Walk Out
- The Radical Social Worker
- Jan 20
- 5 min read
Today, January 20th, is not just another protest date.
It’s not a trend. It’s not performative. It’s not symbolic for symbolism’s sake.
Today is a line in the sand.
Because what is happening in this country cannot be normalized. It is not isolated. And it is not harmless. Across the United States, vulnerable communities are being targeted, federal power is being abused, and violence is being justified through language that has always been used to protect white supremacy, patriarchy, and greed.
The National Walkout matters because silence is no longer an option.
It matters because people are being hurt. Because families are living in fear. Because the federal government is escalating violence while refusing accountability. Because trans communities are under attack. Because racist dog whistles are being turned into policy.
And because this moment did not come out of nowhere.
Federal Violence Isn’t New- It’s a Pattern
One of the most dangerous myths in this country is that what we are witnessing now is unprecedented.
It isn’t.
Federal violence did not begin with ICE raids or border militarization. It did not start with surveillance programs, militarized policing, or mass detention. The United States has always had a long, violent history of what happens when the federal government, guided by white supremacy, patriarchy, and greed, decides that you are their target.
For Indigenous nations, federal violence meant forced removals, stolen land, broken treaties, boarding schools, and genocide carried out in the name of “progress.”
For Black communities, it meant slavery protected by law, followed by Reconstruction betrayal, Jim Crow, lynching with government complicity, redlining, mass incarceration, and a “War on Drugs” that devastated generations.
For Japanese Americans, it meant mass incarceration during World War II, families uprooted, property stolen, lives permanently altered under the guise of national security.
For labor organizers, civil rights leaders, queer communities, anti-war activists, and political dissidents, it meant surveillance, infiltration, raids, blacklists, and criminalization whenever movements threatened corporate profit or state power.
For immigrants, especially those who are Black, brown, Indigenous, poor, undocumented, or all of the above, federal violence has always lived at the border, in detention centers, in raids, and in laws designed to decide whose lives are “desirable” and whose are disposable.
So when we see ICE agents shooting civilians. When families are dragged from their homes in the snow. When enforcement becomes militarized and unaccountable.
This is not an anomaly.
It is the continuation of a system that has always protected power by sacrificing people.
ICE Violence Is Not Immigration Policy- It Is State Violence
This winter in Minnesota has made that painfully clear.
Thousands of federal agents were sent into Minneapolis–St. Paul under the banner of “Operation Metro Surge.” Official language called it immigration enforcement. Communities are experiencing it as occupation.
In early January, a 37-year-old woman, Renée Good, was killed by an ICE agent. Days later, a U.S. citizen was dragged from his home in only his underwear and forced into the snow at gunpoint before agents realized they had the wrong person.
These are not mistakes.
These are the predictable outcomes of a system that treats certain communities as inherently suspicious, inherently disposable, inherently dangerous.
And what makes this even more chilling is not just the violence, it is the lack of accountability.
The Department of Justice declined to pursue civil rights investigations. Federal agencies released conflicting narratives. Oversight was minimal. Transparency was optional.
And the murder of Renée Good was not the first committed by an "immigration enforcement agent". Many people have been abused, sexually assaulted, and killed during the "immigration enforcement".
This is what happens when armed power operates without consequence.
And it doesn’t stop at immigration enforcement.
Trans Communities Are Being Targeted- On Purpose
At the same time federal enforcement is escalating, trans people across the country are being systematically targeted.
Healthcare bans. School restrictions. Bathroom laws. Sports bans. Drag bans. “Parental rights” bills that strip autonomy from young people.
And perhaps most dangerously: a constant stream of rhetoric framing trans people, especially trans women and trans youth, as threats.
Threats to children. Threats to families. Threats to society.
This language is not accidental.
It is the same logic that has always been used to justify state violence: define a group as dangerous, immoral, unnatural, or corrupt, then use that framing to strip away rights, protections, and eventually safety.
Trans communities understand something deeply: when the government begins deciding which identities are legitimate and which are not, violence is never far behind.
And when trans people are targeted alongside immigrants, alongside people of color, alongside poor communities, that is not coincidence.
That is strategy.
White Supremacist Dog Whistles Are Becoming Policy...Again
We often like to believe white supremacy is something we defeated long ago.
But listen carefully to the language shaping policy today.
“Invasion.” “Replacement.” “Criminal aliens.” “Protecting our way of life.” “Defending our borders.” “Law and order.”
These phrases are not neutral.
They are dog whistles, carefully chosen language that signals fear, hierarchy, and exclusion without saying the quiet part out loud.
When politicians talk about demographic threat, when enforcement agencies describe communities as inherently criminal, and when media narratives frame migrants as invaders and trans people as predators, they are not just shaping opinion.
They are shaping who deserves protection, and who does not.
And historically, when the state decides some lives are less worthy of safety, violence becomes policy.
Corruption and Abuse Are Not Theories- They Are Documented
What makes this moment so dangerous is not just ideology, it is power without accountability.
Federal agencies now operate with:
Limited independent oversight
Declining civil rights investigations
Expanding enforcement authority
Increasing militarization
Weak transparency
When shootings occur and no investigations follow, that is not bureaucracy, that is institutional permission.
When raids violate basic rights and no one is disciplined, that is not oversight failure, that is design.
When communities protest and are met with surveillance instead of reform, that is not miscommunication, that is repression.
Corruption is not always envelopes of cash.
Sometimes corruption is simply allowing violence to continue.
Why Walkouts Still Matter
It is easy to feel powerless in the face of federal authority.
But history teaches us something important: power changes when people disrupt business as usual.
Walkouts have fueled labor victories, ,civil rights movements, anti-war movements, student movements, workers’ rights, and anti-apartheid struggles.
When people withdraw their labor, their presence, their compliance, systems notice.
Today’s walkout is not about perfection.
It is about interruption.
Interrupting silence. Interrupting normalization. Interrupting fear.
It is about saying: we see what is happening, and we will not consent.
Solidarity Is Survival
This moment demands more than single-issue politics.
Immigrant justice is trans justice. Trans justice is racial justice. Racial justice is economic justice. Economic justice is gender justice.
Every system being weaponized today is connected.
The same logic that justifies deportation justifies healthcare bans. The same logic that justifies surveillance justifies policing bodies. The same logic that justifies detention justifies incarceration.
Walking out today is not about one community.
It is about refusing a system that survives by dividing us.
This Is a Moral Moment
January 20th is not just a protest.
It is a moral moment.
Because history is watching what we do when the government turns its power against the vulnerable.
It is watching whether we look away when federal agents kill civilians. Whether we stay quiet when trans people are targeted by law. Whether we accept dog whistles becoming policy. Whether we allow violence to be renamed “enforcement.”
Every generation eventually faces a question like this:
Who did you stand with when power was abusing its authority?
Today’s walkout is our answer.
We stand with immigrants who deserve safety, not terror. We stand with trans people who deserve dignity, not erasure. We stand with communities who deserve justice, not occupation. We stand against white supremacy, patriarchy, and greed, not just in rhetoric, but in action.
Walking out today will not fix everything.
But it will say something important:
That we remember history, that we recognize patterns, and that we refuse to be silent participants in another chapter of state violence.
And that matters.
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