Clerical Collar

Pastor Zach never liked to wear a clerical collar. Suddenly, he finds himself wearing one all the time. Join me in supporting the multifaith nonprofit ISAIAH https://www.isaiahmn.org/ Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I have been a Presbyterian minister for 25 years.

• 0:04Avery Trufelman?

  As a Presbyterian pastor, Zach Wilson doesn't have to wear all that priest stuff.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Protestant churches are much less uniform, obviously, than Roman Catholic churches.

• 0:15Avery Trufelman?

  Doesn't have to wear the cassock, or the chasuble, or the stole. Nothing's required.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  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.

• 0:27Avery Trufelman?

  And then how often would you wear the collar?

• 0:29Speaker 00

  Never.

• 0:30Avery Trufelman?

  Really?

• 0:31Speaker 00

  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, no, I never wore a collar till this.

• 0:43Avery Trufelman?

  And by "this," Pastor Zach means when Immigration and Customs Enforcement took over his city.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  I'm the co-executive presbyter of the Presbyterian 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 speared it off to Texas within hours, and he was legal. The Presbyterian kicked in 10 grand, and we were able to get him back, right?

• 1:13Avery Trufelman?

  Amazing.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:25Avery Trufelman?

  Why can't people leave their homes?

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Because brown people are just being picked up. And even if you're a native-born American, if you have brown skin, it doesn't 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.

• 1:48Avery Trufelman?

  And you're wearing your collar right now.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  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.

• 2:25Avery Trufelman?

  When did you order this collar?

• 2:27Speaker 00

  I ordered it the day Renee Good was killed overnight.

• 2:35Avery Trufelman?

  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.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  They were allowed to just go into the airport and just take people, right? Over 100 people have been abducted from the airport, plus Delta is one of their main hubs, and Delta's been profiting by deporting people. That's another reason we were at the airport.

• 2:59Avery Trufelman?

  It was freezing.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  22 below is cold.

• 3:02Avery Trufelman?

  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.

• 3:16Avery Trufelman?

  Was this your first time getting arrested?

• 3:18Speaker 00

  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, mutual aid, the delivery and stuff, were 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 phones. Someone at this place by our house went up to someone I know and said, "Hey, Cheryl", because they had ID'd her from facial.

• 3:57Avery Trufelman?

  Like, someone from ICE went up to?

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:59Avery Trufelman?

  It was like, "Hey, Cheryl."

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's common.

• 4:00Avery Trufelman?

  That's so wild.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  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.

• 4:13Avery Trufelman?

  Do you think you're gonna get arrested again?

• 4:15Speaker 00

  I will if need be, but, you know, the point isn't to get arrested, right? The point is to draw attention to what's going on, right? And for better or for worse, people tend to pay attention when it's a bunch of clergy.

• 4:29Avery Trufelman?

  When will you feel that you can take the collar off?

• 4:34Speaker 00

  I don't know. I mean,

• 4:38Speaker 00

  I guess when,

• 4:43Speaker 00

  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. I, 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 than, and higher ideals than American-ness. And everyone should have something that is a North Star, a compass in their life, that's beyond what authority

• 5:28Speaker 00

  is telling them to do.

• 5:36Avery Trufelman?

  Please join me in supporting Pastor Zach along with his multi-faith, multiracial coalition and all the communities they represent in the Twin Cities by donating to a nonprofit called Isaiah at isaiahmn.org.

• 5:53Avery Trufelman?

  Take care of each other.