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Progressive Survival Guide: Keeping Watch [1]
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Date: 2022-07-25
The United States is a country that is never completely a democracy nor a dictatorship. Depending on what state you live in, you could be living under a developed and representative government or under something resembling a fascist state. As we prepare to dig in and push back against authoritarians across the country, especially in those states where it's more dangerous to live, we have to pay special attention to the vulnerable and marginalized around us. We don't just mean being allies in the traditional sense. We mean making sure nothing happens to marginalized people.
Paramilitary violence against marginalized groups has preceded almost every authoritarian rise to power in the last century. Don't be misled by media perceptions; the evidence is overwhelming that hate crime in the US is increasingly organized and increasingly undertaken for specific political objectives. As such, one of our first responsibilities is to people who might be victims of hate crimes. We have to do everything in our power to keep them safe.
How do we do that? The first step is easy: identify the people living in your neighborhood in especially marginalized groups, and if you're able to, don't lose sight of them. We're not asking you to stalk them, but just to look up every once in a while to make sure their cars are still in the driveway and there are signs of life. There may come a time where you will see or hear something and the next morning those people will be gone. When that starts happening, it is crucial that we all know. Document it; we can never afford to let a disappearance go undocumented. We owe that much to the people who are already being targeted in red states for arrest and who knows what else for something as innocent as opening an email from an abortion provider.
As much as possible, each case of an unjust arrest or disappearance should be documented on sites like this and sent to human rights groups that can further ensure that the disappearance is catalogued. This is crucial evidence of a crime against democracy that must be preserved.
Arrests are not the only threat facing the marginalized. They can be harassed by residents of their communities. This can be more difficult to deal with because law enforcement will offer little help in the majority of cases. In a state where law enforcement may even encourage the harassment, your best option is to let the victim know you were a witness to what happened. The ultimate choice of what to do lies with the victim, but you may wish to encourage them to keep watch over others who might be harassed. In this way we can build a network of people to document and report crimes that go unreported or ignored. Documentation allows for the perpetrators to be prosecuted as soon as the authoritarians who are in control of the government in your red state have been removed.
Keeping watch is a simple thing that you can do with potentially enormous ramifications. All you have to do is take down what you see, share your testimony on a public forum, and report it to a group who will catalogue the event. We recommend that as much as possible, you do not use your true identity if you live in a state where you might be prosecuted for reporting arrests of women or other targeted groups.
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