I’m passing on an important message on how to protest at camps/jails where children kidnapped from their parents are being held. Posted by permission from Kia Bordner at Together We Will, California, a resistance group I am part of.
Dear Beloveds,
Many of you are going to be doing some version of a thing at one of the many places where some pretty traumatized little souls are being held.
I ask you to consider your actions, words, and focus very carefully.
Remember these things - most of the adults this country that these young people have had interactions with have not been very caring or gentle with them. Many of these children do not understand English. Depending on the facilities, they may hear you. Regardless, the rest of the world will hear you. The adults staffing these facilities are most likely hardened already - evidenced by their ability to follow their orders.
Your protest chants, your angry words -- They just sound angry to these children, who have only experienced trauma from angry adults in this country.
Consider that if your purpose in being at these locations is for the well being of these children perhaps chanting to abolish or repeal or fill in the blank anything is not the appropriate action.
Consider if your purpose is to help these children, to let them know we care about them, to comfort them, perhaps that needs to be your one and only message.
Consider those hardened adults. If they were fortunate enough, they had parents, grandparents, caregivers.
I ask you -- co-conspitators, advocates & activists, UU colleagues and community, parents, and all Beloveds -- to make your action at these locations an act of Love. Sing lullabies, in Spanish preferably. All children recognize the comfort offered in lullabies, no matter the language. And no matter how hard your adult self has become, there is a memory of a moment of being held by your parent, grandparent, other caring adult, and having a lullaby sung to you.
Consider a company of co-conspitators, advocates, activists, parents, all outside these facilities across the country, hand clasped, singing words of comfort to those scared and scarred children. Consider the impact of such intention vs the impact of more loud, angry words in an unknown language, angry words that adults inside those facilities could tell them was directed at them.
Do we want to be the people who added to the trauma these children are subjected to or do we want to be the people who sang to them that they are loved and erhaps gave them sone sense of comfort?