Zero Dark Sunday - Part 2
More of us should be speaking out.
I invite you to read my new column, coming Sunday over the USA Today Tennessee network, about the dark reality of that ICE/THP dragnet in Nashville over the past ten days. Find it here.
The headline is “It's time for leaders to demand answers about ICE arrests.” This column may be breaking some new ground locally - shining a light on the families whose loved ones have been “disappeared,” and naming the names of political “leaders” who are keeping “shamefully silent.” They at least ought to be helping families of arrestees know what’s become of their loved ones.
You will read what “racial profiling” is, why it’s wrong especially in a city that is proudly diverse, and how this assault on Nashville over the past week is an insult to us all.
Clearly, Nashville was singled out for this assault. The only answer any of the state and federal authorities will give is to adhere to a prescribed talking-point, insisting that “The American people voted for this” in November. No, we did not.
Arresting criminals, fine. Doing so without any due process, which the Constitution guarantees to everybody, bad. Leaving the families to sob on the sidewalk with no helpful word of what else has happened, or what their loved ones need, wherever they were taken? That is very bad and, worse, inhumane.
City leaders including Mayor O’Connell and Law Director Wally Dietz and a handful of hard-working news reporters are all doing their best to help Nashville learn more about this dark dragnet operation by federal and state officials.
Even more of us should be speaking out now, in my view.
Brown skin today, you and me tomorrow. 🤯
Keel, thank you for writing this column. White supremacy is running amok in this country and now in Nashville. No doubt that some of those arrested and spirited away are hard working, law abiding individuals who are here legally—but will we ever know, since no information has been provided about them? A few decades ago, Gaylord was legally busing in workers from the border to work at Opryland Hotel because they couldn’t find enough workers here. This will once again become an issue in the hospitality business if people, because of their skin color, are targeted for arrest, despite whether or not they are law abiding and are not provided due process. Nashville’s economy heavily depends upon tourism, but that will go down the drain if the hospitality business is lacking in workers. Have Governor Lee and Republican legislators even thought about how our city’s economy and that of the state will be impacted or are they too eager to bow at the feet of President Trump? Yes, let’s get criminals off our streets, but not hard working, law abiding individuals who are assets to our communities.