The people were angry.
On their streets in the town they called home, men in uniform and carrying guns had taken over. An occupation of their town. They threatened the people. They mistreated the people. They assaulted the people. They disrupted everything about their quiet hometown.
The people were angry.
The people in the town started to push back. At first, it was taunts. It was insults hurled in anger. It was a shove or two here or there, loud noises in the faces of the occupiers. But as the occupation continued, the conflicts grew more physical, more threatening. Rocks and other items were thrown. After a snowstorm, the townspeople hurled snowballs at the men.
Tensions rose. And gunshots rang out. Dead bodies were on the street.
This wasn’t on Nicollet Avenue in Minnesota last week.
It was on King Street in Boston. The year was 1770.
You’ve probably heard of the Boston Massacre. Five people died following a skirmish between soldiers and townspeople, during which British soldiers that had been occupying the town in the pre-Revolution days shot into a crowd. The incident came after weeks of bad blood, protests and anti-British rhetoric.
It was one of the key moments that led to America.
In so many ways, what happened that night on King Street was a microcosm of the grievances and differences that pushed a bunch of disjointed and distrusting colonies to join together to form the country we know today. Our forefathers wanted freedom (not for everyone, of course), and they were growing weary of the oppressive thumb of Great Britain. Limiting expansion. Controlling trade. Setting laws. Levying taxes.
In its earliest stages, America was an unmitigated mess. No one was on the same page. The colonies had wildly different interests and goals. And those colonies mostly didn’t like one another.
There was no specific uniting interest, aside from simply wanting freedom (or the right to own humans with dark skin and take from those who were here first). Instead, this melting pot of a country melded together over a variety of interests that differed from those of Britain. People of multiple different nationalities, ethnicities and religions.
It was so diverse, in fact, that as George Washington sought to make camp with his often-reluctant army at Valley Forge, the men had trouble building the cabins and structures because they spoke so many different languages.
From those grievances and diversities, though, our Constitution was born. And I’d be willing to bet that a lot of the folks who signed it would be utterly disgusted to watch so many Americans toss away the rights enshrined within it and so willingly accept authoritarian rule.
Make no mistake, that is exactly what is taking place all across the country today, including here in Alabama.
Just this week, our lawmakers passed a bill through the Alabama House that would criminalize wearing a mask while attending a protest. Many, if not all, of these same people have found it perfectly acceptable for law enforcement agents to wear masks, remain unidentified, drive unmarked vehicles and usurp local and state law enforcement powers.
Federal officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have stated in writing now that their agents – the masked mystery goons mentioned above – do not require a warrant to enter a private residence. They have also ignored search and seizure laws when conducting traffic stops. They have routinely failed the test of probable cause when stopping and detaining citizens, often citing race and accent as cause.
They have also attacked protesters on the street, often without cause. In fact, the incident that led to the murder of Alex Pretti in Minnesota last week began when an ICE agent began shoving two protesters. Not because they had physically assaulted him. But because he could. When Pretti intervened, merely placing himself between the agent and a woman who had been shoved to the ground, he was dragged to the ground, pistol whipped and then shot multiple times in the back.
And there are a number of Americans – a shrinking number, thank God – that have accepted this. That have made excuses for this.
The Founders of the country would be ashamed.
Because you’ve excused this abhorrent behavior for the worst possible reason – you’re scared.
Scared of other humans who have been demonized by a wannabe dictator and his band of racist goobers. You’ve been turned into sniveling, cowering weaklings by the insane rhetoric of white supremacists, who are literally telling you that their goal is to protect the white race and not “poison the blood of America.”
As if America’s blood was ever pure.
So, you’ve licked boots and embraced authoritarianism, because, like children in the dark, you’re afraid. Afraid of the men and women who’ve been living among us for decades. Who’ve been our friends and neighbors, who’ve been our coworkers and teammates, our teachers and assistants. And here you are turning a blind to their mistreatment – to their kids crying for their fathers, their wives screaming in the streets – because a bunch of rich racists needed a boogeyman in order to keep picking your pockets.
Yeah, the Founders would be ashamed of you after what was built here. After what they went through. Hell, your great-grandfathers would be ashamed of you after what they fought, after the horrors they witnessed.
All of those men and women had flaws aplenty. Equality of man somehow found a few caveats. That freedom didn’t always spread evenly or among all. But they would never let some two-bit con man push them to giving up their rights, and they weren’t going to be mistreated and given the shaft so a bunch of wealthy bigots could prosper.
Because they weren’t scared.
