ICE Masks Are Just Modern Ku Klux Klan Hoods [Op-Ed]

Donald Trump is barking over a proposed Democratic invoice that may bar ICE and Border Patrol brokers from sporting masks and masking their badges whereas on obligation. 

He’s claiming that Democrats “should hate America” for pushing such a invoice. Which is ironic, provided that Trump has spent years cheerleading for an American immigration coverage that borrows its aesthetics and ways straight from the Ku Klux Klan, together with the handy use of masks to terrorize the weak whereas staying nameless. 

However this performative outrage about unmasking isn’t about officer security or patriotism. It’s about defending the identical custom of faceless, unaccountable violence that has at all times marked American repression. Trump is aware of precisely how highly effective a masks could be whenever you wish to terrorize with out consequence. His personal father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Queens in 1927, again when hoods had been the uniform of selection for bigots who wished to raid and lynch with impunity whereas avoiding duty. The hood is the right accent for cowards, and ICE masks are their fashionable replace.

Trump’s actual grievance is that unmasking would humanize the victims and implicate the perpetrators. And God forbid we acknowledge that this isn’t some impartial bureaucratic course of however an organized racist infliction of struggling on individuals making an attempt to outlive. Trump and his allies need these brokers to have the ability to slap on a masks, break down doorways at 3 a.m., haul households away, and go dwelling for dinner with nobody understanding their names. They need the fear with out the guilt. The hoods might have modified model, however the impulse is strictly the identical.

What does the invoice truly say? 

Merely that federal brokers implementing immigration legal guidelines shouldn’t be capable to disguise who they’re. That’s it. It’s about primary transparency and accountability. And but Trump is shrieking as if it’s an existential risk to the republic. Why? As a result of he is aware of the impact of taking away the masks: it forces duty. It turns summary cruelty into private selection. And it reveals the humanity of the victims and the culpability of the perpetrators.

Trump loves the aesthetics of unaccountable drive. He at all times has. In July 2020, when unidentified federal brokers confirmed up in unmarked vans in Portland and grabbed protesters off the road, he praised them.  He threatened to ship federal brokers into “Democrat-run cities” with out native permission, bragging about crushing dissent. 

He celebrated police who used tear fuel and rubber bullets on peaceable protesters exterior the White Home for a photo-op with a Bible. He advised law enforcement officials in 2017 to not be “too good” when arresting suspects, encouraging rougher remedy. He threatened to deploy the navy below the Riot Act to place down protests in the summertime of 2020, describing American streets like a battle zone to justify drive. 

He defended Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two individuals throughout unrest in Kenosha, praising him as somebody who was “making an attempt to get away” and performing in “self-defense.” He repeatedly referred to as for capturing looters, invoking violent crackdowns paying homage to previous police abuses towards civil rights activists. He urged governors to “dominate” protesters, mocking them for being weak in the event that they didn’t unleash their police.

Trump desires authorities enforcers who can function with impunity, who could make complete communities afraid to withstand as a result of they don’t know who’s coming for them subsequent. That’s the identical logic the Klan used once they donned hoods and terrorized Black communities. The purpose wasn’t simply anonymity; it was intimidation. It advised Black individuals and different focused teams that white supremacist violence was all over the place and nobody could possibly be held accountable.

ICE and U.S. border safety have their very own lengthy historical past of abuse and impunity. Border Patrol brokers have been caught sharing violently racist memes and joking about migrant deaths. ICE has separated moms from infants, retaliated towards immigrants who spoke out, and “misplaced” youngsters within the system. 

Many brokers routinely obscure or take away nameplates. The concept that they “want” this anonymity for security is wealthy coming from a political motion that cheers when lecturers get doxxed for together with LGBTQ books or when librarians are threatened for “woke” studying lists. They need faculty workers and activists to stay in concern of being named, harassed, and punished. Transparency is outwardly solely harmful when it threatens the individuals implementing state violence. 

Trump’s total political model is constructed on stoking concern of immigrants. He referred to as them “rapists” and “animals.” He oversaw household separation insurance policies that traumatized hundreds of kids. He threatened to shoot migrants within the legs. He made cruelty the purpose.  Deliberate and public cruelty designed to make individuals afraid to even attempt coming right here. And he desires the brokers finishing up that cruelty to remain nameless. As a result of in the event that they’re faceless and untouchable, then the violence doesn’t need to really feel private. Nobody ever has to reply for it.

That’s why he’s so determined to protect the masks. As a result of unmasking ruins the fantasy of righteous, impersonal enforcement. It forces the nation to confront that these are actual individuals selecting to inflict hurt on different actual individuals. It denies them the ethical cowl of being mere cogs within the machine. It opens the door to accountability. And Trump can’t have that, as a result of accountability is poison to your complete politics of concern he’s constructed.

His father, Fred Trump, understood that dynamic completely. The KKK hoods weren’t nearly secrecy; they had been about collective energy. They let extraordinary white individuals commit extraordinary violence whereas pretending they had been identical to everybody else when the solar got here up. The hood was each a disguise and a risk. And although Trump himself doesn’t put on one, he’s inherited that very same impulse. He desires state energy to have the ability to terrorize with out consequence.

In the meantime, Trump’s screaming about Democrats hating America is the peak of projection. In case you love America, it is best to need its brokers identifiable and accountable. You must need them held to the best requirements of conduct exactly as a result of they wield the facility of the state. Trump doesn’t need that. He desires them to be his shock troops, implementing a racialized border regime within the shadows.

The reality is easy: the Klan’s hoods and ICE’s obscured nameplates serve the identical perform. They each permit the state (or its proxies) to terrorize with believable deniability. They each depend upon concern to implement social hierarchy. They usually each depend on the cowardice of those that wish to inflict hurt with out ever being acknowledged for it.

We should always rip the masks off. Make them present their badges. Make them reply for what they do. As a result of actual patriotism doesn’t imply cheering on secret police ways or defending authorities brokers from accountability. It means refusing to let our public servants grow to be a faceless mob. It means naming them. And it means remembering that anybody who fights that transparency is combating for the appropriate to terrorize in our title with out consequence.

Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and creator of “Spare The Children: Why Whupping Youngsters Gained’t Save Black America” and the forthcoming “Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Youngsters In Jim Crow America.” Learn her Substack right here.

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