“Well, you are white. You wouldn’t be fun anyway.”
These were the last words a senior pastor heard before being released from ICE captivity. He was only under capture for 30 minutes, let go after repeatedly telling them he wasn’t scared.
Because it’s about fear. This is obvious through the sheer amount of new agents being flooded into Minneapolis, and the short and entirely un-thorough hiring practices used throughout the process. To put it into perspective, it’s three times longer of a process to become a professional dog groomer than it is to become an ICE agent. It’s about fear, anger, and violence.
Historically, this technique is called fear-mongering, and is often paired with a little something called dictatorship.
In Nazi Germany, the Nazi party stayed in power by creating a heavily surveilled “terror state.” They accomplished this with systemic violence, discrimination, and intimidation. Some current examples of these tools include the ICE agency committing a system of violence by going door to door with no warrants and threatening citizens and non-citizens alike with guns to their faces, the immediate suspicion of anyone with an accent, and the almost constant threats of a ‘nice little database’ and ‘did you learn nothing’ from the agents themselves. It is also interesting to notice the similarities in the uniform choice for the Commander of the ICE group.
Under Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Nation, there were many examples of similar secret police systems. These groups were not the police, but instead groups to root out anti-party people, and they often committed mass means of terror. This ideology can be seen with the current non-police law enforcement group, as they constantly contradict the already established justice system, like not allowing Minneapolis police to obtain evidence in regard to Renee Good’s murder. The Trump Administration seems to have taken inspiration from Stalin’s immunity grants to his secret armies but ordering the same for ICE. Why would ICE need “absolute immunity” and no legal accountability? To commit muder after muder, with no reason to justify it.
If agents are using tax documents to find and detain people, it was never about them not paying taxes.
If they are going to their places of work and threatening them, it was never about them “free-loading” off of the American economy.
If agents are dragging ‘suspects’ out of custody and citizenship courtrooms, it was never about them evading the system.
If Commander Greg Bovino sees no moral or ethical problem with detaining a five year old child, it was never about protecting American families.
If all of this is being done under the name of a 34 count convicted felon, it was never about criminals.
It’s about fear. Alex Pretti being shot over and over, face down on the road after being attacked by six officers. Renee Good, being called obscenities seconds before her murder. The uniforms, the large numbers, the encouraged virality of it from the President, and the masked agents of brutality with their fingers on the trigger.
It’s about fear, and not just ours. It’s about the fact that even in -30 degree temperatures, tens of thousands of people gather on the street in Minneapolis, millions across the country screaming with them for justice and peace. Fear is the strongest weapon, and its bidding can be done mercilessly with a couple of bullets and a violent agent. Pretti and Good will not be forgotten, even as more names join them.
This is a story of violence, but it is only the beginning of that story. Keep your friends, your family, your neighbors, and your peers safe, because at this point it could be anyone. And it will be anyone. Which means this now effects everyone.
