Harry Targ
There's a man with a gun
over there
Telling me I got to beware
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
“For What It's Worth" Buffalo Springfield
Telling me I got to beware
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?
Hundreds
of thousands of people, reflecting the diversity of America hit the streets in over
700 cities and towns to declare that “Families Belong Together.” The specific
occasion for the mobilization of so many people in such a short time was the
news of at least 2,000 migrant children being separated from their parents
along the Texas/Mexican border amid the smug assertion of Trump administration
spokespersons that the children and their parents were in the United States
“illegally.”
In
addition, Fox News commentators were framing the separations as a net gain for
the children: comfortable quarters, summer camp-like conditions instead of the
reality of children housed in cages. The specific crisis of the children
reinforced anger at the general brutality caused by the broken immigration
system that has led to the brutalization of people seeking refuge from violence
and poverty in their home countries.
Named
organizers of the rallies around the country included Moveon.org, the American
Civil Liberties Union, The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National
Domestic Workers Alliance, Amnesty International, the Anti-Defamation League,
the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Women’s March. Also, many actors and actresses, such as Alicia
Keyes, and politicians participated in rallies, particularly in coastal cities.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Democrat from the state of Washington, expressed the anger and frustration of masses of people: “The idea of kids in cages and asylum seekers in prisons and moms being separated from breast-feeding children, this is beyond politics, it really is just about right and wrong, (Alexandra Yoon-Hendriks and Zoe Greenberg, “Protests Across U.S. Call for End to Migrant Family Separations,” The New York Times, June 30, 2018).
The
marches and rallies represented a sense of outrage, an expression of the fact
that, as the Congresswoman suggested, certain government actions may be just
plain wrong, grotesquely immoral. And in those cases people of good will must
stand up and say “enough is enough.” Families Belong Together, the event
organization, articulated three central demands: that separated migrant
families be reunited immediately, the government end family detentions, and the
Trump administration end its “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
But
beyond this extraordinary mobilization is perhaps a deeper meaning, a deeper
purpose, and a possibility of hope for change. First, the placards signaled how
marches were seeing the connection between the tragedy of the 2,000 children
separated from their parents and broader issues: “fight for families,”
“childhood is not a crime,” “human rights have no borders,” “abolish ICE,” “my
people were refugees too,” “November is coming,” “no hate no fear, immigrants
are welcome here,” “no one is illegal on stolen land,” “Nazis were following
the law too, abolish ICE,” “Trump for prison, lock him up.”
Second,
a multiplicity of organizations, beyond the mainstream national ones,
participated in mobilizations around the country. Youth organizations, progressive
alliances, and democratic socialist groups played a role in organizing the
events and brought out their members to support the actions. For example, in
Milwaukee, Democratic Socialists (DSA) participated in two mobilizations with
placards calling for the abolition of ICE. In addition a radical immigrant
rights group, Voces De La Frontera, which concentrates on immigrant rights and
class issues participated prominently. Also, in Milwaukee, there was a strong
representation from progressive sectors of various faith communities:
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish.
Third,
the June 30 Families Belong Together nation-wide mobilization may be the
largest since President Trump assumed office. Beginning with the inauguration
day rallies led by women, there have been mobilizations around peace,
immigration, guns, women’s rights, the right of workers to organize, and
against police violence. Peoples’ movements are growing in size. Mobilizations
more consciously seek to connect the particular issues that occasion rallies
and calls to action with other issues. And, with the emergence of the New Poor
People’s Campaign, spokespersons of that movement are making the case that
issues around poverty and racism are connected to militarism, war, and the
destruction of the environment and all these are connected to the history of
the brutalization of Native Americans,
African Americans, and immigrants seeking asylum from violence and poverty in
Latin America. As Reverend William Barber calls it there is an emerging “fusion”
of issues and a “fusion” of movements.
Will
this lead to a well-organized purposive, multi-issue movement that will
challenge capitalism and imperialism?
Will it create the building blocks for a humane and democratic, and
socialist future? As the song says: There's something happening here. But what it is
ain't exactly clear.