summary written by claude.ai
I’m an ally and he’s a force. Reverend Kevin Taylor and I have been talking in comments and on Zoom for a while now, and we finally sat down together to talk about the corruption of law enforcement and how it’s shaped the way our whole society is shifting right now.
This one got heavy. It also got hopeful. Here’s what we covered.
A Jeep in a Parking Lot
I opened by telling Kevin about the ICE vehicle I saw that morning on my way to walk my dog. No front plate, windows blacked out so completely, even the windshield. The windshield was total black! It was parked in a strip mall parking lot facing the street, lights on, surveilling the street I drive to my dog-walking park every morning. It was not normal. I went through a whole gamut of emotions in about half a second: first that’s an ice vehicle, then fear, then rage, then this is our normal now.
Kevin pointed out that the vehicle didn’t have to do anything. It just had to be there. And that’s the whole point of it.
History Doesn’t Repeat, It Rhymes
Kevin brought Mark Twain into the conversation, walking through the parallels between what’s happening now and the post-Reconstruction era, when Black voter turnout hit 90% before disenfranchisement tactics like poll taxes and black codes brought it back down to single digits.
His point: the tools have changed, but the strategy hasn’t. Voter ID laws like the SAVE Act, he explained, aren’t about preventing fraud that barely exists. They’re about making it harder for the people most likely to vote against those in power to get to the polls at all.
We talked about how the same dog whistles get recycled with new packaging. States’ rights. Compassionate conservatism. The caravan. AI as the boogeyman. Different decade, same playbook, designed to make people vote with fear instead of their actual interests.
The Rage of Women Finding Their Voice
I told Kevin what I keep hearing from the women I talk to: fear, then rage, then a fierce protectiveness for their kids and their people.
Kevin and I agreed that this anger, especially among white women who’ve held it in for decades, is becoming a real force. He was honest that not every woman channels that energy the same way, and that some have been taught to surrender their voice entirely. But the women showing up here are doing the opposite. We’re writing. We’re speaking. We’re using our words like spells, and it’s working.
Substack as Sacred Space
We both talked about why Substack feels different from other platforms. It’s a place for authentic voice, not algorithm-chasing. Kevin shared the story behind his publication, the Unpaid Ledger, named for the part of Dr. King’s 1963 speech that came before the dream, the part where he called America’s promise of equality a check that bounced. He also told us about his second Substack, a space for people who are grieving, struggling, and need to hear they’re not alone.
I shared a little about Fierce Love and the WOMN Project, the fifteen Minnesota women I’ve interviewed who showed up during Operation Metro Surge. Their stories aren’t about what happened. They’re about how it felt, and how it changed them.
The Bricks on the Corner
Kevin and I also talked about George Floyd, about the memorial near his and Renee Good’s, and about something I haven’t talked about publicly very much: what it was like here in Minneapolis during those days, watching cars without plates flood streets that were nearly empty because of COVID, and seeing pallets of bricks appear on corners with no construction in sight. Kevin affirmed that this fits a documented pattern of outside actors using moments of unrest to deepen division.
Where We Landed
For every 3,000 ICE agents, there are 300,000 people who love each other. That ratio is the whole hope of this thing. The real power isn’t power over someone else. It’s love with someone else.
Thank you for being here, for staying for the whole conversation, and for giving a shit.
I love you fiercely.
Thanks for giving a shit,
TeriLeigh💜
