Back when I was a kid, the idea that any kind of authority could stop a person and demand their papers was considered outrageous, the sort of thing that happened in “bad” countries, not in the USA.
I was an Anglo kid, of course – Anglo in the Texas sense of being white and not Mexican American. Black people knew better as did Mexican Americans, including those whose families had lived north of the Rio Grande since before Anglo settlement in Texas in the early 1800s.
These days I know enough history to understand the amount of racial privilege packed into my outrage. Our history is littered with stories of people forced again and again to prove their right to exist while others are accepted even when they’re doing harm.
But I still feel that outrage on behalf of all the persons being harassed by trumped-up semi-cops right now. And I would get very angry if someone asked me for my papers.
I mean, I still get mad every time I’m driving near the Mexican border and have to stop at one of the border patrol stations that are inland from the actual border.
Not that I ever have any problem there. I’m very obviously Anglo and dealing with cops brings out my Anglo Texan accent. But it still pisses me off in a deeply personal way, and not just because I’ve noticed at those places that people whose skin is a little darker than mine end up spending a lot more time answering questions.
In his January 15 issue of his Law Dork newsletter, Chris Giedner reports that the awful woman who is running our Department of Homeland Security (an agency whose very name evokes Nazi Germany in my mind and has since the right wing came up with it after September 11) says anyone in the vicinity of an ICE operation can expect to have to prove their identity.
And of course, even proofs of identity don’t work if they want to abuse you. Or shoot you.
It is reported that a couple of the thugs doing these raids have said to people after the murder of Renee Good, “Didn’t you learn your lesson?” Continue reading “Outrage at the Outrageous”…
