>> From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on the streets of Minneapolis, where ice was surging and protests were flowering.

And among the demonstrators were hundreds of faith leaders, clergy members from across the country, including from here in the Rochester Finger Lakes region.

Here's how the National Catholic Reporter described it.

Quote, around 200 faith leaders fanned out across the city to observe and document the actions of Ice, with some clergy confronting Department of Homeland Security agents.

Adding a visible religious presence to widespread efforts to counter the president's mass deportation campaign in the region, the faith leaders who are in Minneapolis as part of a larger convening focused on religious pushback to Ice, deployed to neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations, where DHS agents have been most active.

During an ongoing campaign known as Operation Metro Surge, the clergy, who hail from a range of traditions and worship communities across the country, sang on the busses as they ventured out into the street.

They belted out hymns and songs popular during the Civil Rights movement.

End quote.

But the clergy members did not only spend their time singing and marching.

The Catholic Reporter described one incident, for example, in which three faith leaders watched a dozen Ice agents surround a pregnant woman and demand papers.

She was shaken.

She was allowed to leave after showing proof of citizenship.

One of the faith leaders who intervened in that moment was Reverend Dan Brockway, an American Baptist minister from Brockport.

The ice surge in Minneapolis has ended, and the faith leaders have returned to their communities.

And we asked some locally based leaders to join us today to describe what they witnessed over those days in Minneapolis.

And some are here to do just that.

Let me welcome them now.

And I just mentioned Reverend Dan Brockway, who is with us here, lead pastor at Brockport First Baptist.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Next to Reverend Dan is Reverend Shari Quan, lead minister of First Unitarian Church of Rochester.

Welcome back.

Thanks for being here.

>> Happy to be here.

>> And Reverend Deborah L Hughes, a Presbyterian minister back with us.

Nice to see you, Deborah.

Thank you for making time.

>> Thanks.

I'm actually an American Baptist minister.

>> Oh, I've got boy.

Oh, man.

>> Yeah, I've served both denominations.

>> You know, we have talked to Deborah so many times over the years in her capacity as leader of the Susan B Anthony Museum and House.

Now in retirement, you're right back to your ministry.

>> It didn't take long.

>> It did not take long.

So Deborah and Sherry and Dan were in Minneapolis with hundreds of faith leaders for just a few days.

And, Reverend Quan, you were saying before the program, it was January 21st to the 24th, roughly right in that range.

>> Right.

So the organization that invited us out, March, which is an interfaith organization that's been operating for decades in Minneapolis, they asked clergy to come.

And within a week you said 200.

But I think it was actually somewhere between 700 and 1000 clergy.

we arrived on Wednesday.

Thursday was full of training as well as being out on the street in patrols.

And then Friday there was a series of actions.

And so most of us were headed home or on to our next thing by Saturday, which was when Alex Pretti was killed.

>> So on the day you were leaving.

>> Right, right.

>> Yeah.

I want to just kind of take a moment here because everything has moved so quickly and, you know, Renee Good get shot and killed.

And what was already kind of a powder keg becomes, you know, a totally different situation.

You're there.

The response is still raw.

What was it like, Reverend Quan to be going home and then to hear about another, and then to understand what happened to Alex Pretti.

>> Right.

I mean, I think just arriving in Minneapolis was incredibly sombering and humbling and inspiring.

I keep saying that it felt both worse and better than I expected.

Worse in that what an ice surge meant, what thousands of Ice agents meant in a city the size of Minneapolis was crushing.

It really did feel like a city under siege.

And so what Reverend Dan saw and what so many of us saw, was just palpable evidence of a city that had shifted dramatically.

And so to have a series of really inspiring actions and feel hope and connection and have people approach us on the street knowing we were there to bear witness and to join with them.

And sometimes in tears, thank us because they were so tired at that point.

It was just a really stark reminder that we come.

We came to Minneapolis.

We come home to share those stories and the work continues.

One of the things I'm bringing from that time was hearing that the resistance that I understand myself to be a part of will be steady, committed, dedicated work that will go on for over ten years.

And Alex Pretti death, his murder just hammered that home for me.

>> And for those Americans watching but have not having not been to Minneapolis, it really did feel to you like a city under siege.

That wasn't an overstatement in your experience.

>> I think there are parts of the city that you could probably be in and not see ice activity, but within ten minutes of arriving, I saw a van that had taken someone and observers blowing their whistles and running after the van.

And I mean, that was before I even got a chance to put my luggage down.

Now, I didn't see confirmed ice activity after that.

In the three days that I was there.

So you know, certainly it happens in waves and episodes.

But even now when we say that the surge is over, I want to be clear that Minneapolis is still feeling the incredible impact of that surge.

Right.

You still have thousands of people in detention.

You have people who are being released in the middle of the night into freezing weather.

You have businesses that are closed.

You have people whose rents aren't getting paid.

I mean, it's it is a city that is been devastatingly impacted by the surge.

>> Reverend Dan Brockway experience has been documented.

If you read the story in the Democrat and Chronicle, if you read the National Catholic Reporter, a story of Dan being in a group of faith leaders who witnessed, you know, sort of a brief detention and then a woman very shaken.

I want you to describe, if you can, the details of that moment that's been reporting.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

So that was on Thursday, the first full day that I think we were all in Minneapolis.

they did a full day training for clergy in being ice observers.

And as part of that, a bunch of us got to go on a little field trip, quote, unquote.

they loaded a bunch of us clergy up on busses.

I think there were maybe ten busses and dropped us off in different neighborhoods where ice had been active lately.

I paired up with an American Baptist clergy colleague from Ohio, a friend of mine named Brian Henderson.

we didn't even make it two blocks from where the bus dropped us off, and we saw two other Unitarian clergy across the street in a parking lot of a small strip mall.

They were waving us over.

So we go over, we introduce ourselves, and they point to this SUV with tinted windows and out-of-state plates in the middle of this parking lot.

And the clergy colleagues of ours were like, we're pretty sure that's ice again.

We hadn't even walked two blocks through Minneapolis.

So we stood there.

It was, I think, -15 at the time.

So it was very cold.

but we're kind of huddled together watching this SUV for about ten, 15 minutes.

Then a pregnant Latino woman comes out of the laundromat, gets into her minivan, and this SUV pulls right up behind her.

Within seconds, two other unmarked tinted window cars come out of nowhere and box this woman in 12 Ice agents get out with their guns drawn.

Surround the car.

I kind of went into autopilot at that point.

We all had our whistles.

So the four of us clergy start blowing our whistles.

I pulled out my phone and was live streaming it all to the church Facebook page.

Entire encounter was less than two minutes.

The Ice agents asked for the woman's papers.

She presented them with her papers.

they gave them back to her.

They got in her car and they were gone.

But if they would have taken her, she'd have been gone, you know, without a trace.

the the strip mall that we were in was practically deserted.

About half the stores were were, were closed up.

Lights off.

I've described Minneapolis as almost feeling like Covid in that it's just shut down.

You know, restaurants are not open or they're open.

Very limited hours for takeout only.

People aren't out and about in the street.

but yeah.

Then the four of us clergy went over to check on the woman she was.

She was visibly shaking.

but but okay.

We offered to pray with her.

She said, no, I just want to get home.

I just want to get home.

So she left.

After she leaves, we turn around all the store doors in this in this strip mall are open and there are people standing there.

They started clapping for us and thanking, thanking us.

and then a woman Chinese immigrant woman who was the owner of the laundromat, invited us into the laundromat, started telling us her story.

She pulled out her papers.

She had her her green card, her Minnesota driver's license and her Chinese passport on her.

Told us that she'd been living in Minneapolis for more than 20 years.

And she gets stopped multiple times a week by Ice agents or CBP agents and asked to show her papers.

And she knows multiple people who've been abducted.

so we talked to her.

We prayed for her.

and there was one other really memorable person in the laundromat, a Somali immigrant who just kept saying over and over again, why are they terrorizing us?

Why are they terrorizing us?

So it was it was a surreal experience.

>> Again, this is two days before Alex Pretti gets shot and killed, but it's a couple of weeks after the shooting of Renee Good and Reverend, in the moment that you are blowing a whistle and shooting video, by that point, you're very, very well aware that Ice agents at a minimum have been assaulting people for shooting video even though you're constitutionally protected, you shoot video there have been other physical confrontations and, you know, Renee Good was dead.

I'm thinking of a piece that I read by the culture writer Kat Rosenfield, and I. I'm thinking of what you might have been thinking in that moment, because Rosenfield writes that the death of Renee Good showed that on both sides, there's kind of a lack of understanding of how deadly the stakes can be.

And I don't agree with that.

I think the protest movement understands it.

Yeah, I think it's glib on the side of the agents who are, according to judges, a conservative judge in Minnesota has said they broke the law 96 times that he has seen.

But I, I would be surprised to hear you say that you didn't feel in that moment that the stakes were extremely high and that you knew things could spiral.

>> Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

It was it was it was scary.

But again, as part of the very short bit of training we had had before, we before we went out on the streets, one of the things that was emphasized is you can control your breath, focus on breathing.

and I think that was one of the helpful things, actually, with having the whistle.

It's like, okay, I don't have to I don't have to talk to these Ice agents.

I don't have to get up in their face.

I am here to bear witness.

I'm here to make sure whatever goes down is captured on video.

I'm here to blow this whistle.

And blowing a whistle really does make you you know, control your breathing.

and and it was, it was an automatic sort of response.

I as as scary as it was in that moment, I'm not thinking.

Oh, no, something is about to happen to me.

I'm.

I'm there to bear witness.

So that was, that was and again, it happened so quickly that I didn't have time to panic, if that makes sense.

Right.

Yeah.

>> But you didn't feel like you were cosplaying a protest?

>> No.

>> You understood how dangerous it could be.

>> Absolutely, absolutely.

you know, the the four of us clergy who were standing there in that encounter, we all had our stoles on, you know, the kind of marking us as clergy which, you know, that that isn't necessarily going to offer much protection.

but I, I think really more than anything, we were there.

I'm understanding myself there, representing my community back here in Rochester and Brockport, representing my church.

so as as I'm live streaming the video, a member of my church texts me letting me know that they're praying for me, which it's like, oh my God.

>> In real.

>> Time, in real time.

Like I'm literally holding up my my phone.

You know, I've got 12 Ice agents on my camera.

Live streaming of the church page.

And I get a text from from Thomas, a church member, saying, I'm praying for you, pastor.

May the power of God cover you.

That that makes that made a big difference for me in that moment.

>> Yeah.

let me turn to Reverend Deborah Hughes.

Deborah, when you were in there in for three, roughly three days here.

tell me a little bit about your own experience and and what stood out to you?

>> I think the one is how that it's projected when we're not seeing enough about what's really going on.

The other is even just the word protesters.

I think the better word for the people of Minneapolis is protectors.

And I think and I heard the news about Alex Pretti so differently, what what we were doing in terms of being witnesses, there's so much footage that's documented what's been going on.

The other piece is what?

So why are people out there?

Well, it's obvious you're not going to take on ice.

They have the weapons and they're breaking the law regularly.

So what they're trying to do, I think the motivation for almost everybody is to try to protect people.

And to me.

So when I heard about Alex Pretti, it was such a different level of grief because I thought about all those people that I had met in Minneapolis who are, as you raised, who are on the streets putting their lives at risk to try to document or make it more difficult, or, you know, one of the first things when we were learning how to be observers is to get the name of the person that they're taking so that you can reach out to the family to get the name and the telephone number if you can, because that family is just someone's not going to come home and they're not going to be able to hear it, and it's supposed to get posted by ice within 24 hours.

But can you imagine somebody doesn't come home from the laundromat and you don't know what's happened to them?

You have no idea.

and so as observers, that's part of the protection.

You know, you're helping there.

You're able to convey to them some of their rights, you're able to let their name be known and get that back from that.

the you can give them a telephone number for legal aid.

There's all kinds of things.

So the motivation is not anti-ICE.

The motivation is pro people.

And I think that's for me, that was the incredibly hopeful thing was, I mean, the people that are out there a lot of people will do one hour walking streets in their neighborhood.

It's just it's a whole lot of people that look like me.

it's a whole lot of retired people.

It's a whole lot of compassionate people.

I one of the other things is the people have had to put down, you know, you put a bunch of clergy in a room.

The joke is always, if you've got two Baptists, you've got three opinions.

But I can tell you there's more than that within the American Baptist family.

we were working with faith leaders of traditions who might totally disagree with us on almost every topic.

The unifying factor was we believe people should be protected.

And so my heart broke hearing about Alex Pretti, because I think that the people of Minneapolis would see his death as such a failure from their what they're really trying to do is preserve life.

And I think that so it was a it was a incredible personal sense of grief that I was feeling for the people that I had met who were trying so hard to save lives and take care of one another.

>> It's interesting that you used the word protector, because in the in the minute before Alex Pretti was shot and killed, he was stepping in to try to protect a woman who'd been knocked down.

Yes, he was trying to act as a protector.

>> That's what everyone doing.

I talked with a teenager who lives in the neighborhood.

Not all that far from.

Well, two of the Baptist churches that are right there, too.

And her comment about the whistles was that she has such a conflict because when she hears the whistles and she lives in the neighborhood, that's lots of people.

When she hears the whistles and when she hears the honking horns, it's evidence to her that the scary people are there, that ice is there.

And then she said, but it's also the evidence that the people who care are also there, and that she walks so she hears whistles.

I guess a lot of the ice activity is very early in the morning.

and it tapers off during the day.

But her life is that she hears whistles multiple times every day and had been doing that for 60 days at the point that we were there.

And here's a young teenager, but she's got that sense of, these are the protectors, the whistles are the protectors.

>> Reverend Quan, can I ask you about how you think about about Ice agents and the people who are putting masks on and, and conducting this activity?

Because when you think about a number of religious traditions, this is not limited to one, the notion of trying to truly love your neighbor.

We've talked in the last month on this program about how that sometimes becomes, again, glib or just tossed around tritely as opposed to understanding some of the the context.

And if you want to take a biblical context, a context of doing really hard work to love people who you know, might not be showing love to you people who you might not feel in the moment are deserving, but you're also a human being.

And anger can overtake anyone's emotions.

Sadness.

rage.

How do you sort of, like, balance?

Shari Quan the human being?

Reverend Quan, the faith leader, the community leader.

A desire to say I am going to try to love everyone and it's going to be really hard.

And I'm going to try to contextualize.

There's someone who chose to do this that I can't believe they're doing this, but that's a human being too.

How do you think about the Ice agents themselves?

>> Yeah, that's a great question.

And I think when we're talking about the context of sort of being out on the street or being neighbors who protect one another, that's a different conversation in terms of what needs to happen right now.

>> In that.

>> Moment, in that moment, then sort of how do we hold that more largely, or what do I do with the Ice agent in front of me whose wife has just died, or the Ice agent in front of me who didn't see a path forward to support her family?

And this is the job that she could get, right?

I understand that folks come into this work from a huge range of reasons, and and there are people who come into this work specifically because they believe in a worldview and an ideology that I find reprehensible, that is at complete ideological odds with mine.

Right.

So there's a huge range of reasons people do this work.

Yes, they are humans.

And so when we talk about something like abolish Ice, which can sound really harsh and firm, there's nothing there that says abolish the people who make up this structure, abolish the institution that allows this work to be done.

I can hold a really clear moral and political line there without demonizing the people who actually do this work.

so it is challenging.

And the universalism of Unitarian Universalism consistently holds, I think, two things.

One, that every human being is inherently worthy and has dignity, and there's nothing that I can do or they can do that, can take that away.

That's part of why what Ice is doing right now feels so violating, not only to the people who are immediately impacted, but for those who are far away just watching it, we can see that it's wrong because it violates other people's humanity.

And that I can hold in an ultimate sense that everybody is worthy.

But but the joke is, you know, I know my faith teaches me that, that God loves everybody.

And so I don't have to write that, like, I'm gonna struggle with that.

>> It's a very human thing to say.

>> Very right.

Even Reverend Quan, the faith leader, is going to feel anger, going to feel at times lulled into the desire for retribution and punishment.

Right?

>> Contempt?

>> Absolutely.

and there's a huge difference between anger that tells us that something's wrong and hatred that consumes us.

Right?

So being able to put some spaciousness there.

>> Yeah.

Anger in a moment.

Hatred over time is different things, right?

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> and you know, Reverend Quan mentioned the notion of abolishing Ice.

Reverend Brockway's church put an abolish Ice sign out front of the church in Brockport.

Yes.

>> That's correct.

>> How'd that go?

>> Well, it worked out well.

The sign was a riff on a Bible verse, Micah six eight, which is do justice, love kindness.

Walk humbly with your God.

We put do justice, love kindness, abolish Ice on our church sign.

this was end of January.

It was the week after I came back from Minneapolis, and within 24 hours, we received a phone call from the Brockport village government from the code enforcement officer, a good guy who I actually, I actually know letting us know that they had gotten some very angry phone calls at the village office about our sign and asking us to take the sign down.

I told them that we wouldn't be taking the sign down, but it is.

It changes every week.

So I was like, it'll it'll it'll change on Monday.

They'll be they'll be a new sign up there.

And I was then told, well we are going.

The next step is we're going to move to have your sign removed because you have an agreement.

Your church made an agreement long before I was there with the village to have that sign to use it to promote church and village events.

And he goes a political statement like that is not promoting a church or village event.

I then told him I didn't think it was a political statement.

It's a moral statement.

I also told him about the vigil that we were hosting that night at the church right in front of the sign and within so he told me the next step would be I'd be I'd be hearing from from the, the ordinance board, and they'd be moving to have our sign removed.

I said, thank you for for letting me know.

>> You didn't flinch on this one, did you?

>> I did not, I did not but within about two hours, I got another call.

from from the same individual who said that he actually reviewed the agreement that the church made with the village.

And his exact quote is, I'm not sure I have the legal right to compel you to change the sign.

So he told me he'd be consulting with a lawyer and getting back to me.

the next morning, I had an email saying, you know, they talked to the village lawyer and they don't have the grounds to make us change the sign, and we could put whatever we want on the sign.

So it's a little victory.

You know, Brockport is a 2.2mi village.

but.

The church has received the church that I pastor has received dozens of emails and calls in the last couple of weeks since putting that sign up from people in the community thanking us for having that sign.

And the one that moved me the most was from an ESL teacher in Brockport School District who let me know that a number of her students and their families live in constant fear.

And in a in a place like Brockport, they feel like there aren't a lot of safe places.

And she's like, I want you to know that when my students and their families drive by your church, they know they have a safe place.

And that's why we put messages like that on the sign.

>> ESL is English as a second language.

>> English as a second language, correct?

Yeah.

>> And for people who are upset if they called you.

>> Yeah.

>> Would you have that conversation?

>> I would love to.

I would love to.

>> Have you had some.

>> so what happens at our church is we get angry voicemails in the middle of the night anonymously.

and we got, we got 2 or 3 over that sign, which isn't, isn't the worst that we've, we've ever had.

but no, I'm.

I'm always happy to sit down and talk to someone who disagrees to hear them out and hope, hope that they'll give me the same grace and that we'll have some sort of a dialog that tends to happen on our church Facebook page a lot, because we post pictures of the church signs there.

so I think there's usually more dialog and discussion on those.

And half the time I end up having to delete the comments because they go in a really negative direction.

but but yeah, I'm always open to having those conversations.

>> Whew.

What a story there.

Well, we got to take our only break of the hour, and we're going to come back in just a moment.

We're going to be joined by Reverend Lisa Friedman, who is minister of Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, Minnesota, and a Rochester native who is going to talk about why she decided to participate in this action as well.

She was actually arrested at the airport.

And we're going to talk about what these faith leaders are going to do next here, because there's a lot of talk about what movements look like in a moment and a moment of passion, in a moment of fear, of solidarity, of protection.

And then what happens in the days and weeks and months to come?

So take that brief break.

We're going to come back with Reverend Deborah Hughes, Reverend Shari Quan, Reverend Dan Brockway all talking about their experience in Minneapolis.

>> Coming up in our second hour, it's our Friday news roundup, starting with gold medals for Rochester.

Reporter Veronica Volk.

Joining us talking about the work she did covering this extraordinary program that Bishop Kearney has bringing Olympic talent from Rochester to Milan.

We'll talk all about it then.

WXXI Classical's Mona Seghatoleslami joins us talking about Bach, the Cello Suites and Aggy Dune local drag queen joins us to talk about her new monthly show.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bobjohnsonautogroup.com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson you heard our guest mention earlier this hour.

Their estimate is 700 to 1000 clergy faith leaders from around the country were in Minneapolis for a 3 to 4 day stretch in late January, right before the killing of Alex Pretti last month.

And some of the leaders who went to Minneapolis and have since returned to the Rochester region are in studio with us.

many different faith traditions represented.

Although Reverend Quan, clearly the Unitarians were out in force.

I mean, we've got one on the phone with us right now.

>> Great.

So now we've got two Unitarian Universalists and two Baptists.

But I want to be really clear.

There were folks from many, many denominations and faith traditions there.

>> And before I bring in this guest on the phone, you know, your colleague across the table mentioned this idea that when you got there, it was clear that there are plenty of faith leaders who were in Minneapolis who would disagree on a lot of stuff, but were joined on this one.

Reverend Quan were there were there moments where you were surprised to see?

I mean, I think what I'm trying to get around to asking is, were there conservative leaders?

I mean, like, did you meet people who you would have said, wow, I'm not I was not expecting this person to be part of a protest movement here.

>> Well, so I want to talk about one of the major lessons for me coming out of this is that we need to build a bigger tent, that there are things that we're going to disagree on.

And for the sake of protecting our neighbors, we're going to need to be able to find the places where we can actually work together.

But I'd love to pass it to Reverend Hughes, who I think has a powerful story about working with a conservative minister.

>> Yeah.

So on Friday we all kind of chose what activities we wanted to do besides going to the big march.

At the end of the day, I chose to go to Deos, which I can say that out loud because they've been very public with what they've been doing.

it's an evangelical Hispanic church.

and they decided early on one thing that we could do would be to deliver meals to people.

So they put up on their Facebook site, if you want a meal.

And they were shocked that within a few hours they had more than a couple hundred families.

So now they're doing thousands.

and the whole the church is doing a small church.

so I went there at first it was 35 from the interfaith group that were all there together.

the regular volunteers arrived at around 10:00 in the morning.

And one of the things that people asked of this pastor was, you know, you're having to work with people who are different.

And I drew a conclusion from his response.

and he said yes.

When we started doing this, the very first people who volunteered were the LGBTQ community.

And that had changed his understanding about how to do this work together.

and so wow, pretty powerful.

>> Building a bridge that maybe didn't exist before.

>> Correct.

Coming together over, giving people food.

>> Wow.

And so, Reverend Quan, when you talk about building a bigger tent, what does that in practice look like in this region?

>> So I think there are in the interfaith community as well as the larger activist community and the broader Rochester community, people who just care about their neighbors, care about what's right.

There are plenty of reasons we could find a reason to close ourselves off from others.

They've had the wrong opinion about this issue, or they're working on this thing that's at odds with another thing that I'm working on.

These are human instincts, and I understand that.

But so much of what we're seeing now is an attempt to drive wedges between people, to create a sense of superiority, and we have to resist that.

I think with every fiber of our being.

So I think I hold some marginalized identities and in other ways, I have a lot of privilege.

And I know that this work will require me to use the privilege that I have, and also to move in spaces where I don't feel comfortable, where I don't necessarily feel safe.

And that's a strange and hard thing to hold.

>> Well, let me bring in Reverend Lisa Friedman, who's minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, Minnesota, and a Rochester native, on the line with us now.

Reverend, thanks for making the time.

How are you?

Do we have Reverend Friedman?

I think we've got you now.

Reverend, can you hear me?

We don't.

Let's see if we can make sure we got Reverend Friedman.

And before we turn back to Reverend Friedman, let me ask Reverend Brockway.

Dan Brockway is lead pastor at Brockport First Baptist.

I want you, if you could, to kind of way in to you happen to be in a setting that is more rural.

Hello.

hey, Reverend.

Reverend Freeman, we'll get you on in just a second.

It's good.

Good to hear your voice.

Thank you for being with us here.

okay, Reverend, just briefly here, when you talk about putting a sign up abolish Ice.

I would think that if Reverend Quan church puts up an abolish Ice sign, maybe has whatever it might not be the same kind of reaction if you're in Hilton, if you're in Bergen, if you're in Riga, might be different.

If you're in Penn Yan or the Finger Lakes, it might be different.

So you get a chance to experience, I think, maybe a church community that's pretty like minded with you, but maybe not in some ways.

But you're also in an area geographically where there's certainly more conservative churches around you that you could easily find.

Do you think it's valuable to keep trying to sort of break bread and find common ground when there are going to be to to Reverend Kwon's point time, where you on a certain issue, you go, I don't think we're even close here.

And this feels antithetical to the work that I want to do.

>> Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And even my congregation, you know we're a cross-section.

You know, there's there's politically progressive folks, politically conservative folks, and a whole lot of moderates.

One of the things I've noticed with the current crisis we're facing with with Ice and Operation Metro Surge and all the stuff we're seeing on the news, it is overcoming some of those barriers.

we got more angry calls.

You know, a year ago, if we put something political on the sign than we are now.

I've heard from I've heard from folks who previously took issue with some stance our church took in the past who are now saying like, thank you for taking this stance.

People are starting to see that this is not a left right issue, a red blue issue.

It's a right or wrong issue.

Love of neighbor is not political.

>> What do you think has changed that?

What do you think has sparked that?

>> I mean, I think it helps that so many people are documenting and posting videos of of what's happening.

When you see things with your own eyes, it's it's hard.

It's hard to believe the spin that contradicts what you're what you're what you're seeing.

I think that makes a huge difference.

And I think people are being shocked.

I've heard from so many folks who are saying, you know, I can't believe this is America.

I can't believe this is happening here.

Now, of course I'm here.

Like, this kind of stuff happens all the time in America.

Just, you know, just ask other communities.

But but people are waking up or they're being woken up by what they're seeing.

>> So let me ask you one more question before I turn to Reverend Friedman.

I occasionally will see people who've been doing work on these kind of issues for years, and at times recently when someone comes to them and says, boy, I can't believe this is America.

I can't believe this is happening.

The response is, how dare you say that you're ignorant.

I've been trying to tell people for years, where have you been?

And I see some walls go up.

When that happens.

I wonder how you feel about.

The idea that some people are going to come to different places at different times and through different reasons.

>> Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, that that response I would say is not helpful.

Like, like Reverend Quan was saying a moment ago, we need a bigger tent.

We need to overcome some of these, some of these divisions.

And in my opinion, now is not the time for litmus tests and perfection.

It's it's time to to work together.

because what we're seeing is so immoral and outrageous.

>> Well, Reverend Lisa Friedman is a Rochester native who's on the line with us.

a minister of Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Reverend, thank you for making the time to talk to your native Rochester.

How are you?

>> I'm good.

Grateful to be here.

>> so I know there's certain things you probably can't talk too much in depth about, but I understand there were some people who were arrested during some recent demonstrations.

And is there any anything that you can tell us about that?

>> Well, I think that the action at the airport where clergy, local clergy came together to engage in civil disobedience and to be arrested to lift up what was going on.

And the the, you know, to and to amplify the experience of of people who had been disappeared through the airport, workers who were not able to tell their story, to call for Ice being out.

it was it was a powerful thing to be a part of.

And it was and I want to say it really mattered.

I want to thank the three clergy here today and all who came in.

It made a difference that you came.

It made a difference to feel that support coming in.

It makes a difference to know that you are taking the learnings from that time back to your communities.

and, and I have to say of that in, in that experience of being arrested at the airport almost all of the interfaith clergy that that were there, that participating in that for most of us, it was the first time that we had done this kind of action, but we all felt like, if not, if not now, then when?

You know, when would if we didn't say yes to this moment and to showing up together in that kind of solidarity, when would we.

>> yeah.

So let me actually press that point, Reverend.

I, I certainly want to try to engage in good faith as best I can with people who might disagree with my guests today or even disagree with the protest movement.

I think there are certain lines that I just cannot get there and say that you can look at, for example, shooting Renee Good, the shooting of Alex Pretti and say, yes, I agree with the administration's narrative on this.

These were people who were out to try to to slaughter Ice agents to kill, as opposed to being there to protect.

I there just is not evidence of that at all.

And we're not going to I can't spend a lot of time.

I think, contemplating that.

But what I can at least try to understand are the people who say, well, now you know how dangerous this is.

And protests, you know, if your life could be on the line, is it smarter to stay home?

should would things would the temperature be down if people just stayed home and let quote, unquote, let Ice go do their work?

and I want you to address that.

If you could, Reverend.

>> I think I think it was I mean, I think in terms of what we've witnessed in our community and the the ways I, I was not showing up to, quote, unquote, do their work.

They were showing up to terrorize communities and neighbors, people, children were being harmed and living in fear.

And and that basic, that basic sense of we are here as, as you've talked about earlier in this conversation, we are here to protect people.

We're here to amplify basic human decency.

We're here to call out terror for what it is.

we're part of and I mean, I think that that it's not that's not about policy.

That's not about you know, what we were seeing was was far, far away from anything that has to do with kind of differences of opinion on immigration policy.

You know, what was happening.

And, and still in some places is happening in our community is our tactics of fear and dehumanization.

And that just has that has to be called out.

>> And.

>> And we have to call for others to help.

I mean, I think part of the, the sense that everyone has a turn and standing up for what our humanity is and taking care for each other, loving our neighbor.

>> Well.

And before I let you go, Reverend, I really appreciate you making the time.

you know, you talk about what it meant to be a minnesotan now and to see hundreds of leaders come from around the country, volunteer their time, spend days in Minneapolis, spend days with people trying to help heal or protect.

What do you want?

First of all, those leaders.

But what do you want people to do going forward?

Now that you know, the quote, unquote surge, the surge in Minneapolis has ended.

Ice will continue doing work in many communities across the country, including probably right here.

What do you want the work to look like going forward, Reverend.

>> I think that the power that we have in coming together to build that bigger tent, as you've been talking about, and the fact that everyone, absolutely everyone has a part and a turn in that and that we are connected, I mean, Minneapolis is connected to Rochester.

We are connected in ways that we may never fully realize.

and that that has power and that has strength.

I will just say that, you know, in the pulpit that Sunday after after sort of the solidarity of that Thursday and Friday and all who came and the march in downtown Minneapolis to Pretti Alex Pretti killing, and then to get up in the pulpit and to be able to say, we are not alone.

Others are with us.

Others see this, and others will be taking this work home with them.

meant a lot to my people and and to the community.

>> Reverend Lisa Friedman from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, Minnesota, and a Rochester native much peace for your community going forward.

I mean, I, I don't know what it's like to live in a place that's gone through what you've been through recently, but thank you for sharing the experience and getting on the phone with us and spending a few minutes.

Reverend.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> That's Reverend Lisa Friedman and the reason we're having this conversation today is you might have known.

You might not have known that hundreds of faith leaders from around the country went to Minneapolis, went to the Minneapolis area toward the end of January, in fact, right before in the days leading up to the killing of Alex Pretti.

And three of those leaders are with us in studio Reverend Deborah Luke Hughes, Reverend Shari Quan, Reverend Dan Brockway, all explaining what they experienced.

And you just heard Reverend Lisa Friedman, who is a Rochester native who lives in Minnesota, talking about what it was like to see that support show up.

Let me grab a phone call from George in Geneseo.

Hi, George.

Go ahead.

George, are.

>> You there?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

we should not only call our faith leaders, but also call our congressperson.

I'm trying to remember, Congresswoman Tenney's phone number 202, I think.

225.

3665. but call your congressperson with your opinions.

And this is not the first.

I mean, the bridge in Alabama in the 60s, people got heads broken there.

Medgar Evans was murdered.

the the powers of darkness exist.

and they they're they haven't gone away.

>> Well, George.

Thank you.

If you get Representative Tenney, will you tell her to call me?

We'd love to have her on this program.

And we haven't been able to do that, so but I. I take the point that you think that there are a lot more we can do.

a lot more people can do.

And so let's go around the table here.

Reverend Brockway, what can people do next here?

What does the work look like going forward to you?

>> I think becoming part of groups that are trying to make a difference, whether it's connecting with the church that's running a food bank or you know, there's there's organizations like the Rochester Rapid Response Network that's that are actively training people in being Ice observers.

You know, there are so many things you can do to serve, to try to make a difference.

And yes, absolutely.

Call your representatives, call your Congress people.

Amen to all of that.

>> Reverend Quan.

>> So I've got three things.

I'll start with the specific and then zoom out a little bit.

The first one is on Tuesday night at First Universalist.

There's an interfaith gathering to talk about how we might build a resistance here in Rochester and use the lessons of Minneapolis, because we will need them going forward.

Number two would be right.

The Rochester Rapid Response Network and groups that are already doing work that want to help you get plugged in that's a fantastic choice.

If you can't make it on Tuesday.

And then the third one is general but deeply important, we can't let ourselves get lulled into thinking our silence and our fear will protect us.

Right?

That if we all stayed home, things would go more smoothly.

Pastor Dan had a powerful example of not being intimidated into taking down this sign, and a teacher was killed in Savannah this week just driving to school because of Ice activity.

So even if we just all pretended like things were normal, they would not be.

We cannot comply in advance.

>> Deborah.

>> I would say if you're in any way connected with faith communities, find one in Minnesota and send a card.

Tell them that we see same in Chicago, which had very similar activities but didn't get the same press.

now it's really ramping up in Texas as well, and people just need to hear that, that people see what's going on.

I think another is that whole piece about we have lived in an illusion a lot in this country, and that's why we're getting pushback from people who say this kind of stuff happens all the time.

We're waking up to the fact that, yeah, the legal system doesn't protect everybody, and we know that.

And we've heard that we could come out on the other side of this as a much stronger, more compassionate nation if we people of privilege realized that we've got to deal with that.

And and it falls on the people of privilege to make sure that everybody's getting their same constitutional rights and due process of law and that we're not incarcerating people unjustly.

that's a that's a necessity.

And I think that this is a wake up call.

And I think that that's really important for us to hear that and to say, yeah, it shouldn't be.

It shouldn't be terrifying to drive while black in this country.

It shouldn't be.

You shouldn't be frightened when you're driving on a rural road and you realize you don't look like everybody else there.

And we come out of this being a much and we I think, unfortunately, people of privilege assume the structure is going to take care of people.

And in Minneapolis, that's what's so remarkable.

The structure isn't taking care of people.

And that's the people are.

And that is what's so incredibly hopeful.

>> You know, I remember a conversation back in the fall when kids were getting ready to go back to school.

And in the RCSD, for example, there were families telling the district leaders, I don't know if I want to send my kid to school right now.

I mean, I'm trying to think about what life is like in schools, and especially with, you know, Dan mentioned English second language and different communities that might be more fearful.

What would you want to keep us in mind about when it comes to schools?

Deborah.

>> Well, I think we have to always ask the community.

Right.

One of the worst things is if I have an idea that it's going to be good in your neighborhood, that's wrong.

but can we?

We've got lots of kids who are afraid to go to school.

What could we do as a community to make a street a safe space?

and it's not having more military based police.

That's.

That just is as frightening to a child.

what can we actually do to get the bullies off the street?

And I think that we have the capacity.

Do we have the will?

And can we figure out a way other than the ways that we've attempted to, to to deal with some of those problems?

>> let me also share that a listener sent me a picture of a flag he put on his car.

It's a flag.

It's a Mexico flag.

And the way he described it is he is a run of the mill white guy who wants to distract ice.

So he's putting a Mexico flag on his car, and if they waste their time pulling him over, that is less time that they have to do other things.

That's okay.

I've not heard of that.

That's the first I've heard of that.

Reverend, I saw you.

What do you think, Reverend Brockway?

>> Excellent work.

I, I appreciate that, I think, I think don't underestimate the power of small acts of civil disobedience like that.

>> Reverend Quan, anything you want to add on that one?

>> Yeah.

So I often talk with my congregation about becoming the sand in the gears of tyranny and things like that, that just make things that are wrong.

Right?

We see injustice in the world, and we.

It's hard to comprehend how much of that is just, like bureaucratic systems moving forward.

So anything we can do to just gum up the works to waste people's time, to make things that we don't want to work, not work.

We can be powerful.

>> Let me also just say not as a panelist, as the journalist hosting this conversation.

I think it's valuable to remember that what we are seeing in Minneapolis, what what Reverend Brockway saw the demanding of papers of a woman who came out of a laundromat right now, that happened probably because they're looking for black and brown people who they can immediately try to put a claim that we don't trust, that you are documented.

>> Correct.

>> And so if you put a Mexico flag in your car and you're, as the listener told me, a run of the mill white guy, okay, they may ask for your papers.

Anyway, we're in a weird place.

This is a I mean, weird is a euphemism, but I wouldn't want to be flip about the idea that if you get pulled over by agents and they're asking for papers, I mean, I don't know where that goes.

I mean, and I don't want to be the guy who's like, well, everyone just carry papers.

I mean, I have emails like that over the last month.

People are like, what's the problem with carrying papers?

Just carry documentation.

And I'm like, whoa, like, yeah, it's a it feels like we need to kind of get a historical reset here.

But I don't want to be flippant either.

You know, when you talk about.

>> Yeah, I mean, at my church, we have we have Hispanic church members who are make sure they have their papers on them.

One, one I can think of specifically is Puerto Rican.

So she's she's a citizen born citizen, but she carries her passport on her for just in case.

We have a another church member who's a European immigrant.

They have a very strong accent.

they asked me a couple weeks ago, do you think it'd be a good idea for me to start carrying my papers on me?

And I'm like, honestly, if you get stopped by Ice, you're going to want them.

So it's I mean, it's it's it's happening everywhere.

>> And you're fighting the pragmatism of the answer versus what you desire.

The answer should be right.

>> Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

Because you shouldn't have to have your papers on you.

but I can understand why people do, because, I mean, if ice stops you and you don't, God knows what can happen, right?

>> And so.

And the sand and the gears there, you know, anything can happen there, Reverend.

>> Right.

Yeah.

And so I would just add that we don't want to be in a space where everyone has to carry papers, and it makes good, practical sense for people to take precautions.

Right.

For this white guy driving around with the Mexican flag on his car when he gets pulled over, a refusal to answer questions would be a reasonable course of action, right?

That if you have some privilege in the system, your response to Ice agents could and probably should be.

I'm not answering questions today, right?

You don't have to comply with it.

If you've got some space.

And yet what we know from Renee Good and Alex Pretti is that the stakes are real.

When you turn your back on white supremacy, right?

This idea that white people should be keeping the peace at home and letting this happen, the system will get violent.

The stakes are real and our silence will also end in physical death or moral death.

>> What a conversation this hour.

I want to thank all of our guests for taking the time to come in and share their experiences.

Last month in Minneapolis, and talk about what's happening now in in our own community, in our own part of the world.

And you just heard Reverend Shari Quan, lead minister of First Unitarian Church of Rochester.

She mentioned Reverend mentioned on Tuesday night, 730.

We had talked about that with some faith leaders earlier this week in a separate conversation.

But that is coming up Tuesday, 730, open to the public at.

>> First Universalist.

>>, First Universalist Church.

Thank you for being here, Reverend.

Thank you.

Reverend Dan Brockway, lead pastor at Brockport First Baptist.

Thanks for being here.

>> Thanks for.

>> Having me.

Thank you.

Reverend Deborah Luke Hughes, for coming in and all the different hats you wear.

It's always fascinating.

Thank you for coming in and sharing your experience as well.

>> Glad to be here.

Thank you Evan.

>> We got more Connections coming up in just one moment.

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