Setting a Fire by the Powder Keg
Trump, Miller, and ICE are playing with fire and we cannot help them stick the blame elsewhere.
Renée Nicole Good, an innocent woman and mother, was murdered on Wednesday by an ICE agent as she was trying to drive away. After approaching her stopped car, they immediately escalated, screaming "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE CAR!" This is a stark contrast to the professional demeanor we expect of the typical traffic cop, a figure that already does not have the best track record for avoiding violent confrontation.
When she bolted, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three rounds at Good's head. But Good's murder is only the tip of the iceberg, the worst outcome of a large set of forced confrontations across the city. Confrontations which included a chaotic attack on a local high school that was so disturbing the school system decided to cancel classes, treating the presence of agents of our own federal government like they might treat a natural disaster.
As Minneapolis was becoming a powder keg in the wake of this, ICE agents shot two other victims in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday. Protests will almost certainly grow in number and size across the country through the weekend. It is inevitable that this will boil over somewhere.
The Trump administration and Stephen Miller think that all they need is the will to see this through, that their opposition is weak and easily bulldozed if relentlessly attacked. But they think their opposition is just elected Democrats, or what remains of uncaptured media, or activists. They don't seem to perceive what they're fomenting with ordinary people who are getting swept up in their untargeted assaults on local populations. If you keep pushing the masses like this, they will blow up, and it will be the predictable consequence of secret police engaging in lawless oppression. When people no longer feel that the law protects them or their community, but is instead a threat, how do you expect them to act?
Nevertheless, following the Civil Rights playbook remains the surest path to victory. We cannot win a direct confrontation of violence—they have the weapons, the vehicles. They have the military. A violent confrontation between crowds and better armed, better trained, and better organized professionals is hardly a confrontation at all.
We can only win the narrative and the politics. Being confrontational but nonviolent is the way to do that. Repeated images of masked and jackbooted government thugs beating and harassing peaceful and unarmed protesters will erode what little support from the public they have—and already is eroding it.
Meet ICE with sustained shame, ostracism, and refusal of service. Cancel ICE. Members of the military are more likely to refuse orders to fire on civilians when they are haunted by images of Americans martyred by ICE. Military officers are less likely to convey such orders. The methods of the Civil Rights Movement remain effective.
This doesn't mean we concede the right's rhetoric on "violence from the left." Martin Luther King, Jr. frequently said that if the powers that be would not deal with him and nonviolent protesters, they would likely face riots and burned down cities. MLK's words remain true: if the Trump administration will not behave lawfully and honor peaceful protest, will not defer to local and state law enforcement when it comes to maintaining order, and chooses instead to continue their path of perpetual escalation, then the blood that results is on their hands. Not just the blood they spill themselves, but the blood and destruction of any open conflict they provoke.
As liberals, and as American patriots, we have a responsibility if and when violence breaks out. Focus on the message: any and all violence and disorder is the fault of ICE and Trump's fascist, lawless administration. Do not be distracted from this basic truth: there would be no protests, let alone riots, if ICE were not behaving like a violent gang kidnapping, abusing, and murdering innocent people in broad daylight. Trump and ICE own the consequences of their own choices.
Don't let the other side turn you into one of MLK's white moderates. We do not have to play along with the timeworn right-wing script, where we start litigating resistance and lose track of what we're resisting.
Go forth and protest. Demonstrate. Follow the lead of trusted organizers. Stay safe. But stay on message.
Featured image is Free Our Future. Abolish ICE. March and Day of Action 2018, by Fibonacci Blue
