If you are white, middle-class-ish thinking about or contemplating joining an ICE Watch or other similar activity if they are active in your town/city, give yourself a week “thaw” time. [We’re playing this ice analogy into the ground, yes.]

Because what you will see when you actually go firsthand, even when it’s not as shocking and violent as Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, etc., will freeze your soul. You will be shocked into paralysis for a little minute there. When you see humans terrified to leave their homes, children running as quickly as they can from school bus to the house, adults changing their routines and going in back doors at stores, something will click in your brain.

You will see the America that people of color have lived in forever.

You will see it.

I’ve lived in predominantly black neighborhoods most of my life. Even then, I didn’t have any police targeting me or my family. I didn’t have to specifically coach my children how to interact with police other than, “Don’t say ‘‘Fuck pigs” to their face.” I’ve stood toe-to-toe with cops in riot gear and did not fear they would strike me (and they never, ever did).

The scales will fall from your eyes.

And then, when it thaws, there will come an anger that feels all consuming. And you’ll be tempted to go root them out at their hotels and bars, to go find them and do some vigilante shit.

And then, once you bite your tongue through that phase, it will settle down to a simmer.

Once you’re at a simmer, get to work. Put the pot on that flame and get cooking.

We need organizers. We need professionals. We need cyber security guys, tech guys, web designers. We need nurses and medics. We need attorneys and paralegals.

But we need people who can keep that flame under control to power the work. We don’t need hotheads throwing molotovs at anybody. All that will do is open the gate for unrestricted violence.

But the time is coming for all of you to decide. One day complicity and silence won’t work anymore. The moment is upon us for you to declare a side.

Don’t quit your job. Don’t endanger your livelihood. But subtle actions: shutting down racist/xenophobic conversations. Wearing a pin of support. Putting signs in the windows of your business that you don’t serve ICE. Donating to local orgs doing the work. Boycotting businesses working with ICE and corporations ignoring their actions (like Target allowing the arrest of legal citizen employees on their property). Removing your Ring camera because nobody actually believes they just reversed course on a program they paid for a Super Bowl ad for… we are NOT dumb. Reporting sightings on Ice Out.

Teaching your children that we are all equal and valuable.

Going to the local bodegas and tiendas and taquerias and spending your money there. I am diverting $100 of of our grocery money every week to that local bodega permanently. This isn’t a fad or a temporary thing. Adjust your behavior forever. You need to be meaningfully and tangibly supporting your immigrant neighbors and their businesses. If you are about it, be about it. Talk is cheap.

Just don’t go into this work thinking it’s just another protest party. This is real; real people’s lives. Real impact. Real consequences. If you’re not ready for that, do all of the other above to support efforts in the right direction.