Documenting MN
@DocumentingMN
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Documenting MN is a grassroots community journalism program for Black youth under the age of thirty in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area
Minneapolis, MN
Joined November 2020
What's the O’Connor Layover System and how did it create one of the most corrupt police departments in the country? First, we want to say all police departments are corrupt killing machines. This thread is to show you how Saint Paul Police Department became what it is now.
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Someone steals 10 steaks from Trader Joe’s and it’s a segment on MSNBC, Minneapolis Police Department murders Amir Locke, and it’s crickets from the national media.
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And y’all want to tell us we are being irrational. This is what we were dealing with last night until 2 AM.
"Slash their tires so they can't drive away if you need to!" Cops in Minnesota created a warzone-like state and arrested #DaunteWright protesters, along with media covering the events in a highly disturbing night.– @JonFarinaPhoto fearlessly reports.
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Say her name was never meant for non Black folks especially white women. STOP USING IT FOR THEM! Black women created the hashtag Say Her Name to highlight Black women, their murders by the hands of the system, and their stories that get erased in the narrative.
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We are currently grabbing safety gear for protesters in Brooklyn Center. We will try to keep everyone updated as soon as we get on the with protective gear.
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Last year Darnella Frazier filmed the murder of George Floyd, & now, a year later, her uncle is murdered by the same police department. We genuinely hope she is given space to grieve, space to feel rageful, and be who she needs to be in this time of mourning.
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Winston Boogie Smith. That's the name of the Black man murdered by Hennepin County sheriff's deputies yesterday around 2:00 PM in Uptown, Minneapolis. They murdered him and then attempted to use the media & local orgs to push their narrative; it didn't work. #WinstonSmith
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Don’t allow organizers to guilt you into thinking you have to be at every protest or else you don’t care about the movement. Most movement spaces are not accessible to disabled folks. Center your health & remember being on the front lines doesn't make you the most radical.
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Minneapolis Police Department murdered another person this morning. Minneapolis Police Department murdered Amir Locke.
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Holy shit, Police and national guards ran out of munitions and DNR allowed them to use a plane to fly to Wyoming and get more. The state is working so closely to suppress.
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The person that was hit by the white supremacist’s car on .Lake Street & Girard in MPLS has passed away. Protestors detained the assailant and then Minneapolis Police Department took him. Tonight was traumatic, our team is going to take a couple days away from social media.
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It has come to our attention that the group that calls themselves the Minnesota Freedom Fighters are paid for by the City of Minneapolis. They have close and direct ties to Saint Paul & Minneapolis Police. Thank you to the folks on the ground that did this research.
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Is there anyone willing to provide our org with KN95 or N95 masks? We need it for foster youth and their families.
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What did Minneapolis PD do to Amir Locke?. 1. Using a key fob, they tried to serve warrants on behalf of SPPD. They entered two apts before entering apt 701, where Amir was in. It was a no-knock warrant, & Amir, a licensed gun owner, supposedly grabbed his legally licensed gun.
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We are thinking about the families of Daunte Wright, Isak Aden, Dolal Idd, Jamar Clark, George Floyd, and Philando Castile. We hope they're surrounded by love and support today.
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Boy you would think this would make you wanna stop line 3 and publicly speak out against it.
Wildfires are causing the worst air quality in Minnesota history. It’s clear – climate change is real, it’s having a direct impact on Minnesotans’ lives, and it requires all of us to work together to stop.
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Today we honor Philando Castile, his family, his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds, & her little girl Dae'Anna. We honor the Black youth that occupied the streets of Grand Avenue and the streets outside of the Governor’s Mansion. We honor you all & continue the fight you all started.
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Happy birthday Breonna Taylor. Breonna was an ER technician until March 13, 2020, when three LMPD cops murdered her. They shot into Breonna’s apartment 32 times, shooting her six times. Breonna, 26 years old at the time, was murdered while standing in her hallway. #SayHerName
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Derek Chauvin will be sentenced Friday at 1:30 p.m. for the murder of George Floyd. As abolitionists, we continuously have to interrogate what we mean by justice. Can there be justice in a country where Black folks are hunted? What does justice look like when it includes prisons?.
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If you're coming out to any protest please make sure you have on a face mask for two reasons: 1. surveillance 2. COVID. Show some respect to the community you’re protesting with by protecting yourself and everyone around you.
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Trauma kills, sometimes immediately, sometimes over generations. While we are focusing on the tear gas, flash bangs, & pepper spray we can’t forget how all of this violence is traumatizing us. Stress is disease that plagues our communities & will make many of us disabled.
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If you've been following us, you've noticed that we stopped tweeting for a month for multiple reasons but mainly to experiment with our followers. What we found was truly disgusting & showed how ingrained white supremacy is in all of us. Here’s a thread on our findings.
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Please don't share the video of Amir Locke being murdered by Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman.
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2. Why are they releasing photos of Amir’s licensed gun to the media but not the names of all the officers involved in his murder? .3. What are we as a community going to do about this? Amir was another Black person murdered in Minneapolis. #AmirLocke.
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This is Tekle Alemu Lonse speaking on the impact of capitalism on individuals. Minneapolis Police Department murdered him on July 14th at 4:30 am.
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2.He was murdered in 9 seconds by officer Mark Hanneman. 3. Interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman & Jacob Frey refused to answer questions at the press conference. Community members and reporters found out who was murdered through Nekima Levy Armstrong’s Facebook. #AmirLocke.
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Kyle Rittenhouse shot three men, killing two of them and wounding the third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Accountability is not prison, but this verdict was another way for the system to tell white supremacists to continue to hunt Black folks bc you will get away with it.
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We have a snowstorm coming, and what does the Mayor of Minneapolis do instead of housing unhoused folks? He’s ensuring your cars are safe while our unhoused neighbors sleep outside without tents. He’s having MPD raid and attack Native organizers occupying the roof depot.
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The things and places this crowd could have disrupted if this was done on weekday work hours instead of Saturday. We need to get to a point where this city feels 1 percent of the pain our Black bodies feel every day.
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Be cautious about the orgs you donate to. A lot of these local orgs will never gave mutual aid funds to the intended communities unless force. Your best bet is to give directly to individuals and orgs you’ve worked with in the past. If you’re iffy about the org, search their name.
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What is Black August, & why do we celebrate it?. Black August is a month-long tradition that originated in a California state prison. During Black August, we educate ourselves, we pay homage to fallen revolutionaries & we honor our incarcerated siblings kidnapped by the state.
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As Derek Chauvin was being found guilty at 4:00 PM today; police in Columbus, Ohio took another life. Makiah Bryant, a 15 year old Black girl was murdered today at 4:30 PM. This system needs to be abolished. #SayHerName.
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We are buying plywood to board up Black business & buying hot meals. We are canvassing the neighborhoods asking community members what resources, supplies, & food do they need and want. We will keep y’all updated.
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Happy Birthday to the beautiful Oluwatoyin Ruth "Toyin" Salau
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Do not platform Nekima Levy Armstrong! She works with the Minneapolis Police Department. Nekima works with the POLICE to silence & scare Black people. Share with us below or use the hashtag to tell us your experiences with Nekima .#NekimaWorksWithCops.
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White folks that support Nekima Levy Armstrong are in our Instagram DM and posts threatening us & calling us white. First of all, we are a group of queer and trans Black folks, and we've been in this organizing game for over 10 years. You will not scare us #NekimaWorksWithCops.
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Hennepin County sheriff's deputies murdered Winston Smith on Thursday, June 3rd. They killed another Black man in Minneapolis. This entire system needs to crumble and burn.
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This idea that the people at every single action are the ones that need to “lead” us is a joke. True leaders recognize that the revolution will happen with or without them. True leaders know to center the most marginalized people in our spaces.
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I need for y’all to understand that police will never be your friends. Stop negotiating with abusers and organizations that enable them. Some of these celebrity organizers got arrested tonight even after they negotiated with the terrorists. Look where that got y’all.
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We have questions:.1.Why do we continue to learn “facts” about this case through Nekima Levy Armstrong? Is Nekima a public relations liaison? What capacity is she working with/for MPD?.
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Kim Potter has been found guilty on both charges for the murder of Daunte Wright. I need us to remember that this is not justice. Justice would be Daunte Wright being alive to spend the holidays with his family. Justice is abolishing all forms of policing. #KimPotterTrial.
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To witness a murder, especially a publicized one, is traumatizing for anyone but especially Black youth. Black youth never get time & space to grieve. Give Black youth space to be disappointed, angry, sad, and anything that makes them feel whole. Give them autonomy to their body.
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While community members are working together to cover up Black owned businesses and making sure all community mutual aid needs are met, Brooklyn center police and the national guard are mobilizing to terrorize them tonight. #DaunteWright
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Mohamed Hassan was murdered by a random white man a couple of nights ago. Mohamed is the cousin of Sumaya Aden. Sumaya's brother, Isak Aden, was murdered by police two years ago.
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It didn’t matter if you had a press pass or if you were driving home. They broke into community members cars and forcibly removed them. This is terrorism.
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All of y’all need to leave Darnella Frazier & Northside residents the hell alone. This does not mean that y’all get to exploit their pain. Let that young girl & the residents decide what their grieving process looks like. Give them that autonomy that we all seek for ourselves.
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Would you please stop posting people’s faces at protests? I know we want to be the first ones to tweet & post a video, but that video or picture will end up ruining our own community members’ lives years later. The most radical thing you can do is wait, edit our faces & then post.
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Folks are angry that we called the death of Darnella Frazier’s uncle, Laneal Lamont Frazier, a murder. Stay mad! We will continue to call it just that. All forms of state-sanctioned violence that lead to someone dying is murder even if the state didn’t get their “intended” target.
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Every time you use it for anyone other than Black women, you are showing how much you don’t care about Black women and proving the point why the hashtag was created. Even after our deaths, y’all continue to spit on us and erase what we’ve created.
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Back in 2016, older organizers used to try to co-opt protest & abuse young folks while also refusing to be held accountable in private. Black youth got tired of it and started ripping mics out their hands at protests. People called us angry and irrational at the time.
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We need these teachers to know we got their backs. When you decide to go on strike for safe and stable schools, you’re showing your students and their families that you love them enough to stand up against an entire institution. That's real love.
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Stonewall was an anti-police RIOT. Stonewall was not a parade where cops marched along but a RIOT that allowed LGBTQ and two spirit folks to fight back against a system that was and still is killing us. Without the Stonewall riots, there would be no pride. #StonewallRiots.
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They killed another Black person in Minnesota. This time in Austin, Minnesota. We can never get one day to breathe.
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Remember, never trust the state even when they use Black faces to tell us we’re at fault when they murder one of our own. Rest in peace, Winston Boogie Smith.
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Here’s what we need from our followers:. We need our followers to start to unlearn the ways society has taught you to exploit ppl online. We need our followers to realize that our intellectual labor online or otherwise is never free - there's always trauma attached to it for us.
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We need our followers to understand how racist it is to only donate & participate in mutual aid when a Black person is murdered or when Black folks share trauma porn.
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Black folks in Wisconsin, we are with you, so please let us know what support looks like for you all.
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Justice is not the murders of Elijah McClain being found guilty or indicted by the same system that made it legal to murder him. Remember that this system will always sacrifice a couple of their own to appease the masses. Stop seeking justice from the ppl trying to kill you.
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Yesterday, December 23rd, in Austin, MN, police murdered a Black man named Christopher. Hours after Kim Potter was found guilty, the system stole another person before Christmas Eve. We will never be free if we continue to depend on this system. It all needs to be SHUT DOWN!.
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He was sleeping on the couch of the home that MPD was supposed to be searching but instead barged in, and Amir, a licensed gun owner, allegedly got up out of shock and was murdered in 9 seconds.
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Trust us when we say, we’re tired of seeing videos of Black people dying especially Black children. Show us videos and pictures of Ma'Khia Bryant smiling and living her best life as a child. We already know what this system does to Black people, we don’t need to be reminded.
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Here’s the official fundraiser for the family of Amir Locke. Funds will be used to cover funeral and burial expenses, mental health and grief counseling. Please share and donate. #AmirLocke #JusticeForAmir .
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It was not Mekhi C. Speed’s fault that officer Mark Hanneman murdered Amir Locke. Do not allow @StarTribune and the media to twist this. No one and that's including Mekhi, should fear being hunted by MPD. Having a record does not mean you should be executed. #AmirLocke.
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We are in chats with African students stuck at the Ukraine-Poland border. Their lives are in danger, & these videos are from them. Please, stop saying it's disinformation. This is how Black people get left behind. y'all will watch us get threatened or murdered & say we are lying.
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This was really hard and difficult for us to post this. We all know that they’re are informants in the movement but it’s difficult to come to terms with it when actually evidence is sent to you. We are going to take a few hours off after posting this.
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How is there an active shooter right now in Minneapolis but MPD still hasn’t posted anything for residents on Cedar & Franklin to know?.
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Doing this work is emotionally draining but nothing is as draining as finding out people from your own community are trying to sell you out to FEDS. We are grateful for the people on the ground making sure that protestors are protected from informants and undercover.
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Ma'Khia Bryant was 16 years old. She was a baby, a little Black girl and this system stole her away from her family. Stop calling this child a grown woman. Black children deserve their childhood as well. #SayHerName.
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List of items needed for Kenyan Community Church in Brooklyn Center: . Cleaning supplies .Plastic bins.Hand warmers .Milk of Magnesia .Charger and battery packs .Face towels .Zip lock begs .Socks .Flash light .Lotion.
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I need all of us to remember that police don't care about our prayer circles, nor do they care if you get on a blowhorn and preach to them. They will continue to attack us, kill us, and arrest us and then go home to their family’s at night. Stop trying to appease your oppressors.
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Police murder Black folks, y’all tell us to vote. Oil companies poison our water; y’all tell us to vote. COVID keeps killing us while the government you told us to vote for ignores us. Are you not tired of bullying us into voting? Voting won’t stop this system from killing us.
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The only information we have is that a man at an apartment at 21st Ave S, Minneapolis, attempted to harm himself. The gunshots went through his neighbor’s 3rd-floor apartment. The situation lasted from 9:30 pm until 4:30 am when MPD murdered him.
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We forced Darnella Frazier to grow up fast in front of the entire world. A Black girl witnessed a murder, & she continues to relive this repeatedly. We placed the title of hero on her without her consent or even thinking about the consequences it would have on her. It’s too much.
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This is why we don’t speak to reporters. Fix your headline now! Bell Lofts tenants avoid homelessness thanks to crowdfunding from Documenting MN, It Takes A Village, and @patiencezalanga. Stop erasing our work. We let you slide the first time but don’t keep testing us.
Bell Lofts tenants avoid homelessness thanks to financial help from the city of Minneapolis. By @katelyn_vue.
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Abolition is more than the abolishment of these systems. We can abolition everything today, but your internalized white supremacist ideologies will still be here.
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Here’s what’s happening to Black Africans at the Ukraine-Poland border and how you can help #AfricansinUkraine #BlackInUkraine #UkraineRussia 🧵.
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On November 15, 2015, Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old Black man from North Minneapolis, was murdered by MPD. His death sparked a movement here in Minnesota. Many of us found an organizing home during the 4th precinct occupation and trauma that follows us.
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Jamari Rice, son of Cortez Rice, was murdered outside of Richfield High School today. Cortez is being held in the Hennepin County Workhouse for protesting outside the home of Judge Regina Chu, who is overseeing the Kim Potter manslaughter trial in. PLEASE TAKE THESE ACTIONS BELOW.
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Riot police are back at the occupation in uptown, Minneapolis shooting “less lethal” ammunition at protesters mourning.
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“Thanks to the quick response of the community, we were able to make 18 laundry baskets of supplies for all of the families moving back in today! Thanks to all who donated. We will forever be grateful.” - The Brooklyn Center Protestor+Resident Safety and Mutual Aid group
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If you have any videos from tonight please DM them to us. For any protestors that are still out there please take care of yourselves. Remember the system kills us in different ways. It's ok to take a break.
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Today is a lot. From Israel bombing Syria, the US continuous attacks on Somalia, Russia bombing Ukraine, and the US approving state-sectioned murders on Black people. Many of our people worldwide and here will have to face the consequences of these imperialist countries.
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This is why we don’t put our trust and faith in the same system that’s killing us. #DaunteWright.
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Here's a thread on what we know about those strange men roaming Uptown with their guns attacking our neighbors. W&W protection is guarding Roat Osha (they were paid $322k to help the cops in Brooklyn Center). Then we have the Conflict Resolution Group (CRG).
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Also, let’s be very clear, the emotional manipulation, gaslighting, misogynoir, colorism, and fatphobia white women in movement spaces have inflicted on Black women is abuse. White women weaponizing their whiteness is a form of abuse. So yes, many of you are abusers.
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We also found that most of the folks that donated/shared our mutual aid request were our followers that did not live in MN. We mainly found our followers in Portland and LA continued to engage in whatever mutual aid ask we posted.
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We notice that MN folks refused to donate funds, & the people who did donate, were Black gender marginalized youth who we knew were also in need of mutual aid. We found that our followers didn’t engage in tweets of posts that they thought might require them to pay for our labor.
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Not too long ago a white supremacist ran their car through a crowd occupying and protesting near the area Winston Smith was murdered. The individual the white supremacist hit is presumed to be dead but not confirmed. We will keep you all updated once we know more information.
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We wanted to see what would happen if we stopped giving our followers free intellectual labor & only shared mutual aid requests. On Instagram, we lost almost 200 followers.
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MPD’s first reaction to protestors being on Lake street is to call corporations like Cub Foods and Target to lock their doors. Now they're having all of their cop cars go to the Cub Foods’ parking lot.
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Now, are you ready to unlearn with us? Because, you're not the only ones unlearning; just like you, our team is consistently learning how we, as Black folks continue to uphold everything we said in this thread.
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Let’s not do this thing where we try to appeal to white media while also taking away the agency from Black people. Our team was out in Brooklyn Center last night and majority of the people that the police attacked were Black. Stop lying about it being mostly white folks. Stop it!.
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Do you know what we need right now in this country? A general strike!.
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Reminder that Minnesota Freedom Fighters, A Mother’s Love and Agape are paid for by the City of Minneapolis. They have close and direct ties to Saint Paul & Minneapolis Police.
It has come to our attention that the group that calls themselves the Minnesota Freedom Fighters are paid for by the City of Minneapolis. They have close and direct ties to Saint Paul & Minneapolis Police. Thank you to the folks on the ground that did this research.
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Verdict is out. It should be announced at 4:00 P.M CT.
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We are holding PDX folks in our hearts tonight. We know how traumatic this must be for folks OTG & their community.
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Abolition is more than removing prisons but the removal of the systems created to help establish these prisons. white supremacy will not disappear when prisons do. For many of us, the ideologies of white supremacy live within our heads.
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“If you work for the cops, you a motherfuckin opp! If you’re paid by the city, you’re a motherfuckin piggy! Oink oink you a motherfuckin piggy.”
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