Safety or Power? On the Ground in Washington DC
By Mary Joy Wytsma
The day the National Guard was mobilized to DC started like any other Monday. My neighbor watered the flowers on her porch. Teachers greeted each other at the school across the street, preparing for the new school year. Children raced about, soaking up the last days of summer.
No riots. No natural disaster. City-wide violent crime at a 30-year low.
Yet a “state of emergency” warranting the National Guard? Such things can be justified with enough power and the right media angle.
Now I walk to the gym and count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 12 officers and soldiers, pistols strapped to their thighs, rifles cradled in their arms.
Arresting one teenager stunned into silence.
I ride the metro to work and count: 1, 2, 3, 4 armored trucks with 1, 2, 3 … 10 soldiers in tan fatigues clogging the sidewalk, a boulder in a stream of commuters.
I walk by the tree with a hasty memorial taped to it, marking the place where my neighbor was detained by masked ICE agents while walking to work.
Three blocks from my house, law enforcement erects a checkpoint, stopping cars and arresting drivers for minor traffic violations.
Across the city, people are afraid to leave their homes. Local restaurants and bars suffer as year-over-year diners dip by 30%. DC courts are clogged with cases of people targeted, profiled, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Families are ripped apart.
Are we safer yet? Or has it always been less about safety, and more about power?
“Washington, D.C., has become a dirty, crime-ridden death trap that must be taken over and properly run,” said President Trump, “…our capital is the opposite of tippy-top. It’s a shithouse. Horrible. It’s horrible. It’s so horrible.”
It appalls me how a person can speak so harshly about a place they’ve never bothered to know—reducing 700,000 lives to fodder for political gain.
Every place has its complexities and challenges—DC is no exception. And still, this city is full of joy.
DC is the volunteers who have cleaned up a neighborhood park every Saturday for the last 35 years, turning it into a refuge of art, community, and culture.
DC is 300 strangers dancing salsa between the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pond, united by their love of music.
DC is embassy day and friends from around the world.
DC is neighborhood pride and Go-Go and block parties.
DC is rare snow days, citywide snowball fights, and baking sheets turned into sleds.
DC is protests and mutual aid and solidarity across lines of difference.
DC is the drum circle in the park every Sunday, rain or shine.
This is the DC that has captured my heart and become my home. This is what we stand to lose if militarization and security-by-force continue unchecked.
Not just here. In Chicago. In Memphis. In communities across the country.
If we truly want our cities to be safer, healthier places for everyone—as we all should—we have to invest in the people who live there. The communities already doing the work of caring for each other in ways rooted in place, built to last. The neighbors who remind us that we belong to one another—that our flourishing is bound up together. That our differences can make us stronger, not weaker.
Real safety doesn’t come from soldiers on street corners. It comes from investing in community flourishing: from the ground up.
This is the vision we are pursuing—mutual flourishing rooted in justice, dignity, and true safety. Join us. Help share the real story of DC. Uplift local initiatives and fight for DC residents’ right to have a say in matters affecting our city. Call your member of congress and urge them to do everything in their power to stand down the National Guard.
Here in DC, we will continue to dance, to protest, to care for one another—and to cultivate a community of resilience. Because this city is more than a talking point. It’s our home. And it’s one worth standing up for.
#freedc
Cover photo: Vlad Tchompalov via Unsplash
