By Ben O’Grady
[Editor’s note: while most of us have been shocked by the images coming out of Minneapolis, the disruption and violence following the ICE deployment there has been so widespread it’s hard to get a handle on its scope. Sometimes you need someone from the community to put it in to perspective. Cartoonist Zander Cannon is a Minneapolis resident, a father, and now, a protester. This is his story. Thanks to Ben O’Grady for suggesting and conducting this interview.]
The Beat caught up with cartoonist Zander Cannon last week while he was working in his Minneapolis studio. Cannon is a long time resident of Minneapolis, having lived there for almost his entire comics career. This interview came after several turbulent weeks for the Twin Cities, which included a surge of over 3,000 federal immigration agents, the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the detainment of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, multiple mass protests, and a battering of the community.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ben O’Grady: On January 23rd, there was a huge protest in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve seen it called the Day of Truth and Freedom. You were there. What was that day like?
Zander Cannon: I mean, it was super cold. I think it was 20 below zero. The whole protest was from U.S. Bank stadium, which is where the Vikings play, to the Target Center, which is where the Timberwolves play, and it was maybe a mile and a half all crammed with people. You couldn’t even begin to estimate how many people were there. Everywhere you went, it was just sidewalk to sidewalk full of people. It was really encouraging. You’d be walking to the thing with your sign and everybody’s clapping and cheering, and so it was really encouraging.
Ben: Alex Pretti was shot and killed the next day, on the 24th. What has life been like since then?
Zander: So my son is a Korean adoptee. One of the groups that ICE is targeting is Hmong immigrants. And to say nothing of anybody who’s not white or white passing. And so I think as things get a little bit darker and grimmer, I think it’s tough on him. He quit his job at Target because they weren’t protecting or having the back of any of their employees. A couple people who do exactly what he does, were tackled to the ground, and they broke one of their arms and left them somewhere else a mile away. It was astonishing, and there was no pushback from Target.
Ben: So Target employees were racially profiled by ICE and they got assaulted in the store?
Zander: Yes. That happened a couple days before he started asking questions, and they did not give him any answers.
Ben: Was he scared to continue working?
Zander: I think there is that, but I also think that when we said to him, you don’t have to work there if you don’t feel protected. We want you to feel safe. It felt like there was a lack of respect for him.
Ben: You see news about children getting detained, families getting shipped to Texas, going to and from schools. Do you have fear about his safety at school?
Zander: Certainly on the way to and from. His school has people in hi-viz vests with whistles. To warn kids away from ICE vehicles. And my wife also works at a different high school and she’s on ICE duty every day. They’re holding up buses because this neighborhood has ICE in it. She’s telling kids that are walking, hey, avoid this place. And to say nothing of some of her classes are down 60%. There’s just kids who aren’t showing up to school because the government might arrest them. It’s truly astonishing the way that life has changed just in the last couple of weeks.
Ben: Did you ever imagine anything like this would ever happen in your community?
Zander: I suppose it’s super naive of me to say, but no, of course not. It’s a real eye opening couple of months for everybody. I try to keep up with things, but I also realize I have an astonishing amount of privilege to have not noticed the way things have happened like this in the past. And boy, it’s sure becoming very clear now.
Ben: So I’ve done a deep dive on what’s happening in Minnesota recently. I didn’t really know how advanced the organizing is. The legal observers. The commuters who are driving around, spending hours tailing ICE. The communication through encrypted apps. Can you talk a bit about it?
Zander: Yeah, it’s really incredible. ICE was actually in our neighborhood the other day, and immediately, I mean immediately, everybody who lived there was outside with their whistles. There were a ton of legal observers, who were instantly in the neighborhood and they would stop and they’d be like, okay, there’s seven vehicles and there’s this SUV and that gray car. And I mean, they knew their stuff. This one guy I talked to had been doing it for over a month, which it’s like, it hadn’t even really hit the news a month ago. There’s food drives and delivering food, and of course, online school options. And they had to really spin it up pretty fast.
Ben: So when ICE came to your neighborhood, what did you do?
Zander: They were a block away, so I just kind of jogged down there and ran into a whole bunch of parents who were getting their kids on the bus. And then this SUV full of ICE guys came by and they kind of snarled and said, “smile guys,” and took our pictures. It’s like, what, are you going to intimidate me? I live here. And they were gone after half an hour or something like that. I dunno, it really felt more like they were throwing their weight around than doing anything in particular.
Ben: Just driving around showing their presence.
Zander: I think that a lot of it is, let’s keep everybody scared. Let’s keep everybody on the back foot.
Ben: So with the news with Governor Walz talking to the President, Bovino is out, Tom Homan is in. Do you think anything’s going to change anytime soon?
Zander: I don’t think Tom Homan is one bit of an improvement from Greg Bovino. I mean, I don’t know any more about him than everybody else, but they seem like a bunch of corrupt fascists. I’m afraid of people moving on. I’m afraid of people sort of seeing, well, yeah, there haven’t been any outrages for a couple of weeks. And so I guess it’s not that bad. But it is bad. The outrages are worse. My life isn’t so different. I can stand out on a street corner with a sign and just get honks, but nobody who looks Hispanic, nobody who looks Asian, nobody who looks Somali can do that. And that’s a huge number of people. And it’s really awful.
Ben: Wow. I’m in Orlando and it’s relatively quiet here. If you’re not in one of the occupied cities, you might not know how real this is. What do you want people to know?
Zander: I think people think of Minnesota as being overwhelmingly white. Minneapolis is a hugely diverse city and of course Saint Paul is a part of this. Both of those cities have huge communities of immigrants from all over, and everybody in those communities are being basically shut out of society right now. And I think that it’s kind of easy for people to kind of go, oh, look at all those white Minnesotans with the funny accents standing out on the street corners, going to these big rallies who are essentially in no danger at all, with obvious exceptions, and kind of think, they got this handled. And everybody needs to say, this cannot happen. It can’t happen here. It can’t happen in my city. And things need to happen on a grander federal scale for this to end, or else it’s going to be everywhere. It’s going to be in Orlando, and it’s going to be in certainly every city that didn’t vote for Trump, which is many.
Ben: I’m worried I’ll see the news one day and there will be a surge in Central Florida. That this could happen in any city.
Zander: The idea that people can be racially profiled is, I mean, it’s unthinkable. This person speaks with an accent. They’re getting tackled to the ground. That’s unthinkable.
Ben: A slightly lighter question. Is saying “Fuck ICE” basically just a salutation at this point?
Zander: [Laughs] Yeah, it is actually. My friend and I were out on the street corner just an hour ago. People would just roll down their windows, even though it’s 10 below zero, and they’d be like, “Fuck ICE!” And it is funny in the funny Minnesota accent, of course. Sort of a very polite person saying, greetings and salutations, “Fuck ICE.”
Ben: That’s one bit of humor we can get out of this.
Zander: Yeah.
Ben: Do you think anything from this experience will infiltrate into any of your storytelling in the future?
Zander: I just finished my latest comic and there are quite a lot of masked jack-booted thugs who come to unfortunate ends. That was always part of the plan, but it certainly took on some resonance for me when I’m drawing all the disemboweling.
Ben: Is that Sleep issue #8?
Zander: Yes.
Ben: Amazing. Well, I can’t wait to read that. Any final words?
Zander: There’s been a lot of Minnesota cartoonists doing some comic strips on Instagram with the hashtag #iceoutcomics. And of course they’re encouraging people to do it for every city or every state, and they’re using a certain blue so that the comics are very distinctive. But yeah, K. Woodman-Maynard and Jason Walz are sort of organizing that on Instagram. So that’s been really nice to see.
Ben: I want to say that reading about the protests and the organizing in the Twin Cities and speaking with you, it really feels to me like it’s a turning point. And also it’s the best way to protest and the best way to protect your community and create change. I think many eyes in the country are looking at Minnesota and everyone is pulling for you. Stay safe.
Sleep issue #8, the mini-series finale by Zander Cannon, releases on March 4.
