Tea-Party Prankster Robert Erickson and Other European Illegals Attempt to Self-Deport at ICE

I.C.E doesn't target those workers seeking to find a better life by coming across borders illegally, but sometimes they are picked up when an actual criminal illegal immigrant is also staying in that house.

Let me be clear, I am a huge supporter and follower of the Dakota struggles in Minnesota, and have studied the history back to the 1862 Dakota War.  It concerns me that these struggles are being meshed with the immigration argument when the information isn't painting a clear picture.

There are real, serious, criminal threats here in Minnesota.  Illegal immigrants that come here and hurt people, traffic humans, run sex trades, kidnap others, sell drugs, and recruit for activities to harm the U.S.  Frankly, I want those people captured and deported.  I can't imagine anyone, not even Mr. Erickson, arguing that he'd like to let all the criminal illegal immigrants go free in his neighborhood.

A little more research of what I.C.E. actually does and the different missions within it could have made this protest more effective and much clearer in its message. 

The devastation of the Dakota peoples still haunts me today, but I don't agree with this protest.

It's not a joke.  I want protection from criminals who enter this country illegally.  It doesn't undo the disaster that the colonization of North America did to all Natives across this land, but the protection now of the safety of my home, my family is important. 

And where does it stop? All the Europeans should go home?  What about the Africans? What about the Asians?  And Eastern Europeans? 

There are better ways to make a point than this protest achieved.  And why should the white people get out of the Native peoples movements?  Just because someone has white skin doesn't mean they don't carry Native blood.  Assuming the white skin means you can't be Native or care about the Native peoples is simply racism in the reverse.  

it's a grand idea, decolonization, unsettling, a back to Europe movement.  it kind of falls in there somewhere with 'abolishing prisons' and 'abolishing the white race.' 

quite a concept, virtually impossible to actualize and that is part of the challenge, or problem that is coming up here for some people who are witness to this, people like myself who did not organize or participate in this action, but who read about his and see the video here...

it's not an issue of words chosen, which seem good enough, or concept, white people owning our place and priviledge in a genocidal settler society...what is at issue is that that there are plenty of Dakotah, Nakotah, Lakotah, Annishinabe, Iowa, descendants of the First Nations of this land all around us doing critical work around cultural and economic survival, that it is a mistake not to make alliances with those folks, and if you have already, then you need to make certain that they are involved in every step of what you are doing, as well as 'undocumented workers' from central and South America and the African and Asian diasporas.  They need to be at the front of these movements, articulating their own issues, their own proposed solutions to problems, like immigration policy.

What becomes an issue is people appearing to speak for other people, to 'stand up for other people', it can come across as paternalistic and actually quite 'settler' in strategy.  It can appear that white people, the 'settlers', may be choosing tactics not necessarily chosen by the people they are speaking for when they hold a banner that reads "dakota land", or choosing, CHOOSING, to ask for a voluntary deportation.

It is important to think of impact as well as the intent of our actions.  It is important to think about how we will be perceived in the communities of people who cannot walk away from the issues when they become ... inconvenient, as all white people can, and usually do, especially when it comes to deporatation issues. 

There are alliances being built between First Nation peoples of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, real alliances that have taken decades and decades to build.  White activists should be very careful when stepping into that mix, even if the intent is to make a point, to find humor and point out the maddness of current immigration policy, it is easy for us to 'make the links', to 'point out the common ground between people',  but to make the 'next step towards something more', has more to do with building real relationships with real people in communities engaged in struggle than to have the 'correct position', or the 'most radical tactic'.  It has more to do with getting out of the way, marching at the back of the movment and asking those most impacted by immigration and neo-liberal polices, that perennial question, "what is to be done?"

Are you really going back to Europe, to stay,  and when? 

It is critically important to look at how we will be perceived in our actions, not simply how we have planned them, or see them playing out.  Or what we know on the inside about the reality of the level of consciousness that went into them.

Most Minnesotans do not know anyone in MIRAc or Unsettling Minnesota, so while on line discussion may be awkward, imagine discussions happening in bars or in peoples' living rooms if it makes it on the news, among people who have no inside scoop on the irony of a 'non-white' person playing a 'white' person asking for voluntary deportation.  Wow, that's a big, and perhaps strange concept to wrap your head around.  So while it may appear very clever from the inside vantage point, and may in truth be a profound act on 'mr. erickson's ' part, that truth is most likely lost in translation.

And that is the main point of the tact of my critique.  It is not meant to degrade those involved, you all are raising critically important issues, issues that the anglo dominated left has in large refused to address over the years and that is in fact why I am so interested in taking the time to have public discussion around these actions.  Because, like all of our actions in life, what we choose to do, how we decide to frame the issues we are raising, will have lasting effect on organizing around these and similar issues in the future.  

It appears to be a white led and dominated movement to all but the most clued in of activists. It appears to be a white led and white dominated movement speaking about and raising issues that are so sensitive to communities of color most impacted by settler society.  Raising the issue of land in Minnesota without a visible and at the forefront  'council of first nation elders', and not just Dakotah (that's a sensitive issue in this state as well), could easily shut a lot of peoples ears before they even get a  chance to understand that you all 'get it', and are working in concert with First Nations and recent immigrant activists.  White activists in Minnesota have made this mistake in the past, so there is a historical context for distrust and questioning motivations from the get go.

If you want to be effective in your actions it is critical to realize that you are going to have to do a lot of work, lay a lot of groundwork before you step out into the camera's glare to highlight the 'injustice' this settler society doles out daily to communties of color and working class white folk.  And by that I mean going and introducing your self and being introduced by others doing work in their own communities to elders and others who have carried on this struggle for cultural survival through the generations.  Building those relationships and figuring out from their perspective issues of messaging, tactic, strategy.  You may be surprised to find that their choices of strategy and tactic may have a lot more to do with their communities and descendants still being around today to have the discussion than the issue of what is 'radical' or not.

If you are already doing this, laying this groundwork, great, that would be so good to hear.  This would be a profoundly radical act.

But if you are not, then expect a lot of ears to close and eyes turn away from the perceived attempt to grab the spotlight about issues people in many communities will assume you know little to nothing about.

Perhaps they who think will put there contact information out there so that those who worry could get in touch and perhaps even sit down and talk? 

Best!

db