In the last 10 days, we’ve seen things happen in the Inland Northwest I had hoped I would never see. I have heard things from the mouths of people I love I had hoped I would never hear.
I have heard outlandish, unbelievable rumors that have turned out to be true. I have heard outlandish, unbelievable rumors that turned out to be false. All of those rumors — both the true and the false — sparked terror in communities I admire, in people I love, and inside my own heart and gut.
That’s how terror works.
As soon as one unbelievable, inhumane thing happens — is allowed to happen, and happen with impunity — then anything else seems possible.
Fact and fiction blend together like a flywheel, spinning up a cycle of compounding terror that bends our perception of reality.
Acts of hate and exclusion didn’t begin with this administration and it won’t end with them, but the return of such overt federal sanction, along with how quickly the executive orders dropped, added extra torque.
We know cycles like these can be stopped. They have spun up before and been stopped before. Some long in the past, some in recent memory. We know we can interrupt the momentum.
The question I find myself lying awake in the middle of the night tonight asking is, will we?
And more importantly, why aren’t I?
For the last 10 days, the team at RANGE has been reporting tremendous acts of cruelty and witnessing tremendous acts of humanity. We haven’t published many of these stories yet, because reporting the truth takes time, especially when you are reporting on power and that power wants to keep the truth obscured, but here is some of what we know:
- We know people are being picked up by Border Patrol and ICE across our region, and because Washington State has a law prohibiting local law enforcement from collaborating, it seems many — perhaps all — are being warehoused at Kootenai County Jail in Coeur d’Alene.
- We know at least two of these people were picked up in Spokane County and taken across the border to Idaho, held for several days and have disappeared into federal custody. Community organizations, my colleagues and I are working to figure out where they are now.
- We know the freeze on federal funds has left Spokane’s refugee and immigrant support organizations without the funds to continue providing the routine, government-approved support they have provided new arrivals for decades.
- We know at least one family has fled Idaho and come to Spokane with no plan for housing. The fear of harm to their loved ones was so great they just left, on the hope that we would welcome them — refugees of a different sort.
We have always been a border region. In the last two weeks, the nature of that border has changed dramatically. Spokane has always welcomed refugees of all kinds. Will we still?
These are just the stories we know enough about to share, even generally. There are many more we are running down and likely far, far more we haven’t heard. We should expect this to continue until enough of us demand that it stop.
If you have a story, you can share it with us securely through several channels.
In the last 10 days, I think I’ve seen more people cry in community meetings and on Zoom calls than I’ve seen cry at funerals.
These have been, without fail, the strongest people I know. Queer leaders. Leaders of color. Refugees. Immigrants. Naturalized Citizens. Birthright citizens. Indigenous Americans. Working class people. Professional people. Disabled people. Our staff.
They have been crying out for themselves, for their families and for their communities. These haven’t been cries of defeat, but they have been cries of fear.
They have also been cries of rage. They’ve been cries against injustice.
They have been cries for solidarity.
When we cry, we make ourselves vulnerable to additional harm. We also invite safety and healing. I believe it is the moral duty of any and all communities — if they want to be worthy of the term — to meet those individual acts of vulnerability with collective acts of support.
We have a choice to make right now in Spokane. Will we be a community of support?
Will we be a community at all?
For the last 10 days, it has felt like cruelty is winning. And maybe, for this brief moment, it has been.
But cruelty will only continue to win if we let it win. If we stay in our comfort. If we choose to protect ourselves while leaving others exposed.
It will only win if we make ourselves small to avoid the targets placed on others. If we hide from the hands raised against our neighbors.
Cruelty will only win if we shrink into selfishness.
There is immense power in cruelty — and right now that power might seem insurmountable — but it also carries the seeds of its own annihilation.
Cruelty is an act of separation. It is a conscious exclusion. It cannot add itself to anything. It can only take away.
I believe love is different. I believe love is a light that absorbs and grows exponentially when it meets other loves.
That why I believe that, even when acts of cruelty are so numerous it seems like they surround us on all sides, they remain individual pinpoints of darkness that stand no chance against the light of love.
I believe solidarity is love in community.
I believe, if we stand tall, if we open our arms, if we step in front of blows meant for others and trust they will step in front of blows meant for us — if we dig in our heels and say no — then cruelty cannot win.
This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats. It doesn’t have to be about party at all.
This is about fighting an ideology of hatred and division with a moral clarity and shared purpose big enough to shield us all.
This moment is an invitation to every single one of us, in our shared humanity, to lock arms and stand against the inhumane.
Since November, and especially in the last 10 days, I’ve struggled to understand what to do next. I see what other journalists are doing, but I’ve never been a typical journalist. I’ve seen what other newsrooms are doing, but RANGE has never wanted to be a typical newsroom.
Until some greater, grander idea comes along, RANGE is going to continue doing what we have always done, but louder. We have never tried to be objective. We have always promised to be fair.
Objectivity is a concept. Fairness is an ideal.
Objectivity is also, in my opinion, a cop out. Fairness is a call to action.
It is a duty, but not just a duty to treat all sides with the respect they deserve.
Fairness is a moral obligation to demand and to fight for a world where fairness prevails and is the default state for us all — a world where power is much more evenly distributed than it is now.
At RANGE, we know the power journalists have, and since day one we have done our absolute best to use the power of our reporting to shine a light on the many imbalances of power that make fairness and justice seem so impossibly distant.
Much more importantly, we have always done our absolute best to report in such a way that our power helps people and communities build their own power.
We have always felt that moral obligation deeply, but we haven’t always said it loudly.
Today we are.
As a newsroom, as journalists, as people, RANGE stands in solidarity with the afflicted that we might all heal. We stand with the oppressed that we all might overcome oppression. We stand in solidarity with the powerless in order to build resilient, collective power.
We stand with all the people of Spokane and the Inland Northwest who stand in solidarity against racism, queer- and transphobia, xenophobia, anti-indigeneity, economic oppression and against policies and systems of coercive control designed to entrench those oppressions.
Our belief in fairness demands not just a belief that a better world is possible. It demands we fight and keep fighting until the world that is possible is the world we share.
We hope you join us in that fight however you can.
