Everyone is exhausted by the alarmism going on right now but honestly it's deserved. We ARE in an emergency situation and our inaction will be looked back upon as shameful by the people of the future, if any are still around.

So let's apply this exercise

If you're white, I want you to imagine that you are seeing ICE asking someone for documents. I want you to imagine yourself getting in the way. See yourself getting in that officer's face and telling him off. Use your "I want to talk to your manager" voice. Tell him he has no right. Interrogate him on who he thinks he is. Make it impossible for him to do his job,

If you're white, I want you to imagine you are seeing someone be taken by ICE. I want you to see yourself getting in the way. Physically stopping ICE from doing this. Blockading the truck. Standing there. Tackling the officer. Would you stand by and watch SS take someone in germany? NO! Could you live with yourself if you did nothing? Will there be consequences to you for doing this? Yes. Do those consequences outweigh the life of this person if you do nothing? No

And you probably have this inner wall. This line. It says "What if I lost my job" "What if I go to prison" and it probably even says "If I go to prison or lose my job I won't be able to play the new smash brothers in December" and I want you to imagine a scale and on one side put Smash Brothers and on the other side put Ethnic Cleansing and I want you to reeaaallly think about what's more important

Because, in fact, you'll be fine. You will be fine if you can't play the new video game. There are plenty of old video games. You already have some video games. Be willing to give up something like that. If you *really* want to stop ICE, if you *really* want socialism or communism or anarchism, you can't keep sitting around hoping someone else will do it and you can't keep thinking about only stuff you can do which will not have consequences.

In the active bystander training, it was actually me who said "If I'm wrong about this person being predatory at a party, I'm concerned it will hurt my reputation and I won't be invited back to these parties and then I can't be there if a REAL predator is there"

and the instructor looked me straight in the eyes with a deadpan face and said "So you're taking a risk whenever you intervene, but what's worse. someone being assaulted or you not being invited to parties"

The fact of the matter is, anything that's actually a threat to the fascists and capitalists is going to be risky to you. There is no action you can take with maximum impact on Them but little impact no You.

If it can't have negative consequences on you, it won't have negative consequences on the fascists.

A lot of the teenagers who participated in walk-outs for gun violence (a totally astroturfed campaign btw) were SUPER concerned about it hurting their college entrance prospects

And, really, this tame symbolic action? You'll be fine. But a lot of them sought out even tamer actions so they wouldn't suffer any consequences at all.

And you have to ask, what do you really care about then?

I see adults being even worse about this

Also, and this part I KNOW is gonna be controversial, but fellow white trans people? We overstate the degree to which we are extra vulnerable to police violence.

Like, when I got arrested, yeah I got treated worse than the other white people I was arrested with, but the cis straight people of color were treated worse than me. Especially if you're like, middle class working in tech, you have plenty of white privilege you can wield.

Some addendums:

The only reason I specified "white people" is because I think it's extremely not my place to tell people of color to put themselves in harm's way when they likely would be in greater danger than me doing the same action. If you're a person of color you know your level of risk better than I do and have to weigh that risk yourself. "Cope ahead" is still probably a useful skill even if you're not gonna tackle an ICE officer.

The main point point of this thread is to provide a useful skill to counter paralysis, whatever specific action you decide you're going to take in that scenario, and to get you to stop thinking "What will happen to ME if *I* do this" and to start thinking "What will happen to THEM if I *don't* do this"

and also some tough love that like, the cops only know what they see and what you tell them and more than anything what they see is if you're white or not. they don't know anything that isn't markedly visible and most stuff on our like privilege checklists don't matter at all to them if you're white. A white ace pansexual demigender furry person isn't at greater risk than a cis, allosexual, straight, non-furry black person.

a black man with all the other privileges in the world will always be at greater risk of violence at the hands of police than a white woman or enby or whatever who has none of the other privileges in the world besides being white.

Cops care about:
* Skin tone
* Accents
* Citizenship
* Documented status
* and To An Extent visible gender nonconformity.

You don't have to do the specific examples I gave; the point of the exercise is to think about what you'll do even if it's not those specific things. Only you can decide what it is you're going to do but you do have to do something more than run away, walk on by, or stand paralyzed in fear and uncertainty.

It's OK to be afraid and feel feelings but we must also try to be brave and take action even as our hands quake

@shel I appreciate this thread a lot, if the storm of likes didn't accurately convey that. Thank you.

@shel much needed

@shel
What if you're scared you won't be able to provide for you and your wife's medical bills because you're both trans in a conservative southern state?
I'm not trying to give a "gotcha" or be snarky, this year while I'm closeted I should be safe enough, but I want to be able to do something and not be frozen by fear of jeopardizing her health and safety

@Corax @shel yeah, I think it's a bit short-sighted to not account for the fact that you getting fired/arrested will be harmful to those you're providing. Not to mention that in the case of people like ICE, violent (including potential lethality) reactions of the officials are also something people fear.

@MeimuHakurei @shel
I don't care if I get hurt and I don't WANT to be more afraid of the consequences of fighting ethnic cleansing since large scale actionable resistance is what I can contribute to I want to know how to take action and not shut down internally

@MeimuHakurei @Corax You have to weigh your own life.

On one side: "I do nothing of consequence, ethnic cleansing continues"
On the other side: "My wife suffers because her medical bills can't be paid."

I can't make that decision for you; this is a different scenario.

@MeimuHakurei @Corax also yeah physical violence from officers is real. It's real against their victims all the time. There isn't gonna be a way to stop it that doesn't put yourself at risk.

"An officer might hurt me" weighed against "Ethnic cleansing" again you gotta make your decisions.

I think a lot of us privileged folk though can get selfish. Especially the middle class.

@shel
Thank you. I hope I can do something if I come in to contact with something happening but I'm not yet sure

@Corax the point of the exercise is just to think ahead, so that if the moment does come, you know what you're going to do and can act immediately rather than being paralyzed trying to weigh all the consequences in the moment as it happens before your eyes

@shel yes, the wall is "if I am arrested and charged with a felony and it sticks, likely my family will be homeless and their critical health care & support that my job funds go away, maybe my baby dies". Taking a stand has to be clearly worth *that*.

try not to trivialize people who don't stand up with "maybe you won't be able to play a video game".

@pnathan if you read that and go "well, the consequence for me is not that I won't be able to play a video game" then you know your situation don't you. The point of the exercise is to weigh the consequences you know you have, not to tell you that you are in a specific situation and should take a specific action. The point is to push you to leave your comfort zone and think about others for a change.

@shel I always feel kind of weird when I see stuff like this. I'm definitely not white, but I'm also not one of the ethnicity classes white government considers criminal. If anything, I'm *both* of the classes they feel threatened by, that they think those might be better than them in some ways. What am I meant to do?

@CoronaCoreanici I mean; you know better yourself how police tend to treat you than I do. If you think police treat you pretty well / you aren't at the heightened risk other people of color face; then you can definitely throw yourself in the way.

The only reason I specified white is cuz I think it's incredibly not my place as someone who is white to tell people who aren't to stop being selfish bystanders and put themselves in danger.

@CoronaCoreanici it's not that it has to be white people doing it it's just that white people tend to be the most trained to NOT do anything and have the least consequences they'll face relative to others.

@shel Oh, so they're maximum effect per effort. Makes sense.

@CoronaCoreanici Yeah, maybe? It's more just, I can urge other white people to take risks cuz I know from personal experience how cops treat us and feel safe in saying a lot of white people can take these greater risks and not be risking their lives

I just don't personally know if that's the case for korean-americans or any other specific groups; though i do know the darker your skin the more dangerous it gets.

@shel That's fair! I don't think I've ever even encountered the police in that context, except arguably at airports. So I don't really know.

@CoronaCoreanici You could always ask other people what their experiences have been? This is just way outside my realm of knowledge ^^;; I don't know what it's like being asian-american and can't comment on it. I'm ""asiatic"" and only the most racists care about that and it's not rly visible on my face

@shel I mean, as you'ev sen from my stream, I am very obviously some kind of NE asian, and can probably even tell that I'm Korean. Jewish is less visible. Bi/pan and mental health issues less so, poly even less so, technically slightly nb and gray-A are basically invisible.

@CoronaCoreanici I've also met you in person so yes I have a pretty good idea what you look and act like :V

@shel This is a thing! The fact that I can pretty easily give off upper-middle class class signals is also a thing. So maybe? I feel like it'd still be riskier than most white people.

@CoronaCoreanici Yeah it's just a matter of if it's a risk you're willing to take. You'll be treated probably a bit worse than me but you won't be treated as poorly as a black person, I'm Guessing; though being like literally of a royal lineage and Ivy Educated and not having an accent I'm guessing makes a major difference to what degree that's the case

People for whom it's riskier than you take that risk all the time.

@shel This is a good point. I'm going to think more on this.

@CoronaCoreanici what I will say os:

1. The cops don't care that you're polyamorous
2. The cops don't care about your internal gender feelings if you're dressed in a gender conforming way
3. The cops don't care where you fall on the ace spectrum
4. The cops will use mental illness to justify putting you in a "high observation cell" which is kinda like solitary and they watch you pee but it's not total soundproofed solitary
5. The cops don't know you're bi or jewish

@shel all of this sounds about right

@shel the mental illness part probably isn't even visible almost ever except if they have access to medical records which they probably do, but I don't think I'd actually care much about solitary if I had a stack of paper and a crayon because MATH

@CoronaCoreanici they won't give you a stack of papers or crayons

@shel OK. I guess I'm probably still fine? I can walk through any number of old proofs and refine them in my head. I don't even know how long that would take. Long, definitely.

@CoronaCoreanici yeah no when you're in jail/a holding cell you have literally no stimulus. you're just in a small room with a toilet (no soap, technically a sink, you have to ask a guard for toilet paper) and there's like a raised slab to sit/lay on and you get little slippers made of paper towels to keep your feet "warm". They take everything but your lowest layer of clothing (shirt, pants) including glasses.

@CoronaCoreanici the cells these days are usually made of plexiglass so it's semi-soundproof; not entirely like you can shout real loud to other ppl in jail but it's difficult.

if they're busy that day you might have a cellmate but if it's a slow day you'll probably be alone

@CoronaCoreanici when they're doing intake they ask you if you've ever been in inpatient care, if you're ever attempted suicide, if you have any diagnosed mental illness; and if you lie it's perjury and if you refuse to answer they assume the answer is "yes" and will put a big "suicide risk" stamp on your file

@shel The answers to those'd be no, no, and yes, in that order

@CoronaCoreanici yeah so they'll know you have a mental illness was my point

@shel and I mean, I want to believe that I could get away with that because we Count As White in the Grand Racial Hierarchy Brought to you By General Dynamics, but then I'll read about hate crimes against, like Chinese-Americans on trains where no one stepped in until he maybe was going to hit back

@shel
Don't they shoot you for that kind of thing?

@rook not if you're white

@shel I just need to say I'm trying to think like this and I don't think I could do it. I know I would be "fine" if I lost my job, or went to jail, or got fined. I'm not worried about that. I'm just too scared of physical violence and too aware of how physically breakable I am, and how aggressive cops can be, and that fear stops me from doing a lot of things just in general. I don't know how to not be afraid of that.

@masklayer It's a choice you gotta make. Only you can way the risks and fears. Mostly I want to push people to attempt to push through it and find a way to do more. The main point of "cope ahead" is think through what you're going to do before the situation arises so that you aren't paralyzed thinking about what to do in that moment.

so if you can't tackle an ICE officer maybe you can film them and put it online, you know? You have to think it through

@masklayer the specific examples I used are more extreme but it doesn't have to be those specific examples; it just has to be something more than being paralyzed with fear and inaction

@masklayer it's OK to be afraid and it's Real to be afraid; but we must at least try to be brave when it is needed.

@lottie Dialectical; it's a toolbox of skills for managing extreme anxiety and emotional instability. I think the skills are actually very generally applicable to other contexts.