Aaron
Regunberg: Never Again is about throwing ourselves into the gears of that
mechanism in any way we possibly can
Former State Representative Aaron Regunberg (Democrat,
District 4, Rhode Island) delivered the following speech outside the Wyatt
Detention Facility (in Central Falls) shortly before being arrested as a part of a civil
disobedience protest with 17 other people:
“My grandfather’s name is Ralph Price. He was born in Rosenberg, Germany in 1930. He was very
lucky and survived the Holocaust.
Most of his family did not.
"When I was younger I felt a lot of anger about what my grandpa experienced. Sometimes I was angry and Hitler, sometimes I was angry at faceless Nazi storm troopers, but more than anything else, what really made me sick to my stomach was thinking about the people in my grandpa’s town.
"My grandpa’s neighbors watched the dehumanization and escalating violence happening in their country, being done in their community, and went about their lives business as usual.
"When I was younger I felt a lot of anger about what my grandpa experienced. Sometimes I was angry and Hitler, sometimes I was angry at faceless Nazi storm troopers, but more than anything else, what really made me sick to my stomach was thinking about the people in my grandpa’s town.
"My grandpa’s neighbors watched the dehumanization and escalating violence happening in their country, being done in their community, and went about their lives business as usual.
“Friends, we cannot at this moment
afford to go about our lives business as usual.
“Our government, elected in one way
or another by us, is enacting daily and escalating violence against our
neighbors. Our tax dollars are being used to separate parents from their
children – from their babies.
"Concentration camps are being operated in our name, under our flag and a modern-day Gestapo called ICE is targeting families in our communities, ambushing mothers and fathers on the street and warehousing them in private prisons like this one, making profits for corporate shareholders
"Concentration camps are being operated in our name, under our flag and a modern-day Gestapo called ICE is targeting families in our communities, ambushing mothers and fathers on the street and warehousing them in private prisons like this one, making profits for corporate shareholders
“So let’s be very, very clear: When
we say, Never Again Is Now, we mean that
this is our fight! This is our responsibility – our responsibility as
Americans, and especially as Jews!
“There’s always going to be fascists. There’s always gonna be wannabe fascists. There’s always going to be Hitlers and Trumps. What makes the difference between Again and Never Again comes down to what we do.
“It comes down to whether we choose
to go about our lives business as usual, or whether we choose to rise up and
take that maxim Never Again and put it into practice. It comes down to whether
we choose to resist the nomenclature used to describe the government’s
horrifying atrocities, or whether we choose to resist the government for
committing horrifying atrocities.
“And I want to get specific for a
moment here:
“To the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, to
the Jewish Community Relations Council of
New York: When you use your platforms to call out the use of the term concentration camp rather than the fact that we have concentration camps in this
country, you are failing the Jewish community, you are failing our Jewish
history, and more than anything you are failing the Jewish commitment to Never
Again.
“Because here’s the thing: Never
Again is not just about remembering how the Holocaust ended. It’s also about how the Holocaust began. It’s
about the gradual legal exclusion and state-sponsored dehumanization that led,
eventually, to the murder of my grandparent’s family and to the murder of so
many millions of others.
“It’s about understanding that path,
from beginning to end, and all of us throwing ourselves in the way of that
path, into the gears of that mechanism and process, in any way we possibly can.
“It means that if we’re fighting for
Never Again then we are fighting to shut down the camps!
“It means that if we’re fighting for
Never Again then we are fighting to abolish ICE!
“It means that if we’re fighting for
Never Again then we are fighting against white supremacy in all its forms.
“It means if we’re fighting for
Never Again then we are fighting to shut down the Wyatt, and every other ICE
detention facility and for-profit private prison in this country!
“There are a lot of differences
between 1930s Germany and America in 2019, but the biggest difference, the most
important difference, is that none of us were around in 1930s Germany. But we
are here today, in America in 2019, let’s make that difference count!”
P.S. If you want to support local organizing to protect immigrant families here in Rhode Island, one way to do so is by supporting the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (AMOR) at www.amorri.org.
P.S. If you want to support local organizing to protect immigrant families here in Rhode Island, one way to do so is by supporting the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (AMOR) at www.amorri.org.
Steve Ahlquist is a frontline reporter in Rhode
Island. He has covered human rights, social justice, progressive politics and
environmental news for half a decade.Uprise RI is his new project, and he's
doing all he can to make it essential reading. atomicsteve@gmail.com
