Fighting the downfall of democracy with democracy

It was a New York Times article, published February 18, that has my community on edge. Since then, we’ve had meetings, discussions, text chains, emails—busy like ants working to gather, build, collaborate, resist.

Last week, 26 of us spoke for a few minutes each at a city council meeting urging our city leaders to take a proactive stance against ICE purchasing a warehouse in our town.

"The South has not outlived its image of racism and slavery,” said Reverend Leonard Jarvis. “And if you allow a detention facility, our city will not outlive that image.”

Having clergy among those who showed up to the meeting, and especially among those who spoke was its own witness to the clergy in our little corner of North Carolina.

The last speaker bravely shared her experience as an undocumented immigrant.

I cannot follow enough laws to be safe from ICE. I am their concept of the worst of the worst.

I drafted my 3-minute speech the night before, during one of my busiest weeks so far this year, so mad at myself for procrastinating for too long. When my timer said 2:58 after my second practice run, a huge relief lifted from my shoulders.

But I was nervous all week, right up to the moment the mayor called my name.

Look, St*ph*n Mill*r, among others, has been working this plan since before Julia came into my home. Then it was the Zero Tolerance Policy. Now it’s luring parents with their children, ICE raids by enforcers who do not care about the law. ICE detaining and killing citizens. No due process, just violence. Families being ripped apart again, not knowing where loved ones are taken. This admin is sneaky and tricky and you might blink before you even realize ICE has bought a warehouse here.

In 2018, our county social workers and my family showed up for Julia. We got to see her reunited in Honduras with her mother. The story was featured in national news outlets. Now eight years later and this time I’m showing up with a huge group of my neighbors from high school to retirement. We protest downtown, in front of warehouses, in front of the mall and anywhere else we can. We’ve been on Rachel Maddow Show for our pop ups and No Kings events.

We’re showing up not because we want to be famous. But because this is not who we are as North Carolinians. Not who we are as Americans. This is unamerican. Because we say so. Your constituents say so.

The mayor thanked us for our time and thoughtful comments. He said that currently the council is “unresolved” on the issue.
I went to bed the most hopeful I had since November of 2024. Not because we had proof we’d changed anyone’s minds. But because I saw what democracy is, right in front of my face.

I received an email a few days later from one of the council members. He said we were a “powerful witness” who “spoke articulately, passionately, and at times painfully in a highly civil manner. We are blessed to have such knowledgeable, diverse, and compassionate neighbors.” Still, he said that he feels like our town is powerless against what the federal government can do.

Just about every day since this admin came into power, I have been watching democracy crumble beneath the headstrong and hellbent power of morally-bankrupt, greedy men (and their yes women & men) piece by piece. And most days it’s like, if you open your eyes, this is all you see.

But it’s not true. There’s more that meets the eye.

In my book, Separated by the Border, I say:
God sees beauty in the places where we’ve trained ourselves not to go. God sees beauty in the places we’re scared of, in the people we’d rather not talk to, in the middle of messes we’d rather shy away from.

God is near to the brokenhearted. And those clergy present that night at City Hall reminded me of this. God will advocate for the needy and overlooked. God hears the cry of my neighbor: “I cannot follow enough laws to be safe.”

Life is pretty exhausting in the hailstorm that is America right now. But when we can, we will write speeches, we will sleep, we will protest, we will drink water, we will join forces, we will seek solitude when necessary, we will show up for our community, and fight against the fall of democracy braced with the hope of what democracy can be.

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