Letter from Mary Anne Whelan

We’re In It for the Long Haul

Yesterday, while working my shift at a local nonprofit, I saw one of the saddest things I have ever seen: an 18-page document, directed to all nonprofits both local and statewide, and drafted by legally-informed people, about what to do if ICE comes calling. Looking for you, or for one or some of your clients. Wanting to get into your space. They want to ask for more information: Who do you serve? Or to find certain people: Are they here? Where are they? Who are you? Prove it.

The document, put out for all the volunteers and staff to read, told us: What to ask them. First, who are they? And to watch out: ICE people sometimes dress like the police, although they are not. Ask for I.D. If they want a certain person: Why? Does that person have a criminal record? Did he/she commit a violent crime? Proof? If they want to come in to look for someone, or to look at your records: Do they have a search warrant?

People feel powerless: They wonder what they can do. The Internet is full of would-be useful advice, all the way from meditation to medication. Write to your congressperson: as if Marjorie Taylor Greene is sure to listen to you. Carry a sign. Go to law school, if you can find one that hasn’t been shut down. Learn what is constitutionally lawful, and what is not. Represent. Advocate. Know your rights. Tell other people.

I don’t know all about what to do either, but I know this: You have to do what you can. And it’s not hopeless. I have studied biological anthropology and medicine, and I feel I can say this: Both evolutionarily and genetically, we are programmed to try and fail to succeed and try again. As toddlers, we tried to stand up, fell, got up and tried again. Then we did it. Then we tried to walk. Took a first step. Fell down. Tried again. Then we walked. Then we ran.

Last Tuesday, I went to a small rally in Oneonta. There were perhaps 200 people there. But I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number there under the age of 50 or 60.

Many, probably most, of those assembled there had been at rallies and marches at an earlier time, wanting us out of Vietnam. We got out. They had marched against war, poverty, hunger, injustice: Medicare and Medicaid were born. Civil rights for all persons here were made law.

Our leaders took notice, or we replaced them. They, we, have made some progress. Because the people there were people on the long march. They started, and have kept to, the “long run.” I felt proud to be with them.

Do what you can: because the long run isn’t some vague time in the future. The long run starts now. One step at a time. Start it. Take it.

Mary Anne Whelan
Cooperstown