The governor said yesterday that he expects things to wind down by the end of the week, but that the gangsters need to announce it as a success first. I'll believe it when I experience it. And even if it does end and they go back to 150 thugs vs the 2000 currently here, the community will still have to deal with the long-term emotional and economic fallout. That doesn't just disappear when thugs disappear. I feel traumatized and I'm an old white woman. I can't even begin to imagine the trauma of our non-caucasian residents.

Positive things: The Native American community setting up a prayer camp near the detention building on what used to be Dakota land. What is happening today on this same land with immigrants is what happened to the Dakota 100 years ago: mistreated, starved, executed. It brings back the painful ancient memories of their ancestors. And so they are gathering to pray.

And I am thankful that despite my low income neighborhood having more immigrants and black and brown people than white people, there has been very little thug presence compared to other areas in the metro area. Except for that one afternoon over a month ago where the thugs terrorized a Mexican restaurant and nearby thrift store, we haven't had them staking out the apartment parking lots or smashing people's car windows at gas stations or blocking people in on residential streets as they've done in other areas of the city. There has been random door-to-door door-knocking though.

Just a run-down of events (partially taken from MinnPost) as a reminder:

Over the past two months, immigration agents have shot three people, killing two; racially profiled people in parking lots and in random traffic stops, demanding proof of legal residency; beaten and detained legal immigrants and citizens and shipped them across state lines: zip-tied young children; caused numerous car crashes intentionally and through reckless acts of speeding, running red lights and going the wrong way on roads; appeared on elementary school properties and at bus stops with guns drawn in front of children and deployed chemical irritants on public school property; smashed the car windows of observers and arrested them before releasing them without charges; dragged citizens and legal immigrants with no criminal record from their homes without judicial warrants: scanned the faces of hundreds of peaceful observers and protestors to add to their domestic terrorist database, and threatened journalists who were filming them from a distance in a public space, among other high-profile incidents.

And yet, there are STILL americans who believe what they're doing is okay. You must have one very very sick mind to approve of this.

Yesterday at work at about 1pm, I had a moment. Working on two things at once, phone calls coming in, all the while my mind screaming loudly at me "What are you doing? You should be out there doing more! You're skills are going to waste. You should be out on the street saving the world, not dealing with this stupid stuff. And why are the owners staying quiet on this? Why haven't they acknowledged our stress?? You need to do more. Do More." And on and on until I finally let out a small sob in defeat, because I am not doing more and I am a failure.

I'm tired. I'm depressed. I don't think I'll ever get back to where I was.