Strong Communities Defy ICE
Colonial Virginia and Carolina(before North and South were separated) were the first sites of slave patrol and the slave catcher industry in what would become the 13 colonies and later the United States. White colonists, usually poor, were hired by the plantation owning class to control the Afro population of enslaved people. My ancestors have always fought back and rebelled and the advent of the slave catcher was to control resistance to bondage.
The slave catchers were not very good at their jobs though. Enslaved people continued to disobey, disrupt, run, revolt, plan, attack, win. These efforts to escape enslavement by the Ancestors were so successful that the young country enacted the Fugitive Slave Act. This law forced all citizens and members of the law to work with slave catchers to bring runaways back to the plantations. Forced cooperation attempts did not guarantee compliance though.
Black people have liberated ourselves again and again. Yet.
I’m currently recovering from a random back injury. I promise I lift with my legs, I really do not know what happened. In this time I’ve been reading, working, and seeing the news regarding ICE in Minneapolis. ICE agent Jordan Ross shot a white woman, mother, poet, in the face after she dropped her child off at school and was nearly home just days ago. Her name is Renee Nicole Good. The nation is saying her name.
Days before, a Black man Keith Porter Jr., was murdered by an unidentified ICE agent on New Years Eve. ICE agents are human beings given the jurisdiction to not only kidnap and rape people because of skin color or accent, but to also to execute on the spot. ICE agents are people with impunity to kill us all and they want to and will.
What does it take to escape a plantation? Courage, strategy, knowledge, ability, support, somewhere to go. What about when the plantation is a concept and the fabric of every institution around you at the same time? I say the answer is the same. The people who work for ICE are slaves to their insecurities, patriarchy, self-loathing. Every Latino and Black ICE agent hates themself especially, but even the white ones show low self-esteem. ICE like any other US law enforcement system has roots in the plantation schema of this nation. ICE agents, police, border patrol are not victims though, they are perpetrators of terrible crimes against humanity as part of the plantation system.
Strong communities defy plantations. Defy ICE.
Courage is the strength and will to act even and especially when we are afraid. It takes courage to build a garden, learn a new skill, venture in to the woods to forage food. Our ancestors were courageous when they stole pages of news paper or letters to learn how to read. Courage is when Black people wear their natural hair in a society that still considers us animals. Courage is reaching out to your family and having serious conversations and plans about how to divest and boycott for Palestine and all of us. Courage spreads like pollen birthing new possibilities in those who witness and open up to this light.
Knowledge is awareness and understanding. Do you know what’s going on really? With yourself, your people, this country? How we got here (tip I wrote about it at the beginning)? Do you know what will happen to your town if the county decides to build an AI data center? Do you know where your food comes from? Knowledge is not just being informed. Harriet Tubman was informed of where the “free states” where. It was her knowledge of the stars, woodland herbs, and codes that allowed her to fly to freedom. Knowledge also includes the ways we teach others and continue to learn.
Strategy is how we implement that knowledge courageously to achieve a values based goal. Liberals don’t know what they are working towards, this is why they insist genocidal Kamala Harris would have been better. How do you measure the benefits of distant genocide versus louder imperial violence in your front yard without revealing compromised humanity? I am very curious of the metrics of comparison considering Harris has posed with ICE and Border Patrol, smiling, over the years in full support of their internment camps, systematic rape of people imprisoned with no due process, and cruel deportations. Strategists understand the why behind the steps of what they are doing. I build a nursery at the farm to start plants in a warm controlled environment to have more abundant harvests throughout the seasons and avoid the risks of low germination in the elements. Strategy says this is where we are going, how, and why.
Ability is the power to do something. It’s that simple.
Support is that from which we can grow or build. Nourishment of our body, mind, and soul is support. Who is providing that nourishment? Where is that nourishment possible? Support ties perfectly into ability because none of us can do it all, but we all have the power to do something. And those somethings can compliment and propel other somethings. Power is built off of supports; like bees building honey comb from a line of wax provided by the beekeeper on the frame. The land models support beautifully. Birds’ nests need a nook in a branch, pea tendrils need a trellis, bark, or fence to cling and climb on. Support moves us upward.
Somewhere to go is that place of liberation. For my ancestors, it wasn’t truly the North, Midwest, or West. We still were not full people. We still aren’t full people now. From New York City to LA, Black Americans are lynched, harassed, underpaid, poisoned, and surviving racial terrorism every day. The place we are heading is up to us to create and choose. I say we dream as freely as possible and practice till we see it becoming real. Harriet Tubman had to believe in her worth and freedom when all the systems of reality said she was 3/5ths of a person if that, she was a woman and Black and dark skinned after all.
Strong communities discuss, feed, and shape these practices together. Embodying courage, strategy, and knowledge. Being each other’s support. Dreaming and making those places to go. In our day to day interactions, consumer choices, how we speak to ourselves and eachother we can be our strength. We can channel the Ancestors; all who stood in defiance of the system and players of plantation, colony, slave patrol, northern capitalists, and made a way through to something more than what the world called order.
Strong communities defy ICE figuratively and literally. ICE like its slave catching precursor is just an attempt to control the masses to abide by a corrupt system. ICE agents, like cops and the rest of the feds, are not courageous, strategic, or knowledgeable. They are cult members worshipping a serial child rapist and and his strung out colleagues. A cult preys on weak people with no faith in where they are heading, This is the best stock for submission. Strong communities are self lead, self fed, on their way toward what they want.
What steps are you taking to build your community’s muscle. We need it to end this centuries old game of weak and cowardly people with guns and badges, terrorizing our families, neighbors, and comrades.
Strong communities defy ICE and any iteration of slave patrol, plantation, patriarchal, imperial terror just by existing.