Yeah I'm Still Salty
I wish we could talk, unite, and organize better
Last week I wrote about how salty I am. Not because the world is on fire and we’re all going to die. It’s because the world is on fire, and I genuinely think the way we’re responding is making it worse.
So, to answer the burning question after last week’s post: ICE is out of control. Untrained. Unaccountable. All of it is worrisome. (For one concrete data point: 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in over two decades, with 32 people reported to have died in ICE custody.) But here’s why I don’t respond by saying, “Abolish ICE.”
Last year, I was driving home after visiting my friend in Mechanicsville. A Henrico police car turned on its lights, and since I rarely get pulled over, I wrongly assumed it was for someone else. But they stayed behind me with the lights on, so I called Kim and started panicking.
For the record, I wasn’t panicking because it was the police. I was panicking because I’m autistic, and this kind of situation is genuinely stressful for me. Kim calmed me down and told me to pull over immediately. The police officers parked behind me, walked up slowly, and asked me to roll down my window.
I can’t express how much unpredictable situations make me stim. And when I stim, I don’t look capable of understanding what people are saying.
“Do you know why we pulled you over?” the police officers asked.
And I said, “I’m so sorry. I’m autistic, and my wife is on the phone in case I can’t answer you clearly.”
The police officers calmly identified themselves and told me my lights were off. They asked if I was capable of driving, and my wife explained that I might look incapable, but I was fully present.
It turned out that after our car got a service checkup, the mechanic switched my lights from “auto” to “off,” and I’d been driving with my lights off for a while. I explained that to the police officers and showed them the lights worked fine. I just needed to switch them back to “auto.”
One of the police officers asked for my driver’s license. Then they asked, “Excuse me, how would you like me to address you. Ma’am?” I nodded, and they checked my license.
While the police officers were checking my file, Kim and I talked about how friendly they were, and how good they were at making me feel comfortable. They were obviously trained to see that this was stressful for anyone. And that it was probably extra stressful for me, because I’m trans and autistic.
The police officers came back with my driver’s license and told me to check my lights in the future. They let me off with a warning and wished me a good day. I drove off feeling seen. I felt appreciated. And I felt confident there are police officers out there who do their job for the safety of everyone around them.
Which, for the record, is usually how I feel when I see police officers around me. My first instinct is to feel safer.
Anyway, the moral of this story is that a well-trained police officer can do a lot for a community. This is exactly how I answer my progressive fellow Richmonders. You may not know it, but Richmond, Virginia is a queer Valhalla in the South. Most of my friends and acquaintances are leftist progressives, and we agree on a lot.
One big difference is that I’m absolutely not an ACAB person. Sure, I was as upset as everyone else after the murder of George Floyd. But as many of you know, I typically lean into ambiguity. Saying ACAB feels like flattening a complex issue into something two-dimensional.
ACAB: “ACAB” stands for “All Cops Are Bastards.” It gained popularity after the murder of George Floyd. In Richmond, a lot of progressives live and breathe it.
When I was about 20, I was hospitalized during a major episode. We know now it was because of autism. I lived in an apartment building in Enkhuizen, in the Netherlands, with a glass stairway. The glass was basically massive panels running from the ground to the third floor. I was so distressed that I jumped out of a window on the ground level and was screaming in distress, walking around naked, with glass shards stuck in me. The Dutch police arrived within minutes, de-escalated the situation, and made sure I got professional help.
Sometimes it’s good when police officers are around. I’m sure you can think of a dozen moments when you felt unsafe and wished there was a police presence nearby.
But just because I’ve met well-trained police officers who helped me after I jumped out of a window, and who made me feel seen during a traffic stop, doesn’t mean there aren’t also police officers who are untrained, unchecked, or simply not good at their jobs.
My point is not “defund the police.” My point is better training. Pair police officers with social services, so people like my past self, in a mental health crisis, can get the help they actually need. Give police officers better de-escalation training, so we don’t get another Trayvon or Breonna.
Let me be frank with you. “Defund the police” is lazy. It’s a one-liner people hide behind, and it gives them a weird sense of absolution from actually doing the work.
Take Seattle, for example. In 2020, amid the ACAB energy and “defund the police” pressure, the Seattle City Council debated cuts to the Seattle Police Department’s roughly $409 million budget, and approved reductions in the millions. Not long after, Carmen Best, the chief of police, stepped down. She was the first Black police chief in Seattle.
In my humble opinion, leadership like that, especially a Black woman at the top, matters. It is one of the most direct ways to shape a police force that is actually capable of reducing racial profiling and violence against Black communities.
“But what about ICE, Lana. Surely you agree we should defund ICE.”
In the same vein as what I wrote above, I think yelling “Abolish ICE” is lazy activism. Screaming at ICE agents on the street doesn’t do anything except make an already tense situation even tenser. When is the last time yelling at an ICE agent made them go, “Hmm. You’re right. I should quit my job. I’m perpetuating a racist system.”
I mean, fuck ICE. And yeah, this new batch that came in untrained is a problem. But what do we do with the bigger questions? Like, who enforces the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000? Do we think human trafficking magically stops if we defund all law enforcement?
I 100% believe what’s going on right now is out of control. But sheesh, progressives. Your tactics are not working, and they haven’t worked for a while.
In my view, a lot of the “ceasefire now” chanting has been counterproductive. I can’t quantify it cleanly, but I’ve watched the tone of it push some people I care about into a more defensive, bunker mindset.
Your #MeToo movement has been undermined by what’s come out of the Epstein files.
Most frustratingly, we may have taken down some Confederate statues here in Richmond, but why doesn’t my predominantly Black neighborhood have usable sidewalks, while some fucking alleys in the ritzy Fan District have expensive cobblestone pavers?
And right now, the “Fuck ICE” movement is not the only thing responsible for getting any ICE agents out of Minneapolis. Protest matters. It changes what feels possible and it makes people feel less alone. But it’s also judges, legal pressure, and political pressure, including Governor Tim Walz, that have helped force movement. Those are the people who go beyond short-term satisfaction and actually do the work. Those are the real activists, in my book.
My complaint about some of the current progressives is that so much of it is built on one-liners people can hide behind. My complaint is that real activism costs more than boycotting Israel, Target, or Starbucks. True activism looks like asking me, “Hey Lana, you hold a lot of intersectional identities. How can we best support you?” instead of telling me how I should pursue activism.
Yeah, I’m still salty. And I’ll probably stay salty for a while, until the people I’m supposed to feel safe around stop tokenizing me without checking in with my community. I get that it’s frustrating to feel powerless. But for fuck’s sake, we’re right here. Stop talking about us like we’re not.
I feel this in my bones. All of it. I have had episodes that have required calm police intervention and was deescalated safely. I wish all law enforcement were trained in de-escalation properly.
Simple slogans and phrases might feel good to say, but they are black and white, and much of life is in the gray area.
Who is supposed to arrest the paedos we are accusing if we fully defund the police?
Better training and basic empathy are so important.
Thank you for being so transparent in your account.