The ICE Men Cometh (with apologies to Eugene O’Neil)

“Do you know how many shootings we’ve had so far this year? Two, and one of them was ICE”. – Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

This weekend, after an ICE agent had shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier in the week, the collective outrage of millions of Americans spilled out onto streets across the country in big cities and small towns from coast to coast.

Here in Pittsboro, the county seat of Chatham County, hundreds of citizens surrounded the historic Courthouse circle on Saturday morning to remember the life of a slain Minnesota mother, protest the occupation of cities by Trump’s Gestapo, call out the gas lighting of Ms. Good’s murder by the Trump spin machine and demand in prophetic fashion that true justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

All across America people of conscience organized, carried signs, chanted defiance, demanded answers, and refused to accept the regime’s attempt to rewrite the narrative and tell us we didn’t see what we saw. What we saw was government over reach and excessive force by a rogue agent of an unwanted occupying force of approximately 2000 federal enforcement agents that had descended upon Minneapolis like a plague of locusts.

The murderous act that culminated in Ms. Good’s tragic death should not, could not have occurred save for the targeting of a large Somali population residing in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul area by Donald Trump and his fascist fanatics. A December 2 article in the NY Times describes the who and how of the origin of this fiasco:
“These are people that do nothing but complain,” Mr. Trump said at the tail end of a cabinet meeting at the White House… But when the subject turned to immigration, Mr. Trump made a point of lashing out.

“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” Mr. Trump added as Vice President JD Vance banged the table in encouragement. He said Somalia “stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”

He described Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as “garbage.” “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”

But it is not the current version of America and its POTUS along with his ignominious MAGA enablers that church choirs are referencing when they belt out a stirring rendition of How GREAT Thou Art. The “power” referred to in this song of praise (thy power throughout the universe displayed…) is not the power of fear, intimidation, humiliation, bullying, brute force and domination. These are vices, not virtues. New Testament virtues center on faith, hope and love (charity) as foundational, alongside cardinal virtues like justice, prudence, fortitude (courage), and temperance, with Paul’s “fruit of the Spirit list (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) being prominent, all promoting Christ-like character and Godly living through divine help.

While on the subject of power, this is a perfect time to conclude this post by acknowledging the power of songs and songsters to confront injustice with poetic truth.

I’d never heard of Jesse Welles until I saw a clip of him performing an original song, Join ICE, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. That clip immediately sent me off on a search to learn more about him. I’ve since learned that Jesse Welles is a modern-day troubadour who uses his folk music to comment on the chaos and absurdity of contemporary life by “singing the news” in real-time. He is a prophetic voice articulating common frustrations and observations and sharing his process of making sense of the world through song. The song I heard him perform on The Late Show speaks volumes to the events of last Wednesday in Minneapolis:

And speaking of singing the news in real time, check out his latest, Good vs. ICE at this LINK. And don’t stop there, because he has so much more to offer. Go explore more of Jesse.

I’ll close with a gallery of images from the protest in Pittsboro last Saturday. Click on any image to enlarge.