As a teacher in America, I have an understanding that I may someday find myself between a gun and a child. That’s our sad, sick reality. It is worth noting that the closest a gun has ever gotten to a school I worked at, in my 15 years of teaching education, in urban and rural schools and wealthy and impoverished areas, is these armed, masked, unidentified federal agents spilling out of an unmarked car across the street.

I’m livid. I want you to tell this story to everyone you know. There are some folks out there who will still think ICE is going after “dangerous criminals.” Tell those people they’ve got guns out near elementary schools, and they’re pulling people off the street in front of churches, drug stores, parks. They’re kidnapping bystanders who film them or ask for warrants.

I’m heartened by the community response in our city. Looking out my classroom window at 4:30 and seeing lines of adults still wrapped around the school made me tear up. Ordinary people helping each other is the way we keep on keeping on. Talk to your neighbors, donate to mutual aid orgs, do whatever you can to normalize humanity and care and shout down fascism.

Don’t pretend this is ok, and don’t let anyone pretend it is either.

Signed,
Daughter of a CRI Member