\n<\/p>\n
Readers sometimes ask me what they can do.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t need to explain exactly what it is they want to do something about. You either know already or never will.<\/p>\n
I take the question seriously. The news is both bad and good. On the bad side, there is not much any individual can do in a nation hurtling in a terrifying direction. We are all on the bus. None of us is driving. The cliff looms.<\/p>\n
On the positive side, there is always something, and taking action seems necessary, to some of us. If only to tell ourselves, \u201cI did something. I didn\u2019t just sit by and watch it happen.\u201d Pointing and shouting \u201cThe cliff!\u201d might not stop the bus. But it could help.<\/p>\n
Those protesting the presence of ICE proved that regular people turning up on ordinary days to witness and record extraordinary abuses have an effect. The bus did seem to veer, maybe even slow. For now, anyway.<\/p>\n
I tell people: do what you can. You have skills; use those skills. I write stuff, much of which boils down to \u201cThe cliff!\u201d It\u2019s my job. Others are prompted by some detail of the general national catastrophe. <\/p>\n
For retired Chicago TV newsman Phil Ponce, it was seeing that the two Border Patrol agents suspected of killing Alex Pretti in Minneapolis are, like himself, Hispanic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected to see someone directly addressing the Latino ICE agents,\u201d said Ponce, 76, former host of \u201cChicago Tonight.\u201d He decided to be that someone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started thinking how Latino agents are interacting with their own community,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat that might be like.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw an opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put in my mind, the figure of somebody who believes in what he or she is doing as an ICE agent, and thought, \u2018How could I meet them halfway, so I could have a conversation?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ponce spent days writing a script.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agonized over it, trying to walk the line between being overly preachy and too sympathetic,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought, \u2018How would I talk to my children if one of them were an ICE agent?\u2019 If I were talking to my own kid, I wouldn\u2019t yell at them. That\u2019ll not get you anywhere. That\u2019s not what a loving parent does. You have go respect someone, attempt to establish common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n