A RESPONSE TO THE WAR MACHINE BEING ACTIVATED BY OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT

“This is absolutely the moment to engage in the kind of educational activism that might help to encourage all of us, especially those of us who live in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, to purposefully rethink the meaning of safety and security.” - Angela Davis 2020

Community to Community Development recognizes that the military action taken on Thursday January 28th against the houseless people and their advocates on the people’s property is a violent action taken against all of us. As advocates for farmworkers and immigrant families we call out to our allies and supporters to reject the logic that these actions were and continue to be taken to “protect” us. We are in a moment of clear and present danger from white supremacist militias and right-wing delusional groups like Q’Anon. The Mayor and Interim Police Chief decided, without the people’s voice, to call in multiple county, state and federal enforcement agencies, with weapons meant for war. We find it extremely offensive that the city and county called on the Border Patrol to assist them in waging violence on vulnerable communities. We have heard many denials of a cooperative relationship between the Bellingham Police Department and federal immigration officials, yet nothing could be clearer than what we saw last Thursday. 

It cannot be overlooked that during the summer of 2020, white supremacist militia groups occupied downtown Bellingham in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. When the community called on the city to protect us from the danger of armed white supremacists on our streets, the response was negligible. This is a clear demonstration of institutional racism.

If there is a real and credible threat to our community, the government has a responsibility to let the people know what that threat is. We call on our community to join us in demanding transparency from the city and the county on everything that they have done in this situation, from attempting to silence dissent during public comment at city council meetings, to authorizing Customs and Border Patrol to join the Bellingham Police Dept. for the armed attack on January 28th, to maintaining a militarized presence on the rooftop of the police station throughout the weekend.

In the weeks since November 11th we have watched as houseless folks began to gather and camp on the lawn at City Hall. This situation is not new. Every winter we hear the voices in our community calling out for the city and county government to take action and create sustainable housing for those who need it most. This housing crisis has resulted in a growing population of homeless folks in Whatcom County. This winter houseless people have been even more vulnerable and exposed due to COVID-19. We have witnessed the city and county government prioritize temporary restructuring of the Downtown Business District. We did not see the same strength of effort for protecting human lives from the pandemic. 

We saw the mayor and city council ignore the pleas of advocates and unanimously pass a budget prioritizing the police department while there were houseless people on the lawn at City Hall. There is a pattern of ongoing political willfulness and organized discipline of ignoring vulnerable community’s voices. We have experienced this political behavior in trying to establish policies to protect immigrant families in Whatcom County and in the establishment of the County Council as the County Health Board. We are concerned about future efforts of the Immigration Advisory Board. The result of years of advocacy and direct action has been the establishment by ordinance of this Board. Our goal is still to provide safety, equity and opportunity for immigrant families. Given this violence using Border Patrol, we again question the professional relationship of the Bellingham Police Dept with Homeland Security.

Community to Community Development was founded to advocate alongside farmworkers, immigrants and their families and work towards improving our communities by striving together for equity, basic rights, safety and most of all recognition of our humanity and the dignity of our labor. In the 17 years since our founding, we have given voice to our communities’ grievances and suffering at the local, state and federal levels. Our grievances have been very public. We have used our First Amendment Rights many times. We have been very clear in many spaces; for our community to live well, we seek to abolish systems that have institutionalized racist structures and normalized violent behavior.  Black, Brown and Indigenous, poor and houseless residents have been asked to testify about this violence many times throughout the years. People have exposed themselves to retaliation because there was hope that these structures would be transformed into just institutions with equitable community participation. Hope that in working together, following a peaceful, orderly process, our communities would be safer, healthier and have more opportunity for a good life. While we present our realities to elected officials, Bellingham Police Officers and County Sheriff’s Officers continue to racially profile Black, Brown and Indigenous people, place police officers in our schools, and create an environment where many community members cannot trust law enforcement. The city has allowed local law enforcement to become increasingly militarized, using our tax dollars to normalize this militarization. 

We urge our friends and supporters to imagine a world where community resources are spent on solutions to homelessness instead of violent posturing. While the justification may be ambiguous references to threats, consider the threat to our freedom and autonomy that this militarized presence poses. Consider the message that is being sent to those who would dare dissent in any way while surrounded by tanks and guns, with helicopters circling overhead and snipers on the roofs in our neighborhoods. We can envision community safety as it relates to job satisfaction, connection with the earth and each other, safe housing, fair working conditions and freedom from incarceration, detention and deportation. There are many ways to work toward solutions that do not include militarized intimidation and violence. We have all the resources we need; it is the way these resources are being distributed that is causing the suffering. As an organization we recognize the challenge before us, that includes continuing to take on  the hard work of moving away from a reliance on this hyper-violent response to suffering, toward solutions that build a stronger more equitable community. We recognize this moment of political extremes. Please join us in holding our elected leaders accountable for such extreme violence and ensure it does not happen again as we build toward a better future for all of us.

Photo credit: Sattva Photo