Social Justice – gregoryjoel.com

It’s a beautiful, but still hot, Sunday morning here in Fort Worth. The record for triple-digit days in September was demolished days ago. It’s been 100 degrees or more for most of the last twenty days and nights are offering little relief. However, that’s supposed to change this week with highs in the nineties and lows in the seventies. Seeds will finally be able to germinate with lower ground temperatures. The seventy degree nights offer a chance for the soil to recover and maintain a lower, more constant temperature. My fiftieth high school reunion was this weekend in Denver, Colorado. I would’ve loved to enjoy the cooler climes of Colorado and see folks I haven’t seen except on Facebook for the last fifty years, but I have a fantastic week coming up at Opal’s Farm and couldn’t be there. There’s way too much work to do. Think of me guys while I’m sweating away…

We want to make a major announcement this week at Opal’s Farm this week. In 2021, our friends Cort DeHart and Kent Bradshaw formed a non-profit called the Funkytown Food Project based on the model created by The Food Project in Boston. For the last five years they’ve built an amazing community and youth-based project offering paid internships to students at Conundrum Farms in Crowley. Please check out their website at www.funkytownfoodproject.org to learn more about their youth and community programs.

This year they expanded their summer program to the academic year, and I’m pleased to announce that yesterday Funkytown Food Project began working at Opal’s Farm for the Fall semester. Our first day was amazing. Each of the student interns has been through the summer program and experienced a working farm. It’s such a joy to partner with Funkytown and share in the benefits of not only experienced farmhands, but young people that exhibit the values of respect for the land and other people, true leadership, and diligence and creative thinking rarely seen in the workplace anymore. I was inspired and uplifted by each of the students.

The students work in the morning and then spend the afternoon learning leadership skills, social and food justice issues, and community-building – the things often overlooked in school. It’s these values that are core to Opal’s mission as well and this was a perfect partnership to be a part of. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have Funkytown Food Project at Opal’s Farm and can’t wait to see them all on the coming Saturdays.

We’re still low on produce this week. The record-breaking heat we’ve had this month has slowed our production to a crawl. Although new items will be available soon, Opal’s Farmstand is still open each Saturday. If we don’t have much produce, Tabor Farms is there each Saturday with their produce. Please don’t forget the herbal teas, salves, and the jams, jellies and pickles available each Saturday as well. We have two new neighborhood vendors who’ve applied to participate in the farm stand as well. We’re still open during our summer hours from 9AM until noon through October 3^rd. We’ll be changing hours the following week from 11AM until 2PM on the 10^th. Hopefully, the worst of our summer heat will be gone!

The news has shown stories on ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids across the country ever since January 20^th of last year when mass deportations, allegedly of “the worst of the worst”, began in earnest. The reality is that only three percent of the over 600,00 people deported had violent felony convictions and approximately seventy-three percent had no criminal record whatsoever, but hey, that’s a story for some other time.

I’ve watched the often cruel, inhumane, and illegal ways average immigrants are targeted and arrested simply for going to work or dropping their kids off at school, paying taxes, and contributing to their respective communities. I watched in horror, as did we all, the murder of American citizens at the hands of mercenary, masked ICE agents in Minnesota. I’ve known that similar raids are carried out in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas but such things are not newsworthy in the “most Republican city in the state”. Therefore, they’ve occurred quietly, in the dark, away from the public eye.

Last Saturday morning, the news became real for me. I stopped at the local QuickTrip for gas, a bag of ice, and my morning sausage biscuit. It was early Saturday morning and quiet for the normally busy OT station. There was a SUV with Oklahoma tags parked all by itself on the far end of the lot. It didn’t appear to be occupied, but it hit me as strange to be sitting out there all by itself. I went in, took care of my business, went back to my truck, and saw the SUV charge across the parking lot and rear-end what looked to be someone’s work truck with a loud crash. In front was another SUV that blocked the driveway. The collision caused damage to both SUVs and the truck. Four other SUVs surrounded the scene. Lights came on – they’d been off prior to the collision giving no indication it was law enforcement – from each of the SUVs and eight to twelve ICE agents clad in combat gear with guns drawn swarming the vehicle. A Fort Worth police car had pulled up behind the ICE agents to observe the raid.

One agent busted through the driver’s side window, and they pulled a middle-aged Hispanic man from the driver’s seat and threw him to the ground. He offered no resistance to the agents that immediately handcuffed him and rushed him off to one of the other SUVs. Then the passenger, a younger Hispanic man – also handcuffed – had several ICE agents surrounding him, patting him down, and escorting him to another waiting vehicle. The agents began to mill about looking like big heroes, congratulating each other with big smiles, and patting each other on the back. By then, two other FWPD vehicles had pulled up. The two Fort Worth police officers stood there laughing and watching the whole affair.

It took me a moment to find my phone and start videoing the scene. Unfortunately, videography is one of my challenges and it wasn’t clear. I tried to take several stills as well, showing the faces of the FWPD officers involved and two or three of the unmasked ICE agents. I may not have their names – not that they would give them to me since masked thugs prefer anonymity – but I’m damn sure going to post the few faces I did see. I’m not the best photographer, especially with the trembling hands of an adrenaline rush, but by God I’m going to let them know that someone sees them and cast some light on their dark activity.

I try to treat everyone with common courtesy, dignity, and respect regardless of our differences. That’s become increasingly difficult with MAGA acolytes and the constant threats to the democracy and freedom I’ve been blessed to enjoy. Seeing this Gestapo-like behavior, over a decade’s worth of assaults on “the other”, assaults on our democracy and the rule of law, and the constant lies of a hateful, felonious narcissistic pedophile became a deluge that breached the dam of any self-control I’ve held onto. I was pissed

I didn’t hesitate to let them know I was filming their chickens*** bullying. The “F” word flowed freely as did “Nazi mother****ers “. I let the FWPD officers know they were no better as they stood there laughing. It wasn’t my best moment, but I was so angry to see their pompous, self-righteous BS that I simply had to call it as I see it.

I don’t know anything about the guys they arrested. They could be some of “the worst of the worst”, but it’ s far more likely they were like the overwhelming majority of detainees and were simply off to another day of work to provide for their families, contributing to our community, and paying taxes like everyone else. It’s been my privilege to work with many immigrants over the years, with and without documentation, and I’ve never met any finer coworkers or friends. They possess the very values of God (no matter what name they use), family, and work we profess to want from all our neighbors regardless of status.

The constant chaos we see and hear on the news each day tends to push immigration aside. Please don’t let it. We celebrated 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence yesterday, a document signed by a bunch of immigrants to this country, in response to attacks on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Our treatment of immigrants, of the other, is a premonition of how we will all be treated if we remain silent in the face of injustice…