Refusing to Forget mourns the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. We note with alarm the statements by Trump administration officials, including the Attorney General, slandering the victims, lying about the incidents, and ordering an investigation not of the perpetrators but of the victims. We applaud the federal prosecutors who have resigned in protest of such orders, and calls for accountability from local officials and Minnesota residents. They understand what a clear-eyed study of the border violence of 1910s shows: that impunity for agents and the denigration of entire communities can lead to mass state-sanctioned killing and the destruction of basic democratic and human rights.
As Monica Muñoz Martínez wrote nearly five years ago, “through policing and enforcement—Indigenous, Asian, Mexican, and African people were cast as un-American, foreign, incapable of being citizens, and as a threat to the nation. Racist violence was used to subordinate and control populations who refused government intervention.” The violent history of border policing is now devouring what is left of democracy in the USA.
We refuse to forget the murders of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and so many others.
Read the full article here: Borders Don’t Stop Violence—They Create It