When You're Too Afraid to Make "Good Trouble"
Those who can, do. For the rest of us.
With the news about ICE raids all over the country this week—including Puerto Rico, ffs—the shock and awe approach seems to be working. We’re being scared on purpose to keep us obedient.
The incentive to snitch on ones neighbors is particularly appalling. They want us turning on each other to make their jobs easier.
I was lucky enough to experience the infighting on my own when an online troll masquerading as an ally decided to attack my activism and also called me Michelin Man-shaped, among many other foul things.
Sooo clever.
Some agitators with nothing to lose have suggested being the first to run when ICE is around as a distraction for any undocumented people in the area, to allow them to get to safety.
It’s a nice sentiment. It’s a form of “good trouble.” But it does nothing to quell the fear. Because they’ll still come.
I don’t have answers. But I can point to some resources:
As a Latina in a sanctuary city within California, I can (probably, maybe?) assume that my life will probably continue on much like it always has. And yet, I’m still afraid. Not for myself, though I have to ask, do I have to keep my passport and birth certificate on me at all times? Where did I even put them after the 89th move in the last year???
But for family, and friends of family, and neighbors. The people all around us who do hard work and don’t deserve mistreatment or mistrust.
The jokes about getting a federally-paid vacation when ICE rounds up citizens really gloss over the fact that the interim between being mistakenly rounded up and finally being released, wherever that might be, won’t be a mere few days. It could be months or even years. And all that time will be spent in deplorable conditions where you won’t be treated as a human, regardless of which country you belong to.
You will be one of scores of people who have been dehumanized to the point where it’s easy to treat you like trash. Our country will do that. Our citizens. Because they’ll think that this is what you deserve.
Lawyers, phone calls, clean clothes, beds? Who knows if you’ll have access to any of that, because you’ll be nothing more than filthy animal. Why should we spend hard earned American tax dollars treating the trash like anything but dog shit?
This is, unfortunately, the attitude so many people have. The same people who are choosing French roast coffee now over Colombian beans because they truly believe France grows coffee.
Yes, they are that stupid. And some of them work for ICE, too.
So, to my non-Hispanic readers and allies, I ask you to take care of your communities. Use your voice to yell ¡La migra! or whatever safe word your community has chosen when you see those unmarked vans.
Make plans. Make back up plans.
But above all, make sure YOU are a safe person.
Make good trouble.
While I encourage you to watch the whole video, at 11:10 is when John Lewis describes how he met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The “good trouble” quote comes immediately after.
I hope this inspires hope in all of us:
Yes to "Good Trouble."