"With six decades of Midwestern living between us, we recognized a distinctly regional thing going on amid all the chaos: neighborliness. We have been recipients of Midwestern housewarming pies and the lucky beneficiaries when an early riser decided to shovel the sidewalks of the whole block. After a plea for help getting a teenager a trumpet, four materialized in less than 24 hours. Do you need help with that? our neighbors seem to be continually thinking. Let me see what I can do."
"Midwestern Nice takes care of your neighbors, and we see that is fundamentally what's been going on in Minneapolis amid the chaos wreaked by ICE. The skills honed across parent-teacher associations, potlucks, and sports boosters became a contemporary barn-raising of sustained peaceful action by the people of Minneapolis in the face of ICE's repeated provocations in freezing weather (another thing they have the skills to combat). Minnesotans gathered hand warmers in bulk and got whistles into hands, thereby reasserting care, mutual support, and nonviolent norms in their community."
"They even turned potential weaknesses into distinctive effectiveness. We admit Middle America can be wary of strangers driving around our streets, a little prone to gossip-y sharing of news. Which the people of Minneapolis turned into a formidable Signal chat and thousands of phones capturing ICE's behavior from every angle. In 2026, back-fence whispering now detects masked federal agents willing to snatch neighbors' children or shoot unarmed mothers and nurses."
Minnesotans’ lifesaving and community-saving work is portrayed as happening because of neighborliness. Examples include housewarming pies, block-wide sidewalk shoveling, and rapid help after a request for a teenager’s trumpet. Skills developed through parent-teacher associations, potlucks, and sports boosters are described as becoming a contemporary barn-raising of peaceful action against ICE provocations in freezing weather. Community members gathered hand warmers and distributed whistles to reinforce care, mutual support, and nonviolent norms. Potential weaknesses like wariness of strangers and gossip are reframed as a strong Signal chat and widespread phone documentation of ICE behavior, including masked agents. Back-fence communication is presented as detecting threats to neighbors’ children and violence against unarmed people.
Read at The Nation
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