Growing up in Washington, D.C., violence has always been a part of the environment around me.
There are neighborhoods where gun violence, killings and gang activity are so common that people adjust their daily lives just to stay safe.
It reminds me of the way some Palestinian communities talk about living under intense Israeli surveillance and strict security measures, where the presence of the state is felt in everyday movements.
In both the U.S. and Palestine, people learn to navigate not just the dangers around them, but the systems that are supposed to protect them.
Since Donald Trump was elected president, he has treated our communities like war zones by sending in the National Guard and imposing curfews on certain neighborhoods instead of addressing the root causes of violence and crime.
Sometime around the middle of July this year, my friend Rob was illegally pulled over and searched by the National Guard, seemingly only because there were multiple Black people in the car.
Members of the Guard told them to pull over and get out of the car so they could search to see if there was anything illegal in the car, all without providing a warrant.
My friend complied, nothing was found in the search, and they were allowed to leave. They told me they felt offended by the search, and I share that sentiment.
This situation was mind blowing, because Rob didn’t do anything wrong that warranted him being pulled over and searched. Neither did anyone else in the car.
I can’t think of any other reason for this to happen beyond the color of his and my other friends’ skin.
It didn’t feel like protection, it felt like control.
The Trump administration tried to make it seem like D.C. was completely out of control, even worse than it already was, because it gave them an excuse to flex their power and show force.
And even after a federal judge ruled their deployment illegal, White House officials still doubled down on their unlawful deployments.
“President Trump is well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C., to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told AP.
“This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.”
But the issue of policing D.C. goes way beyond the issue of the deployment of the National Guard.
Over the years of my living in D.C., both gun violence and over-policing have made even going outside to be with my friends an uncertainty.
If we hang out in groups, D.C. police will stop and search us for drugs and guns, regardless of our respective records and without warrants to do so — similar to the tactics the National Guard used.
Sometimes we even get scared and run from them because it’s easier than risking a bad encounter with the police.
There is a lot of overlap with the tactics used by the National Guard during their deployment and the efforts of D.C.’s police.
And those same tactics are often used by Israel, a strong foreign ally of the U.S., in their treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
When I look at how Israel’s government justifies its actions in Palestine, I recognize that same pattern of harkening to some threat.
Israeli leaders constantly point to security threats, real or exaggerated, and use them to justify extreme military force: bombing neighborhoods, destroying homes and policing entire populations.
The situations aren’t identical, but the logic is: Exaggerate the danger, then use that fear to excuse overreach.
Living in D.C. taught me what it feels like when leaders use fear to justify force. Watching Palestine shows what happens when a government pushes that logic to an extreme level, with far more deadly consequences.
I want people to recognize how fear-based policing and government overreach harm communities both in D.C. and abroad. I want people to take action and challenge these systems rather than accept them as normal.
