So Louisiana has been all kinds of crazy and fucked up lately. Even before Trump was actually inaugurated, my own city was all over national news following a terrorist attack during the early hours of New Years day. A guy used a huge electric truck to quietly turn on to a busy and noisy street full of pedestrians and did what cowardly terrorists do. It was fucking horrific. In hindsight, it foreshadowed a dark and terrible start to what has been a very dark year that has made my home feel like a different and almost unfamiliar place.
In late April, somebody from out of state posted on a local subreddit, saying they were thinking of coming to stage a protest at the Jena detention center, where people are being swept off the street from all over the country, transported to Louisiana, and held indefinitely.
It's kind of surprising more protests don't happen there, but there's a reason they don't. There's also a reason the Trump administration picked that location. It's desolate and literally in the middle of nowhere. The Governor is a close friend and Trump loyalist. I have talked to lawyers and other groups who are afraid to go there because it's such a desolate place.
If you're in the U.S., you hopefully are already aware that several people were "disappeared" while simply trying to aid the civil rights movement. My mom grew up in the thick of it, and I grew up hearing her recount her own horrific childhood memories, including one of the most notorious cases from that time.
I feel like most people should just inherently understand why established protections for civil rights and liberties are so important, but a lot of people seem to think that (similar to workers rights and labor law) they may have been needed at one time, but they're no longer necessary/don't really do anything anymore, so, losing them isn't really a big deal. Hearing about what my mom witnessed, I've never been able to pretend or convince myself things are somehow just magically better now, or that progress gained can't easily be lost, and it wouldn't just happen again.
With all that in mind, I tried to offer the people planning this protest advice about what to expect and told them they should try to take some steps to ensure their own safety. Most local people on Reddit were supportive/agreed, but it's Reddit... Other people just pushed the whole you're being reactionary/ridiculous, "things are different, that was then, this is now." argument, nobody even cares, what are they even protesting anyway?
A few days later, I woke up to this comment. It would have been an appalling things to say regardless, but given what happened in my state on Jan 1st., it absolutely seemed like a threat, so I immediately reported it as threatening violence, and took a screenshot.
Might also be worth mentioning something from an article about a small protest at the detention center back in early April
JENA — A group of protesters stood outside the federal immigration center in this central Louisiana town a few weeks ago, calling for it to be emptied, when a truck rolled past and belched a plume of exhaust at them.
The driver circled around as the group faced a bank of TV news cameras set up in the brush across the road, then repeated the act — a greeting of sorts to a hamlet in the pines that once again has drawn a national media glare.
Like I said in the title, not sure why now, but finally got a response from Reddit this morning thanking me for the report. They determined it violated rules and they took action. They then said to block the user if I would like to avoid seeing content from them.
Problem solved. Things certainly are different now...
