Clerical Collar

I have been a Presbyterian minister for 25 years. As a Presbyterian pastor, Zach Wilson doesn't have to wear all that priest stuff. Protestant churches are much less uniform, obviously, than Roman Catholic churches. Doesn't have to wear the cassock or the chasuble or the stole. Nothing's required. I would wear a collared shirt with a tie most of the time. Not always a tie, but for the most part, because I like ties. And then how often would you wear the collar? Never. Really? No. I hate to say this, but like, I didn't want to be seen as that. Because people have their feelings about what religion is. People project things on you. I never wore a collar till this. And by this, Pastor Zach means when Immigration and Customs Enforcement took over his city. I'm the co-executive presbyter of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities area here in Minnesota. So, you know, we had one church who had a Sudanese refugee family and their 22-year-old son was abducted and spirited off to Texas within hours. And he was legal. The presbytery kicked in 10 grand and we were able to get him back. Right? Amazing. But most people cannot marshal those sorts of resources. And there's a lot of making sure people have money to do deliveries to people's homes because people are kind of shut in. Why can people leave their homes Because brown people are just being picked up And even if you a native American if you have brown skin it doesn feel safe The school district has started allowing distance learning for kids who don't feel safe. And so this has done what it's supposed to do, which is terrorize people and make them afraid of going about their business. And you're wearing your collar right now. Yeah, I've been wearing it around. It's very weird. I don't really like it, but I am. Just if I happen to end up in a place where it matters, then I have it on. And I think part of what the collar does is provide some measure of protection, or at least the feeling of protection, partly for the visual, partly because there's some moral authority that people know that if you're wearing a collar, you have a community behind you. Now, anybody can buy one of these. It's not like you need a license, just like anybody can buy all the stuff the ICE agents are wearing to cosplay paramilitary around my city. When did you order this collar? I ordered it the day Renee Good was killed. I ordered it overnight. On January 23rd, Pastor Zach and at least 400 other clergy members decked out in their clerical attire went to protest ICE at the airport. They were allowed to just go into the airport and just take people, right? Over 100 people have been infected from the airport. Plus Delta is one of their main hubs. And Delta been profiting by deporting people That another reason we were at the airport It was freezing 22 below is cold But Pastor Zach and his hundreds of colleagues held up pictures of the Minnesotans who had been abducted and they sang protest songs and hymns for as long as they could. Was this your first time getting arrested? Yeah. They took us to school buses, drove us to a parking lot, And then somebody in a cop car issued all the citations and then let us go. It feels odd because, I mean, obviously the whole thing is performative, but a lot of the people doing the actual groundwork, the mutual aid, the delivering stuff, we're told don't do both. If ICE knows who you are, don't be delivering stuff to people's houses because they have followed people home and people have, you know, they have facial recognition on their phone. someone at this place by her house went up to someone I know and said, hey, Cheryl, because they had ID'd her from facial. Like someone from ICE went up to her. Yes. Like, hey, Cheryl. Yeah, yeah, that's common. That's so wild. Yeah, this is not being used for law enforcement purposes. This is just, let's just look up some civilians and see what we can do to them. Like, that's super dangerous, being able to do that stuff without a warrant. Do you think you're going to get arrested again? I will if need be But you know the point isn to get arrested right The point is to draw attention to what going on right And for better or for worse people tend to pay attention when it a bunch of clergy When will you feel that you can take the collar off I don know I mean I guess when I mean, when it feels like this sort of assault isn't going on on a regular basis, that's when it'll come off. But I think people being part of a community of faith or something is really important for times like this, especially when if your core identity is being an American, that's no longer what you thought it was. We have the Constitution, right? Well, that's not being followed at all. We don't even have the Second Amendment anymore. You should have higher aspirations and higher ideals than Americanness. And everyone should have something that is a North Star, a compass in their life. that's beyond what authority is telling them to do. Please join me in supporting Pastor Zach, along with his multi-faith, multi-racial coalition, and all the communities they represent in the Twin Cities by donating to a non-profit called Isaiah at isaiahmn.org. take care of each other