Survival shouldn't require sainthood

Demanding a perfect victim to justify outrage when law enforcement kills someone is a trap we don't have to step into. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer's Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/the-innocence-trap Watch YouTube: https://youtu.be/-z3OVVkJBXM TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week, Andrea Pitzer considers four recent killings by law enforcement officers responsible for apprehending or detaining immigrants. She goes through the huge outpouring of sympathy after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and notes the public tributes to them nationwide. The New Year's Eve killing of Keith Porter Jr., a Black man, drew outrage in Los Angeles, but did not get as much attention across the country for reasons that Andrea ponders. She then considers the ways the deaths of those seen as "good people" can galvanize Americans against state violence, but also run the risk of stepping into a trap. The case of the death at Camp East Montana in Texas of Geraldo Lunas Campos, who had served sentences for criminal conduct in the past, including sexual contact with a minor, is more uncomfortable to consider. But Andrea argues that his offenses don't justify the building of a vast system of concentration camps, his being swept into them years after serving his time, or his being killed by guards in detention. And she warns that he is just as much of a canary in a coal mine for the risks faced by all Americans, documented or not, if we allow agents of the government to execute people with impunity. The longterm law enforcement violence that has been cheered on from both sides of the aisle has set the stage for where we are at now, and is an issue we will have to address as a country before we can truly be safe from the nightmare that ICE and Border Patrol are inflicting on the country today. The episode closes with what you can do to deal with this government violence and immigrant detention operations that are still taking place nationwide.