2026-02-26, 0848h, I support heckling the city council

As a resident of Duluth, Minnesota who lives with CPTSD due to the very situations that are being hotly debated at our city council meetings, that I am absolutely in favor of the citizens who are violating the rules to yell. It actively makes me feel safer to live here, to see that there are people around me who care more about care itself than a series of procedures that clearly can't accommodate this.

I think it is inappropriate the way multiple able-bodied people who do not have trauma regarding law enforcement and immigration operations have used the possibility that loud voices can be triggering to try and silence the only voices present in local government that convey my beliefs.

It is disgusting seeing our city council act as private citizens use racial tokenization and selective moderation of social media tools in order to advance the ridiculous narrative that the anti-fascist efforts against the city are actually white supremacist.

And, once again, I'm left absolutely unable to get the folk who have the material power to care about this, to even acknowledge it's happening.

The actual most ridiculous thing is that a city council member's partner felt it was a good idea to go up to the good anti-fascist citizens preparing their statements before the city council meeting...

...to make fun of a person for having an older coat, not a new fancy expensive one, and also, to complain that the civilian activism was "cutting into their cuddle time" with their partner, a counciler.

Like... people are being disappeared in the night and murdered in the street in the day, and the people who our government choose to build their lives with are upset because the citizens politely commenting they would like that to stop are interrupting their Netflix & Chill?

I"m reminded of the person in minneapolis who runs a yoga studio and was proudly pro-ICE... until they started using a building near her as a detention center. Then, she had problems because the yoga moms, their kids might have to see other children in shackles, and that would be hard for the yoga moms to explain to their kids.

No - really - that was the complain. Not the kids in shackles. Not the other kids having to witness that. But the difficulty it would pose for adults, having to try and explain that.

This sort of shit is going to get folk to stop commenting at city council meetings, but not because they're being more civil.