On Prairieland
I don't want to talk about Prairieland. Prairieland terrifies me. The building itself could be a Walmart if it wasn't wasn't so small. It's not a Walmart. It's a concentration camp, a small one: 1,000 to 1,200 people in a facility built for 700. They have a transgender wing. It's never a good sign when fascists build special things just for you.
On July 4th of last year, people gathered outside its gates for a noise demo, letting people know they aren't forgotten and putting the fascists on notice. We do not consent to what you do in our names. It's also a way for us to preserve our humanity in the time of monsters. We will not be complicit, pretend we don't see what you're doing. We will get loud. We will sing, blow trumpets, throw fireworks. We'll make some fucking noise.
And, on July 4th, they did. I'm not going to pretend I know exactly what happened but, in essence, some people at the noise demo got noisy. Some cop jumped out of his car and immediately pointed his gun at people so they would respect his authority (a totally safe and not at all unhinged thing to do). This is Texas. Protesters had guns or a gun too. Shots were fired. This is America. Cops are allowed to shoot us. We are not allowed to shoot them. The person the state claims shot the cop was arrested. I say ‘claims’ because the state didn't show evidence of his injury at trial but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The DOJ also charged people vaguely connected to the person they say shot a cop. They charged people in Signal chats who debated carrying guns for personal protection in an open-carry state, people who argued against anyone bringing guns, who had zines, who brought first aid kits -FIRST AID KITS- to a demo, who weren't even there but were married to people who were, who were wearing black. The charges were basically conspiracy and domestic terrorism.
According to the DOJ, the noise demo was an ambush from an ANTIFA cell. Their evidence was laughable. ANTIFA isn't an organization, much less a terrorist one. Nobody made one asshole cop jump out of his car and point a gun at people. It's giving, “I had to beat my wife. She provoked me.” People in the vicinity provoked him by wearing black and making noise, I guess. Touchy little fucker, aren't you, Officer?
Honestly, the government charging a bunch of people who are only tangentially connected to an altercation between police and protesters isn't new either. Charging left-wing activists with nonsense may be one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on. When cops murdered Tortuguita at the Stop Cop City protest in 2023, the State of Georgia indicted 61 people under the RICO statutes for doing things like raising bail funds and attending protests. People did time, had their mental health destroyed, lost jobs and years of their lives.
Closer to home both geographically and personally, Virginia charged people fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline with conspiracy while the company filed a several million dollar SLAPP suit against them. A multi-billion-dollar corporation seeking millions in damages from activists who don't own so much as a used car would have been funny if I wasn't afraid the kids I cooked with, sang with, sat up discussing theory with would have their lives destroyed. Fortunately, the judges tossed the case in Georgia. The SLAPP suit didn't have legs either.
In Texas, observers saw the quality of the evidence against the Prairieland defendants and assumed a similar outcome. The judge, a Trump appointee, resorted to Cirque du Soleil level contortions to weight things in favor of the prosecution. For example, when jury selection wasn't all the prosecution had hoped, the judge suddenly decided he didn't like a t-shirt a defense attorney was wearing, declared a mistrial and seated a whiter jury. Is that illegal? It's Texas. Still, people were cautiously optimistic up until the verdict. They were found guilty. All nine.
As for why Prairieland terrifies me, it's not the biggest mystery. I have zines. The state's evidence (and I use the term advisedly) of ANTIFA membership includes material that reads “Be Gay. Do Crimes,” like the sticker I have on the fridge, and “Chinga la Migra,” like the sign in my front yard. I have that one on a t-shirt too. Wait until they see my "Auntie Fa Wants You!” poster. They don't even have to raid my house. I used it in this Substack a few months ago. I also carry first aid kits pretty much everywhere I go, including protests.
I'm not telling you any of this out of bravado. Sticker possession does not a hero make. Also, one of the few things I do well enough to make any difference in this moment is write. I made a commitment to myself to write about what’s happening. I knew if things got bad enough, that would be risky. Now things are bad enough. It's terrifying. Also, fuck it. If they come for me for this absolutely trifling shit, I can make my peace with that. I don't think I can live with myself if I fall silent.
But enough about me. Let's talk about you. A lot of the readers of this Substack are radical leftist scum like me. Some are even scummier (you know who you are and how much I love you). I don't need to tell you why we're in danger. The rest are more respectable. If you attend protests, they're explicitly peaceful. You don't own a gun! You would never be party to…
It doesn't matter.
That bright line you see between people who attend the Women's March and the people who torched the Minneapolis police station doesn't exist for the regime. They want all dissent silenced. Anything with any prayer of stopping them or even seriously hurting their feelings is a problem they're willing to solve by violence. Alex Pretti had a gun. Renee Good didn't. They are both equally dead. Haven't you been hearing them call people like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden radical leftists for a decade?
As Americans, we have become entirely too accustomed to looking for a reason that we aren't like people in prisons and jails, even if we have done the same drugs or stolen from the same stores. We want to believe that something more than luck or privilege will save us. To think otherwise would be to live with the heart-in-the-mouth knowledge that none of us are safe. It's easy to extend that carceral kind of thinking to activists: surely the Prairieland Nine did something we wouldn't have done. I'll say it again. Stickers. First aid kits.
You can avoid so much as stepping off the sidewalk during a protest. You can only attend events which don't disrupt traffic or commerce. You can blame and castigate the people who put their bodies on the line when they become victims of state repression. You can stay inside the charmed circle of privilege, believing that by protesting “correctly” you have somehow moderated your dissent to levels the regime tolerates.
Two problems: First, tolerable dissent is complicity. If you tone it down enough not to provoke them, you certainly aren't doing anything which will stop them. When you police other people for engaging in more direct forms of protest, you're doing fascists’ work for them. If you only protest or allow protest in ways fascism finds tolerable, that's not only pointless but a diversion of energy which could be used to actually make things better. That brings me to my second problem. Traditionally, historically, how much dissent do fascists tolerate? If they come for anarchists in the morning, they'll be at liberal doors by nightfall. You're reading radical leftist material right now. That may be even worse than sticker ownership. Welcome to ANTIFA, kid.
I'm not telling you this because I believe we're irredeemably fucked. I am telling you because you have the power to protect radicals you care about and yourselves. We need to take care of the people fascist target. That includes our immigrant neighbors. It also includes people who stood up and got sent down for it. Some things you can do for the Prairieland defendants include:
Learning more. I've included some podcasts and articles below.
Talking more. If you weren't familiar with the Prairieland Nine before you read this, you're not alone. It's been underreported. Talk to three people about this. Maybe five. If you're not an introvert, talk to ten people about Prairieland.
Getting more involved. The people supporting the Prairieland defendants put together a list of ways to be helpful.
Supporting them financially. The people directly supporting them are the DFW Anti ICE Protesters
Organizing your own noise demo. These people and their friends can't do more noise demos right now but we can. When they killed Renee Good, 30,000 people joined ICE Watch. Can you imagine if there were noise demos at every concentration camp in the country this 4th of July?
Suggested Reading
The Guardian on Trump's reframing of a noise demo as an ANTIFA terror cell
Prairieland Case | The Final Straw Radio Podcast
The Trial of Anti-ICE Protesters Accused of Terrorism | The New Yorker