Facebook Experience During the ICE Occupation

I know social media is not everything, but I can't count how many Twin Cities people I know who have not posted to Facebook in years, who have broken silence there to post about the federal invasion that is happening here.

Personally, I almost never post there, though I have to stay there to help run accounts for some organizations I'm involved with. But I have also posted to my own account a number of times.

I wasn't planning to get into all this because I know I have several "friends" who are Trump supporters and I try not to do the equivalent of shouting in people's faces about things we disagree on within a forum where they can't choose what they see (unlike this blog: if they come here, they decided to do that).

But after one relative kept posting blatantly false material about what happened to Renee Good and then (!) posted a video of an ICE agent pushing a Minneapolis person into the street — in front of a bus* — with positive comments, I decided that person's tender feelings could take seeing a few things from me.

Yes, she thought it was good that a person might have been run over by a bus because they were standing in front of an ICE agent's vehicle, recording. And yes, as with all of the MAGA stuff she posts, every other single comment in response echoes her point of view. Except mine, in this case. 

Several of her friends responded to my measured comment, which talked about proportionality of response. I pointed out that the driver of the ICE vehicle could have backed up, since there was space behind the ICE SUV. That standing on a city street for a few seconds is mildly illegal, if anything — a citation. Recording in a public place is not illegal. While on the other hand, pushing a person is assault. Pushing them in front of a bus is attempted homicide.

But the friends (and my relative) just keep responding about how the man was obstructing, that what he was doing was illegal. Which is what always happens when anyone tries to reply to MAGA people in a reasonable way. They can never admit they are wrong. 

This was clearly assault, and attempted homicide of some kind. Whatever level of illegality, if any, the man standing in the street was committing, pushing him in front of a bus would not be seen as reasonable by a jury.  

Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne was also shoved into the street by an ICE agent a few days ago, while he was doing nothing but standing on a public sidewalk, speaking calmly to members of IC. It was captured on video. No bus was involved, though. 

When my relative first posted the bus video, no one else had commented yet. If there had been a bunch of "hell yeah" comments, I probably wouldn't have replied. But I thought it was a chance to reframe it.

Maybe some people who saw what I wrote did have that experience. I will never know. The ones who commented are lost souls, at least for now.

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* I had previously seen this video shared through local social media as an outrageous example of ICE behavior. In the video, the person recording or someone near them can be heard screaming "What the FUCK?!" after the man is pushed in front of the bus. Which is the appropriate response.