Interfaith leaders hold a prayer vigil for justice at the Roundhouse on Monday as hundreds march from the Santa Fe Farmers Market to the Capitol in support of immigrants’ rights. Photo by Jody Benson
By JODY BENSON
Los Alamos
I texted an invitation to a friend to join Saturday’s action to “Shine a Light for Minnesota,” and “step out now for our neighbors, for our communities and for Alex” (a white, male, ICU nurse protesting in Minneapolis and shot dead by ICE agents), by lighting a candle as a prayer for him and immigrants.
The friend responded that there would be no murders, no violence if protestors didn’t create chaos by standing between legal law enforcement and illegal aliens. If we sit quietly and let the law take its course, there will be no disruption to the nation.
That’s true. If protestors aren’t protesting, they won’t be gassed. If Americans Alex or Renee hadn’t been defending immigrants on the street, ICE agents wouldn’t have shot them. Better to let the federal government’s overwhelming power control the situation. And about five-year-old Liam getting snatched? His legal-immigrant family should’ve known better than to let him go to school. Surely they’d heard about other students being snatched while ICE prowled school grounds. Stupid parents to believe in the myth of Lady Liberty.
But what about another truth? A heart-centered truth? What would you do if you saw a five-year-old getting grabbed by ICE agents when he came home from school?
The thing is, this friend who objects to politically provocative candle-lighting, would rush to protect a child. To protect should be our human response when wild boars attack helpless beings. Although this friend is adamant about eliminating raping, pillaging pedophile illegals that are (thank Trump) being arrested and deported, this friend still believes those so-called illegals are human. To that, we recognize our shared responsibility for those who, but for the grace of our predecessors who spawned us in America, go we.
Countries living under totalitarians have tried cowering before. Remember Nazi Germany where people looked away as government-sanctioned thugs grabbed socialists, communists, unionists, minorities, disabled people, gays, Gypsies, Jews, to strip those inferior-contaminators-of-pure-blood of their rights, imprison them, and when the leader ordered it, genocide them. History shows us what happens when we cower: “Then They Came For Me.”
Understanding that The Other and I are the same—in the eyes of both God and the Constitution—requires Americans to protect the rights of all our fellows in the US. The 14th Amendment’s promise that No State can deprive any Person—not just third generation white American males, but “Any Person”—equal protection even when the president commands his militia to deprive us of those rights.
My friend insists acting calmly will fix this targeted denial of civil rights. I agree. Calmly. Deliberately. Unless, as now, we’re suffering a ceaselessly raging storm, and with the forest bulldozed, nothing remains to impede the flood from ravaging our village. Survival depends on our acting on the truth that only together are we strong. Together we remove the vulnerable to higher ground, fill the sandbags, stack them against the flood’s destruction, brave the storm to patch the breaches, and after, together, we rebuild.
Lighting a candle in a flood seems useless—except when people are sweeping past and crying out for the tiniest light to help them find the shore. If we don’t light the way and pull them in, no one will be left when the deluge comes for us. Together our light can signal our commitment to rescue all the We the People, maintain justice, promote the general welfare, and secure “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and all our Posterity.”
Otherwise it is clear: Now They Come For Us.
A scene of a recent protest against ICE along Trinity Drive. Photo by Jody Benson