This is What It Sounds Like When Minneapolis Cries

The last time I was in Minneapolis, it was 2015, and I remember going downtown to First Avenue, the now legendary performance space that Prince made famous in 1984's "Purple Rain," and where he recorded the timeless title track live for the film.

I remember feeling like this was where an entire movement of independent, free expression started with a young man who had no reverence for anyone's rules. The next night, I actually went to Paisley Park, Prince's home and studio, for a party he gave specifically for members of the National Association of Black Journalists, who were in town for their annual convention.

Needless to say, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life! I mean, I was actually in the place where His Royal Badness lived! I danced so much I broke my foot and had to spend the rest of the summer wearing an orthopedic boot, but damned if I wouldn't do it again! And I'm glad I did because the next spring, Prince died in that very house.

Now, Prince had spent years eschewing his name because he felt exploited and subjugated by Warner Bros., instead choosing to use an unpronounceable glyph he called the "love symbol" as his performance identity until 2000, when he reclaimed it after his contract with the company expired. He was not about to let anyone control him or tell him what was right. He lived on his own terms and was strongly opposed to any form of oppression or suppression.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

So over the last month of watching the ultraviolent oppression by federal agents in Minneapolis, I'm reminded of Prince's sentiment and truly wonder what he would say about all this. I guess that he'd be in the middle of throngs of demonstrators with his guitar, probably playing chords that only they could understand, urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol to get the hell out of his hometown.

In January alone, there have been several high profile shootings by federal agents, including three in Minnesota, as part of the government's immigration crackdown;  Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, 24, who suffered a leg wound when trying to flee from ICE officers; Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was obeying an order to leave the scene when one officer who was recording her on his phone stepped in front of her vehicle and shot through her windshield, then stepped to her passenger side window and fired more shots directly into her face; and Alex Pretti, 37, who was helping a woman ICE officers had knocked to the ground when he was thrown to the ground himself and one of them shot him in the back of the head while he lay prone. Afterward, an agent emptied his clip into his body. He had a legal weapon, which he had not drawn.

Those last two were recorded from multiple angles by witnesses, and despite the clear intention of federal agents to kill these people, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino have said publicly that these people caused the agents to kill them and that they deserved their fates. Despite what was in the video, they are repeatedly lying to the public, as if in Orwellian fashion, they fully expect anything they say to become the official truth.

They are among a league of nauseating, reprehensible, white supremacist scum inhabiting the U.S. government that has laid siege to Minneapolis as part of a larger operation to enforce the removal of immigrants, regardless of status, nationwide. So far, they have disrupted Los Angeles (where a Black man, Keith Porter was killed Dec. 31), Washington D.C., and suburban Chicago, as well as several other towns. All of this in a campaign of histrionics led by Donald Trump, who is carrying out exactly what was outlined in Project 2025, which half the country stupidly voted for more than a year ago.

Annie Christian

If there was any intention of removing people who are illegally in this country, it has been forgotten. It is no longer about that, if it ever was. The true intention is to terrorize people. The purpose of the violence and bloodshed is to show Americans that Trump is the final word on everything, and if you don't like it, his forces will take your life. There is no humanity in ICE agents because they were hired to find people to abduct, harass, physically abuse, and kill.

A dystopia, led by people who profess "Christian" love, was the whole point all along.

But again, that's what the people who voted for Trump wanted. Everyone they disliked, were bigoted against, or even annoyed them, would be dealt with by the administration they were electing. It didn't matter that he was a convicted felon or that he'd been credibly accused numerous times of sexually assaulting women. It also doesn't matter that the economy has been stagnant, that unemployment has not decreased, that food prices have increased, or that foreign relations have collapsed. To them, it was about punishing the people they wanted to punish, those they blamed for all their woes.

So this is the autocratic direction America has gone. Government officials lying constantly, a president gripped with a combination of senility and knowing guilt about his involvement with deceased child rapist Jeffrey Epstein, and an obsession with covering it up. At this point, I can't say I have faith that this will be the last killing. In fact, I wouldn't put a Philadelphia MOVE-style bombing past this regime.

I wish I could tell you when it will end. I can't. The only people who may be able to put some kind of stop to this are Congressional Republicans who could band with Democrats to immediately end ICE's violent operations by impeaching Noem. But they have said barely anything about what has happened, which means they are among those who are salivating at the carnage.

But if we look to Prince's example. Maybe there is a path forward. As I said earlier, Prince's defiance was simply to not give Warner Bros. what they wanted, and that was his energy. While they did have rights to his music, they couldn't make him do anything. He was his own man and stayed that way. Eventually, Warner Bros. relented, and Prince took control of his music. They knew they could not survive with one of the most prolific artists of all time as an enemy.

It's now time for us to do the same. We must encourage the governors of New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan to withhold federal taxes from the government until it changes its behavior. New York is already moving the idea through the state senate, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state contributed $80 billion more in 2022 to the feds than it got back. "Maybe it's time to cut that off," he said.
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Now, if those and other Democrat-voting states decided collectively to do that, untold trillions of taxpayer money would stop flowing to the White House. It would, in effect, be a tax revolt and could mark a serious turning point in U.S. history with an uncertain outcome. But at this point, I don't think there's any turning back.

Sign O' the Times

The day I learned of Prince's passing, I sat in my office and sighed. I remembered the different things he meant to so many people. For some, he was a musical genius, for others, he embodied artistic rebellion, and for some, he was the music playing the first time they ever made love. But for me, he meant a new way of looking at things and not being afraid to step into a new reality.

That is where we are now. And remember what he said in 1981 on "Lady Cab Driver"...

Not knowing where I'm going is galaxies better than not having a place to go.

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Madison Gray is a New York City-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple publications globally. Reach out to him at madison@starkravingmadison.com.