I don't see the purpose of USAmerican flags in ICE protests. It's like protesting Hitler for not being the Nazi you want in charge of Nazi Germany by waving around a swastika.
The purpose is to say "we're Americans fighting against American tyranny, the people living in America deserve to be here, so fuck ice for kidnapping them." If we only flew Mexican flags for example, thats giving more argumentative ammunition to maga because they'll just say "oh you likr Mexico so much so why dont you wanna go back there? 🤔 curious."
We're trying to show that the integration of immigrants is a very important part of America's national identity, and these mass deportations are not what the people want for the country
And before you piss on the poor, im not saying the people waving Mexican flags are hurting the cause, im just saying a few more american flags would be good for the goal
Why should demonstrators in the US tailor their imagery and demands to appease a right-wing narrative? It doesn’t matter what the maga crowd says. No amount of appeasement will ever make them see demands as legitimate — chasing “respectability” from the right wing will NEVER achieve anything, and it will ALWAYS undermine the movement it seeks to advance.
The flag of the United States will never stand for anything outside of settler colonialism, centuries of genocide, racial subjugation, global capitalism, and right-wing terror across the globe. Its promise of prosperity will only ever apply to the national bourgeoisie and its white supremacist project of capitalism and imperialism. I am from the US and I want a better life for the people living here, and that is why I am fighting to destroy the US government that wretched flag represents.
Any attempt to rehabilitate US patriotism and its symbols is reactionary. It relies on the myth that the US ever was a country that represented freedom or equality, or whatever other values you are trying to project into it. It is a promise that you will stop fighting as soon as you are personally comfortable again instead of liberating the people the US has always and always will oppress, that your movement ends with the restoration of liberal respectability.
Many principled organizers were at these events, but they weren’t waving US flags. They were calling for working class solidarity regardless of nationality, they were distributing literature on the atrocities of the US imperial project, they were demanding socialist revolution. They had specific messages grounded in reality: ICE is a manifestation and extension of the same military complex which enables occupation and genocide in Palestine, foments war with Iran, and defends “American interests” the world over through occupation, coercion, and unimaginable violence. They point out that the abhorrent treatment of migrants in this country did not start with Trump but is actually a bipartisan endeavor baked into our government at its core. That the United States has always been a country built on blood, exploitation, and division.
You can pretend that integration or benevolence toward immigrants is an “American” value, but it never has been. You cannot use the banner of white supremacist nationalism to build an equitable multinational society. You will never achieve anything if you spend all your time trying to convince right-wing pundits that you’re respectable.
If you want to protect immigrant communities, if you want to resist imperialism and genocide, if you want to build a society where people are cared for and free, you MUST abandon the idea that the United States government will ever be on your side. Stop pleading with it and start fighting it.
ok so honest to God then leave lol
We're trying to show that the integration of immigrants is a very important part of America's national identity...
It'd be great if they wanted to integrate. It'd be great if they wanted to be Americans.
The people waving the Mexican flag want to do neither. They just want our tax money.
There is no basic human right to enter a nation in violation of its immigration laws.
What in the actual FUCK is wrong with these people? I think there was a senator or governor or such that literally said, “if I get killed by an immigrant, I don’t care, and want them to know I understand “. A Democrat obviously, but what the fuck?!! These are lunatics.
