you guys, they organized vigilante parties on the border where they used military grade weapons and equipment to hunt down human beings and commit any number of atrocities. they NEVER hid it, they broadcasted their work online. they worked with border patrol.

i really really get the inclination to center their violence in attacks on abortion clinics or churches. i 100% get it and 100% AGREE that abortion clinic attacks and attacks on houses of worship ARE part of white supremacist agenda.

but there's something off putting about centering white supremacist violence and trying to understand that violence through spaces that white people are in.

like--white supremacist violence is an attack on 'all of us.' rather than it *becomes* an attack on 'all of us' *because people look the other way* when it happens ONLY to communities of color.

i think it's important and essential to be making the connections and seeing that white supremacist violence infiltrates literally every aspect of our lives. our food system, our reproductive health services, our education system, our judges, bosses, our next door neighbors-

but i think it's essential to get out of our comfort zones of 'white supremacist violence affects us all' and dig into the reality that white vigilantes were hunting down brown border crosses on horses, pistol whipping them, killing them, raping them, destroying and poisoning-

water stations, with the tactic explicit approval of many in govt for *decades*. and that the program of pushing border crossers into the more dangerous desert began with liberal president clinton.

it was just a few years ago that media switched from calling border crossers/undocumented people 'illegals.' HRC ran her first campaign based on massive militarization at border and 'sending them back'--'them'=kids trying to get asylum.

ex: the same ex-gov that everybody is calling super deep and powerful? supported armed vigilantes coming to california border. or, as the SF Gate calls them, 'armed volunteers.' https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Governor-signals-he-d-welcome-Minutemen-on-2637959.php

harvard was going to host the leader of an armed vigilante 'border patrol' group until outrage forced them to cancel.
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/16/harvard_group_cancels_invitation_to_anti_immigration_speaker/

i had endless ENDLESS fights with online feminists talking about immigration as a feminist issue and border vigilantes and violence against immigrants, and was told endlessly--feminists can't be everything for everybody.

we as a society ok'd armed violent men in 2004. we *justified* it. lawmakers made their names on supporting armed vigilanteism. *as long as it was in the segregated space of the border*.

and THAT is what we need to be talking about. THAT is how we're going to fully understand how white supremacy operates.

by starting in the spaces that have been segregated away from white visibility. so that it becomes 'not my problem' or a 'debate' that is 'worth considering,' or a bargaining tool to get our favs elected.

we need to START with why armed white supremacist violence against brown people is 'defending and securing our borders' but armed white supremacist violence in desegregated spaces like abortion clinics, places of worship, the capitol is 'terrorism.'

will we be brave enough to have those conversations?