Artemis
My little brother (lives close to where Renee Good was shot & killed in Minneapolis) has been 3D printing ICE whistles & handing them out to neighbors & giving some to local businesses & churches to hand out. I'm really proud that his response is action, not fear.
The George Floyd protests play a part in this. The local places he knows will gladly hand out whistles are people he knows from 2020. All that commotion was NOT for nothing. A lot of people learned about organizing for the 1st time.
Artemis
Plus, there actually is some real potential power in giving out those whistles for free.
See, people don't like to turn down free stuff. "Completely free?" So you might pick one up with vaguely good intentions, but no expectation to actually use it.
But now you have it. Now if a situation came up where you might use it, it's burning a hole in your pocket, so to speak. You have the thing right there, shouldn't you do something?
Small things can sometimes be incredibly persuasive.
Artemis
He says he sees people in the neighborhood out on the streets patrolling in case of ICE. That's gotta be a big deterrent for the Feds. People are literally going out & proactively getting ready in case they roll up.
ICE agents do NOT want to deal with that shit.
Artemis
ICE whistles may be "small potatoes", but they have proven to be helpful in many scenarios to get people out obstructing the Feds. Probably even more important though are the burgeoning relationships with both "ordinary people" & organizers in his local community.
Artemis
You know in Andor when the Corpos show up on Ferrix, & everyone starts banging these metal things to alert the whole community that the cops are out & about (& frighten & confuse the Corpos).
That's what ICE whistles are. They are one small act of solidarity. One small declaration of resistance. One little thing.
Artemis
I am really excited for the energy being created here.
We have to understand & have realistic expectations. This is one little moment. Some people who got really energized will go back to passivity. These actions won't make the Trump admin stop kidnapping & killing people.
But they can a) help save *some* people & b) build up people's "resistance muscles" & show them they are not alone in believing that something needs to be done.
This is not the tipping point, but this is growth.
Artemis
But about free whistles being persuasive: sometimes it's good to think in terms of marketing. What are the little "hacks" that can get someone to make the choice you want them to?
Some of them are really fucking simple, & they often start with gimmicks like "a free gift".
Artemis
All this visibility is valuable too.
Whistles being handed out all over the place, people out on the streets, whether in crowds or watching out for the smaller neighborhoods, even street art & flyers, this shows people who have been afraid or unsure that they too could be doing more, & if they did, they wouldn't be alone.
Autoerotic Defenestration
@artemis yesterday or the day before there was a story about a woman hiding a doordash driver from ICE in her house, and the whole neighborhood showed up.
One of those neighbors said that she only knew to come out because of the racket people were making on the street, and she specifically mentioned people using whistles!
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