Blog 2: Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong

Sean Kuhl 

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong 

Adam Serwer’s article Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong was a deeply interesting article on the ongoing American protests against ICE agents. Within this article we learn intimately about the efforts of several protestors and, interestingly, we learn a lot about the importance of communication in relation to our class readings. At the broadest level Serwer’s article can be seen as an example of James Carey’s Ritual view of communication. The ritual view sees communication as a repeated practice, not built on learning new information, but in reinforcing an established viewpoint. The ICE protests themselves are about a challenge of power, resistance against the dominant narrative of those controlling the government. Protestors are seeking to change how immigrants and their families have been and are being treated by changing the functions of communication that they depend on. In other words, they aim to disrupt the rituals around messages, challenging who should be listened to and creating new ways to fight back. To do this, new ways that rely on the base physical qualities of media, which calls back to Carey’s work again in the categories of Transmission and Transportation.  

Minnesotan protestors have fought back against ICE in several ways, but the most important method is disrupting the transportation they need to perform their operations. Carey talks about transportation as the first form of communication, where messages are bound to space and time, requiring physical means to hold control. Making use of this, ICE has functioned in Minnesota by conducting ‘raids’ in small caravans of vehicles that move together through the streets searching for new targets to arrest. ICE controls the outside space, so protestors' first move was to organize and take control of this space back. One way they did this in Sewer’s article was by bringing food and goods directly to immigrant families in their homes, allowing them to avoid confrontations outside. The second way they did this was through Observers, protestors who patrolled the streets in vehicles with whistles and horns. Observers will not physically stop or block ICE agents, but they put great effort into alerting others with loud sounds, pressuring officers out of neighborhoods. They reclaimed the physical means of oppression by opposing and disrupting their means of taking control.  

But this physical method could only be performed by the assistance of transmission, which has become such a central part of our lives. Transmission is all about messages transcending space and time, arriving at nearly instant speed, allowing greater reach for control. Certainly, we see this present in ICE’s actions as they use databases and social media to find immigrants to arrest then deport. But Sewer’s article focuses more on the Observer’s use of transmission through group chat networks and databases of their own. When Sewer follows along with Green Bean and Cobalt, he learns about their plate searching database that allows them to see if a vehicle is owned by the federal government. Along with this, other protestors use chat groups and phone calls to communicate with immigrants too frightened to leave their homes. Using this, they can ensure safety and control with virtual resources vaster than transportation methods could allow. But this is not solely due to the ability of the technology itself. This group of protestors have a connected network of experienced people all willing to lend a hand.  

When I started this post, I noted that the actions of the ICE protestors were very similar to Carey’s ritual view of communication, which I feel is correct, but is also lacking in parts of its analysis. The ritual view helps to show how power moves through communication, but it does not really show how it works in resistance or how it develops. Leanne Simpson’s concept of sintering can be a much better example of this formation. Sintering, as Simpson describes it, is like snowflakes sticking together on your palm as each brings a unique pattern that fuses together into a new larger whole. The communities we form are like this too, we are brought together from different walks of life and yet we coexist as one larger communal whole. The Minnesota protest is an interesting example of the creation of a new community like this. Sewer notes how the actions of ICE have brought so many people together; Conservative voters, parents, protestors, and activists all have pooled their efforts to resist the infiltration of ICE. Each member brings a unique perspective and new ways to help the whole, like the activists who bring their experience of law to protect Observers on the streets. Unlikely people have come together in a new whole to construct a new narrative and meaning for this whole event, one of a stronger Minnesota that does not yield to oppression.