Continuing to walk in her father, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, Bernice King has not shied away from discussing current events involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and communities across the country.
As Minnesota residents continue to protest against border control agents’ increased presence in their communities, which led to the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, King, like many Americans outside of Minnesota, has taken to social media to extend her support to the community’s activism.
“Alex Pretti was a Minneapolis ICU nurse who spent his days caring for and saving others. Today, he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol Agent. Alex’s life was extinguished by state violence. We must tell the truth about what is happening,” she wrote in a separate post. “What we are witnessing now (masked raids, people taken without due process, vigilante, Gestapo, and slave patrol-like tactics normalized under the color of law) is a moral crisis. Nonviolence demands more than outrage; it demands action.”
Quoting her late father and civil rights activist, she notes how Dr. King warned us that “when evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind.” King also outlined the community needs clearly: “Congress must dismantle ICE; enact just, humane immigration policies; and ensure implementation of the policies by people who honor the humanity of Black and Brown immigrants, respect those raising their voices in support of immigrants, and seek the safety of community.”
“The blood of those who are being kidnapped and unjustly killed by agents with impunity is not only on the hands of those who pull the trigger, but on every lawmaker and every court that has the power to intervene and chooses silence,” she added. “Creating the Beloved Community requires truth, accountability, and the courage to act before more lives are lost.”
Pretti is the third person to die at the hands of an ICE officer in the last two months. The Minnesota ICU nurse joins Renée Good, who was killed on Jan. 7, and Keith Porter, who was shot by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve. This, paired with the growing number of reports of ICE agents violently detaining U.S. Citizens and kidnapping young children to try to trap their immigrant parents and family members, has sparked public outrage and turned up the heat on protests across the country.
However, while it is empowering to see the collective activism that has sparked online and offline, as many Black users and activists have noted, the outrageous violence ICE has been inflicting on innocent members of the Minnesota community mirrors the police brutality Black communities have spotlighted and protested about for over a decade now. As King noted, “It is good that more people are awakening to the devastation of state and state-sanctioned violence. However, we should care about an injustice even before it is inflicted on us or on someone who looks like us.”
“It must be understood that, to some, anybody who stands in the way of white supremacy, white Christian nationalism, colonialism, and/or imperialism is expendable.”
So as the country continues to cry out for justice, proper investigations and accountability for Alex Pretti and Renée Good, let’s not forget to scream just as loud for Keith Porter Jr., Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Sonya Massey, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Sandy Guardiola, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling and the many other Black lives lost at the hands of officers intended to “protect” this country.
