By Kim Leval
It was wrong-headed of the Eugene Police Department to call the Jan. 30 protest at the 7th and Pearl Federal Building a “riot.” The term riot plays into the Trump regime’s narrative.
The focus should remain on the harm that these paramilitary agents are causing.
Stop talking about a broken window. It is not a “violent” act when compared to ICE killing and harming innocent people who are utilizing their First Amendment rights.
I urge Eugene’s mayor, the Eugene City Council, and the Eugene Police Department to pause, learn from Minnesota’s protest and police community, and work harder to meet this moment. Do not parrot and advance the regime’s definition of protesters as “highly paid lunatics, agitators and insurrectionists.”
Do not dismiss the many people (taxpayers and voters) in our city, county, state and country who stand against the atrocities, the cruelty, the purposeful escalation on the part of overpaid, undertrained, vicious federal agents whose flames of dangerous thinking, violence and tactics are fanned by the rhetoric of Donald Trump and his cronies.
Reasonable people are angry about the horrors carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they kill, kidnap and deport our neighbors, as they killed dozens in the past year. Both Renee Good’s and Alex Pretti’s deaths have been ruled homicides.
“We have whistles, they have guns,” Good’s partner said.
Many of us have joined this struggle for justice because innocent children must be released back to their families from horrible detention centers, because we want the targeting and harm to our immigrant neighbors to stop, because locally in Eugene, trans people, especially trans women, are being brutally arrested, threatened and targeted by the feds, and sometimes it’s all of those things and more that leads everyday people to carry signs, sing, chant, yell, curse — and, yes, act impolitely.
Along with my sister, husband and 83-year-old mom, who uses a walker, I’ve often been among the many protesters on that block in the past year, opposing the Trump regime’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement policies, and recently attended a vigil in honor of Alex Pretti. Just as the vigil was winding down, I left the area with my family. Then, the tear gas and pepper balls were unleashed. That night, we could have been one of the many, including children, with burning eyes and lungs.
Being polite in the face of tyranny is not a reasonable suggestion, nor is it helpful to suggest protesters curtail what they are doing, but not have real movement by leaders to stop the escalating ICE brutality and violence.
Politicians and police, instead, can meet this unprecedented moment, this changed landscape that historians like Heather Cox Richardson urge us to meet. Recently, Richardson said that we are in the moment where we must choose the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and join the call to preserve our democracy and succeed, or we are left choosing, by default, Stephen Miller’s white nationalist Project 25 plan to rid our nation of anyone he, MAGA, and the consenting Republicans disapproves of.
This is not only a political choice; it’s also a moral one.
By failing to make the moral choice, we risk falling into the hands of an untethered administration that has openly shared that it’s hell-bent on revenge against anyone (and any state) that tries to stop its unlawful power grab and takeover of free and fair elections.
For those who spend more time arguing about the tactics of protesters — urging them to stay peaceful — than doing anything to stop this tyrannical takeover, heed this caution: Do not turn on those who are standing up for American democracy. Do not be so quick to side with the real violent agitators — ICE and other federal police, who, acting for the Trump administration, are hiding behind masks, dressing in full tactical gear, brandishing guns and tear gas, flashbangs, and pepper ball guns, to violently provoke and attack protesters, kill them even.
Instead, work to enact local policies and state laws that limit what ICE and other feds can do in our communities. Stand up for the defunding and removal of ICE. Attend one of the many protests held at 7th and Pearl now, almost daily. Donate or help raise money to assist immigrant families whose breadwinners have been kidnapped, or build mutual aid in our community to help those who are sacrificing and standing up to protect our freedoms and our rights. Go to EugeneTogetherStrong.org for ways to help and for ways to voice your dissent.