Neighborliness.

Well, it’s been a fairly crazy week here in Minneapolis.

First the president of the United States called a lot of people “garbage”: about 100,000 Minnesota residents, the vast majority U. S. citizens.

Then for the past few days my own neighborhood has been crawling with out-of-state-plated SUVs as ICE trawled around looking for people to kidnap, such that community leaders are advising local U. S. citizens to be ready to produce their papers, please:

“What’s happening to our Somali Americans in Minnesota is unacceptable, un-American and dangerous,” said Khalid Omar, an organizer with the coalition of faith groups ISAIAH. “Over the last few days, our community has been terrorized by federal agents and ICE officers.”

Omar said immigration officials have been asking Somali-Americans who are U.S. citizens to produce passports and other legal documents.

Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, said he is reluctantly advising fellow naturalized citizens to carry their passports with them.

“Today it broke my heart that, in my sermon, that was among the advice I gave my people,” Zaman said.

But:

People are holding potlucks to meet their neighbors and plan for how to help.

People are sharing lessons learned from Chicago and other cities.

People are pledging to be ready to stand as a peaceful witness and document illegal overreach by masked agents, ready to provide those who are unlawfully detained or injured with the video evidence they need to press charges or sue.

People are learning their rights and their neighbors’ rights.

People are organizing to watch over the neighborhood surrounding schools at drop off and pick up times.

People are delivering groceries and meals.

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This is frustrating. Infuriating: the casual dehumanization that is a feature of the current administration, the intentional cruelty, the delight in violence.

But we know that being neighbor to someone is, in however small doses, a worthy response.

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I am sorry to say that I have never really prioritized neighborliness. There’s a little bit of social anxiety that gets in my way. I have friends mostly outside my neighborhood. My kids, being mostly homeschooled, never went to the neighborhood school (one went to a city magnet high school). I go to church at a Jesuit parish, not any of the ones much closer to us, except sometimes when the schedule is more convenient here. We have a traditon of even trick-or-treating at a holiday party with friends in another town.

I’ve been trying to change, gradually. I became an election judge and I serve in my own precinct, in part so I can serve my own neighbors. I have made a point with my younger kids to use the neighborhood library and walk to the neighborhood grocery store much more than I used to. I joined a little neighborhood chat group for my immediate block which has actually helped me get to know the people living around me much better than before: at least I can put names to addresses, and occasionally help with little needs like misdelivered packages and lost dogs.

It’s time to change a lot faster. What do I really have to fear, after all?