any of that. I would much rather stay home and watch Netflix and eat ice cream outta the carton. And like, I don't feel like doing a lot of the shit that I'm doing. It's not convenient. It's not always fun. It's meaningful. And I can't draw a direct line to like, how is this benefiting me directly? It's not, what about me? Do I feel like it? It's what about them? How are they feeling? It's turning away from the reflexive, self-absorption toward people who need us. And maybe I'm the only one who developed that as a habit, reflexively evaluating what does this mean for me? And does this feel true or not? All of that can get in the way of the actual facts. This is the reality that we're facing. And can you respond to that reality rather than prioritizing your feelings about that reality. And I know some of you're gonna be like, well, we have to take care of our feelings. Of course we do. Of course we do. And also. And maybe you're a person who's constantly fixated on what everyone else's needs are and like, I know there's some organizers that I've been working with lately that I'm like, y'all, you're working 16 hour days every day constantly, and you're not taking care of yourselves. You're giving everything you have to the cause. It is about balance. But I don't like that word balance, because it implies that we're gonna be in this place of like equanimity all the time, when in fact we need to swing sometimes to the place where we're uncomfortable, off-center, imbalanced. Because you can't really do true intervention and activist work unless you are willing to get uncomfortable. So it's not either or. It's both and. And as someone who has the privilege to really show up, I think it's okay if I'm a little more tired. I think it's okay if I focus a whole lot less on me and mine, and I really invest in giving to others and not in protecting my precious energy. That's where I'm at. You do you. And I'm not here to like, make anyone feel bad about what they are or aren't doing. That's really what I'm pushing back against. I don't wanna applaud anyone or shame anyone. I want us to focus on the people who need our focus, not on how we feel about how good or bad we're doing. Because that's just a distraction. That's just a way of centering in sort of a reflexive way, rather than really just being like, what needs to happen here? And doing the thing that needs to be done. So I'm gonna focus on doing the thing that needs to be done close to home. In the spring, I'm teaching a course the community college called Cult Dynamics In Everyday Life where I'm really gonna focus on what I've been learning in my leadership studies program And systems of power, how they developed, how cult dynamics operate invisibly in Western hegemonic power all the time in ways that we don't question, really kind of pick those apart and have a community experience unpacking all of that. And again, I'm doing it close to home. However, I'll share some of that, those takeaways here in Patreon. Because why not? And so that course starts at the end of March, so maybe in April I'll start sharing some of that with you. You may have seen the December drop, which was the Deep Stretch, if you did not see that, check it out. When we talk about the ability to just take a minute to unwind, while also having a visceral experience of what it's like to strengthen and move the joints, to invest in spaces of movement, so that they become more mobile, supple, and available. The Deep Stretch can get you ready for the movement, help with your physical conditioning so that you can stand and march and walk and sit and make calls and do all the things. But also by providing you a framework in terms of how we maintain a shape, actively hold and breathe through it. So there's a lot there. To say I'm gonna focus close to home does not mean that I don't wanna focus my energy on the Patreon subscriber community. I'm here as much as you want me to be here. And also, I'm investing close to home, and I hope you will too. We're gonna get through this. Might be the end of a way of life, but it's not the end of the world. Keep resisting and let's go out link arms with our friends and neighbors and let's get into some good trouble. Take care, y'all.