The fascist takeover is at least well documented

Filming ICE is not resistance

Image from truthout.org

There’s a new kind of post that is all over the internet at the moment. With Trump’s huge increase in funding for ICE and his Justice Department’s brazen flaunting of any semblance of the separation between federal and state powers, ICE has been wreaking havoc on urban neighborhoods. They are now routinely documented on social media detaining, or should we say kidnapping, citizens off the street, smashing car windows, even breaking into homes. Most recently, numerous videos have been circulating showing the murder of Renee Good, a white woman who made the mistake of trying to drive away from an ICE roadblock and got herself shot in the face by a balaclava’d goon who called her a “fucking bitch” right after he shot her at point blank range through her driver’s side window.

Immediately social media lit up with different viewpoints on the murder. She deserved it for not complying. The officer was clearly fearful for his life. He clearly stepped right in front of the car. He was already planning on killing her. Her wife egged on the ICE agents.

I’m not interested in litigating the accuracy of these claims, as about a million other posts have done so already. What I want to point out here is that the fact that there are so many damn videos and points of view on this one incident illustrates what to me is a frankly bizarre and infuriating tendency in the new phase of flaccid and absolutely pointless and ineffective protest in the US. That is that bystanders would rather capture horrendous acts by the fascist thugs on their phones than do even the bare minimum to even try to stop it. By now there are about a million videos of people watching about five or six ICE agents pile on and absolutely beat the shit out of someone while the filmer shouts at them. “What are you doing?” “They said they were an American citizen.” “What you’re doing is illegal.” “Stop kneeing him in the face.” “How do you live with yourself?” “How do you get up every day and look yourself in the mirror?” Or some other such commentary.

The latest example of this to hit my feed absolutely beggars belief. In it, someone who is clearly removed from the action films an ICE encounter in Minneapolis through a window. Two agents in the foreground are trying to calm down a man in a black coat who is clearly asking questions and trying to stop what appears to be just another routine kidnapping in the background. Four or five agents force a woman who is screaming for any help into the back seat of an SUV (turns out she is a US citizen) while the man in the black coat continues to yell at the agents in the foreground. Another person shows up, filming the incident. The woman breaks out of the back seat and runs across the road. An agent chases her down, throws her onto the ground and detains her and then two or three agents detain the man in the black coat. Both the woman and the man are shoved into the back of an SUV while two or three others pull out their phones and dutifully film the action.

Throughout the encounter many bystanders see what is going on and pull out their phones and begin filming the encounter. I count about six to ten people who see what is going on and film everything. Some of them are approached and pushed around by the ICE agents, and some of them are just sitting there. The entire time, cars are driving past, people are walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. And no one does anything.

Like clockwork about a thousand videos popped up on social media. Look at what’s happening in Minneapolis. US citizen detained in the street in Minneapolis. ICE at it again. Every variant you can think of. Many different perspectives. From both sides of the street. From inside of cars filmed through windshields. Long videos. Short videos.

With apologies to Adam Kinzinger, what the fuck exactly does any of this accomplish? Why are none of these people doing anything to try to stop what is going on? Have we reached the point where we are content to document the brutalization of our sisters and brothers calmly while they are disappeared off the streets?

Just from a practical viewpoint. There are a number of ICE agents in this video. But the bystanders, counting those driving by, easily outnumber them. Given that it takes around four or five to detain someone who does not want to be detained, the numbers alone indicate that a concerted effort by those present could actually overwhelm the ICE agents. Or people could smash their cars, knife their tires, anything to throw sand in the gears.

Well, they’re armed, you say. This is true, but as recently demonstrated by the heroic man in the Bondi massacre, a courageous person can disarm someone. That was one on one. What about 20, or 40, or 100? Better yet, why not use some of those nearly two guns per adult to form a citizens militia to protect people from being kidnapped off the street. When black people were being brutalized in the 60s, the Black Panthers did this to protect their own from police brutality. Who is going to protect us if not ourselves? Police are already breaking up anti-ICE protests while they and Democratic governors are refusing to do anything to protect citizens from ICE’s brutality. ICE is now going door to door in St. Paul with their weapons drawn. I’m sure we’ll have a lot of nice videos of this in coming days with many different points of view as people are dragged screaming out of their houses while their children sob in the doorway. And it’s not as if these videos will be useful in court. As demonstrated right after the Renee Good killing when Pam Bondi declared that the Justice Department was taking over the case, none of this footage will ever be used to hold ICE accountable.

Wake up people. This is not a drill. The early stages of the Trump administration were comprised of the liberal media participating in an endless circle jerk about whether what was happening was in fact a dictatorship, authoritarian, or merely a highly irregular form of strained democracy. Other posters are careful to highlight that, yeah, things look pretty bad in social media, but in reality most of the US is pretty peaceful. How nice. Tell that to the people who are killed or shot daily by ICE or tortured to death in their internment camps.

Meanwhile, black people and other minorities have seen this playbook for decades and were warning us that the machinery was already in place and had been used against them. Now that it’s being used against white people or law-abiding Americans we’re predictably outraged. This isn’t America. News anchors and op-eds are now admitting our democracy may be a bit strained. No shit Sherlock. Better protest more. Better But make sure it’s peaceful. We wouldn’t want to give ICE any more reason to beat the shit out of us than they already have.

Never stop filming ICE, we are told. With all due respect, put down your phone and pick up your humanity. Put your money where your mouth is. The lives of your sisters and brothers depend on it. Do something, anything, to help them.