It’s quite a thing to be as scared for your city as I am right now. To know with actual certainty that federal forces are literally kidnapping people off the streets and pulling them into unmarked vans in broad daylight — on camera, even — and that there’s nothing I can do about it, in a practical sense. The feeling of powerlessness, of helplessness, is the point, of course; what’s happening is entirely about intimidation and fear and trying to push people’s spirits down even further to break them. It’s a show of force, and there’s never a reason for that beyond emotional abuse.
The whole thing feels almost cartoonishly dystopian, even as it’s just a small increase from where we’ve been living for weeks, now. The Black Lives Matter protests have been happening for, what, six or seven weeks by this point, and they’ve been peaceful each time until police have arrived and literally pushed for violence; there was a video from a protest just last week where a cop smacked a protester’s phone from their hand into a store window, with that smashed window then used to justify beating the protesters. It was, after all, “property damage,” and such things take priority over everything else, even if the damage was the result of police actions.
Also this week, there was the confirmation of something long rumored, as court documents revealed that undercover police really are seeding protests and trying to work as agitators, pushing others into acts that will then be used as “proof” that the protests are unjust, uncouth, unconstitutional in some way. That they’re reason enough for authorities to “fight back,” to fight, to become the thugs they declare the other side to be and beat down an argument that they can’t have, have no interest in having. The tactics of bullies in uniforms throughout history.
As reports of what’s happening in Portland started spreading across social media late last week, I saw so many people say things to the effect of, “This isn’t America.” It’s a lie that makes people feel comfortable, and I understand why, but the truth is, this is America. This is what it’s been like for some time. And it’s why it’s all the more important to stand up and do something about it, no matter how scary it feels.