By Matt Halvorson

On Wednesday, I read an email that stopped me in my tracks and made me give my son a hug. It has been all too common recently to get painful news that makes me want to hug my kids tight, and while this news was sad, for once at least it wasn’t tragic.

Our local Little League Baseball season had officially been canceled.

This would have been my sixth season coaching my oldest son’s team in the south end of Seattle, and probably my last, since he’s growing up and getting too old for Little League.

It’s been one of the great joys of my life to share so much time with my son doing something we both love. Deep down, I think we had both known that this season was already lost, but still… it was a sad moment when we finally had to acknowledge it.

The Little League email arrived, fittingly, as I walked with my two oldest sons toward Cal Anderson Park — in the heart of what’s suddenly become known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or the CHAZ. So, even as we spent the next few hours grieving another small joy lost to these strange times, we spent it celebrating every good thing the uprising has brought us.

What better place to be than on the first baseball field liberated from the Empire?

You probably know that Don Trump unleashed an inflammatory tweet about the CHAZ just hours after I’d enjoyed my beautiful anti-racist, anti-capitalist walk in the park with my kids.

(Remember: if Trump comes down strongly against something, you can be sure that he’s wrong. The opposite, then, must be right. So, if Trump tells you that the CHAZ was seized by violence and is now home to dangerous anarchists, we instinctively know that the CHAZ is a good and safe place that should be protected.)

I warned a few days ago that we need to be ready for The System’s tricks at a time like this. He’ll speak of solidarity, as we’ve heard from Jenny Durkan, as a tactic to placate us while sidestepping revolution. He’ll try to convince you, as Trump has, that protesters are violent when this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The System will also try to sow division. He’ll search for flaws in the movement’s visible figures and he’ll pretend those human flaws are emblematic of our values. He’ll amplify the voices of self-appointed “leaders” most willing to compromise.

Listen instead to the real people who have been at the heart of the movement in this community for years now. People like Nikkita Oliver (@nikkitaoliver on IG and Twitter), Rell Be Free (@rellbefree), Dae Shik Kim Hawkins Jr. (@daeshikjr), and others who continue to show every day why they have long since earned our trust.

Get truly local media perspectives from Africatown Media, from Marcus Harrison Green and the South Seattle Emerald, and from Omari Salisbury and Converge Media. Spekulation (@Spekulation) is another who really seems to know what’s going on.

And above all, come see for yourself. This movement transcends protest, as did the water protector camps at Standing Rock, because the CHAZ isn’t just about saying “NO” to something violent. It’s about abolishing the old by building the new world on unceded territory. It’s about living our values to their fullest in the very face of an oppressive System that fears nothing more than a people united in uncompromising uprising.

You are a part of it. There is no neutral.

Matt Halvorson is the founder of the Rise Up for Students project. He is a musician and writer living in Seattle with his partner, Lindsay, and their four kids.