Video by Jefferson Graham. Photos by Kevin Cody
[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”258″ display=”pro_tile” animate_images_enable=”0″ animate_images_style=”wobble” animate_images_duration=”1500″ animate_images_delay=”250″]by Kevin CodyLast March, South Bay Takes a Stand staged a walk along The Strand, from the Manhattan Beach pier to the Hermosa Beach pier, to protest ICE enforcement of President Trump’s deportation policies.
An estimated 2,000 people participated.
On Sunday, February 1, the Manhattan Beach activist group staged a second pier to pier protest walk, with what appeared to be double the number of walkers. The walk was fueled by outrage over ICE’s recent killings of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
But despite the outrage reflected on T-shirts and handmade signs, speakers who addressed the crowd from the balcony of the lifeguard headquarters delivered a unifying message.
Manhattan Beach Councilwoman Nina Tarnay told the walkers she was there not as an elected official, but as a mother who wanted other people’s children to have the same opportunity she had. Tarnay was a Vietnamese child “boat person.” She wore a T-shirt that read, “Refugees United.” Her grandmother’s Buddhist prayer beads were attached to her necklace.
“Reach out, even to people on the other side of the aisle,” she urged the crowd.
South Bay Takes A Stand co-founder Meghan Judge referenced videos of the ICE killings by reminding the crowd of George Orwell’s warning, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
One walker’s sign read, “Make Orwell fiction again.”
“We want the bad people put away, too,” Judge said. “Including those in the administration.”
Manhattan Beach attorney Bob Simon, who is representing a man shot by ICE, spoke to why wealthy communities, like Manhattan and Hermosa, must protest Trump’s deportation policies.
“I’m a wealthy, Christian male, married with three children, I have the privilege to be vocal…. Everyone who comes from a place of privilege has to be vocal for the people who can’t be,” he said.
Simon said he was flying to Washington DC the following day for a press conference at the House of Representative Cannon Office Building. He would join Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore), Representatives Derek Tran (D-CA-450), and Andrea Salinas (D-Ore-6) in supporting the ICE and CBP (Customs and Border Protection) Constitutional Accountability Act. The act would subject ICE and CBP officers to criminal prosecution for unconstitutional immigration enforcement.
Walkers ranged in age from a woman whose sign read, “I’m 92. WTF,” to an Adams Middle School Latina whose sign read, “The President has a mug shot. My parents don’t.”
Palos Verdes resident Leah Cohen’s T-shirt read, “Will trade racists for refugees.” She said she wore the T-shirt during President Trump’s first term, and put it away as a keepsake, never thinking she’d have reason to wear it again.
Redondo resident Kim Martin’s sign read, “Supposed to be at brunch, not fighting pedos and murders. That’s Congress’ job.”
Comedian and favorite Trump target Jimmy Kimmel walked largely unrecognized, perhaps because of his notably unfunny sign. It read simply, “Deport Ice.” ER
Ooof. Swastikas. *Cringe*.