Nastasia shared some thoughts on her action and the power that we all have to decide not to cooperate at the Bearing Witness Rally in front of the ICE field office in Burlington, MA. This building is privately owned by Ten LLC and leased to ICE as a field office. Since January 2025, ICE has been violating zoning laws by detaining immigrant community members for multiple days, even months, denying them access to basic necessities including access to showers, changes of clothing, adequate food and water, and contact with family and legal support. Read below or watch the video for her full remarks.

Greetings friends. Despite the circumstances in which we find ourselves together, I take joy in being in community with you this morning. I grew up near Burlington and spent more hours than I care to admit wandering around the mall next door. Now my community is in central MA, where I organize, teach, and parent. Last September, two friends and I attempted to deliver food to the folks being held in this field office. For months I had read the same stories that likely bring all of you here each week – people sleeping on concrete floors, going days without showers, rationing sandwiches over 3 meals, and my friends and I thought, enough is enough. If ICE refuses to respect our neighbors, we will. If they refuse to provide adequate food, we will. After all, that’s what neighbors do for each other. We brought baskets of food and asked to be let inside to see the people being held. It came as no surprise that we were denied entry. But we decided that it was unacceptable to both refuse to provide basic needs and also bar the people who were willing to step up. So we sat down on the steps and waited until someone would let us in. We waited for several hours as agents shouted at us, attempted to physically move us, and then eventually called the police and asked them to arrest us for trespassing. We weren’t trying to get arrested, but it was a consequence we were willing to endure because our consciences simply would not let us stand by without at least trying to alleviate the suffering. 

Systems of power rely on us to accept the rules they create as rational and infallible. They need us to believe not only that obeying those rules will be safer and easier in the long run, but that there’s nothing that ordinary people can do to make any real change anyway. And so we are expected to trust that the system itself will fix the problems that it created if we just cooperate and don’t make any trouble.

I’d like to tell a different story about power. It begins (as many do) with: Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a king. This king was the most powerful person in all the land. He had power over. And he kept his power by being ruthless. He forced obedience from his citizens, and from all the surrounding kingdoms. Whenever he sensed resistance, he would go to his vast armory, collect all of his weapons and invade the kingdom until he had full submission. (Maybe this sounds familiar?) The king’s power over created a hierarchy, designating some people as better than others. He hoarded resources and made people compete for them. And when people complained, or pointed out how unfair his power over was, others would say, “but that’s just the way it’s always been, if we stand up, he’ll make things even worse for us”. The king has always been the most powerful person. He has the most weapons, the most gold. That’s just how power works.  

One day, the king was furious at another kingdom close by and decided to invade it. He stormed to his armory to collect his most fierce weapons. But when he tried to get in, he found the lock was jammed. Who knows how that lock stuck. Maybe it was humid that day and the wood was swollen. Maybe a leak in the ceiling made it rust. Maybe someone poured concrete into it. He tried everything, but he couldn’t break down the door.

Now there were some people in his kingdom who knew about a different kind of power: power with. This is the kind of power that people build together by taking care of each other, having each other’s backs, and using their skills and knowledge to make sure that everyone’s needs are met. They also knew that even though the king wanted everyone to believe that his power over was absolute and unchanging, that just wasn’t true. Power isn’t static, it’s situational. It changes from moment to moment. And in this particular moment, the person with power wasn’t the king, it was the locksmith. The locksmith was the only person who knew how to open that door to make it possible for the king to use violence to maintain his power. And the locksmith had a choice. She could comply and fix the lock, or she could refuse, and the king would not have access to an important tool of his power. But the people also knew that power with doesn’t lie with just one person. The locksmith would need support so that she could be brave. People would also need to stand with the weaponsmiths so that they could be brave and refuse to simply make the king new weapons. And they also needed to take care of each other so that the king’s wrath couldn’t easily target just one or two people. 

If only our world were simple enough that one locked door could take down a dictator. And realistically, we could imagine that the armory door didn’t stay locked forever – eventually someone with the king’s resources would find a way to get in. But we don’t have to prevent the door from being opened forever in order to have been effective. In the time that the king and all of his guards frantically tried to get the door open, his attack on the neighboring kingdom was delayed, maybe just enough for more people to get to safety or build up their defense. Maybe he was too distracted to follow through on an edict to evict farmers from their homes. Perhaps even a few of his guards saw some cracks in his absolute power, just long enough for a few seeds of doubt to grow.

In our current structure of power over, there are locked doors everywhere. These doors may present small inconveniences or large barriers, but what they all have in common is that regular people hold many keys to many doors, and we all have the opportunity to build power with each other to make the decision to not cooperate with power over. As Gene Sharp, one of the many great thinkers in nonviolent resistance wrote: “by themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, keep markets supplied with food…issue postage stamps or even milk a cow. If people stop providing these skills, the ruler could not rule.“

In my story, it’s easy to turn most of our attention towards the king. He certainly deserved the rage and resistance of the people in his kingdom. But I think the real main character here is the concept of the better world that the people building power with knew could be possible. The vision that inspired them to withhold their consent to and cooperation with the oppression of their neighbors. When I went with my friends to try and deliver food to the building behind me, I certainly brought my rage and my grief with me. But I was also drawn in by the world that I know is possible. The world where the most rational thing we can do is to take care of each other. Where we know in our hearts that scarcity is actually a myth; there is plenty for everyone. That world is so irresistible to me that I can’t help but act in service of getting closer to it. And I know that it is not one huge action, but many small, earnest and strategic acts, aligned with our consciences, that get us closer to that world.  

I want to invite everyone to imagine with me. Close your eyes if you feel comfortable. Feel your feet on the ground. And picture the world that you know is possible. What does that world look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? Taste like? Smell like? What does that world allow you to do with your time? How does that world let you know that you are so valuable and loved, just for being you? And finally, what would you do to catch more and more glimpses of that world right now?

The last thing I’d like to say is that the world I know is possible doesn’t require us to twist ourselves into the perfect activist. It welcomes us and the skills and knowledge that we bring, just by being ourselves. It needs spreadsheets and ride shares just as much as it needs folks to step to the front lines. When we went to deliver food, most saw just the three of us. But there were not three people. There were many more. There were folks who stood at a safe distance, just watching to make sure we were okay. There were people who picked us up from jail with our favorite snacks. There have been people with us at every court hearing we’ve had. Those people have reminded me that I can do hard things. They have helped me to be brave. I see a glimpse of that world right here in the way that folks continuously show up in solidarity. And I know that we can keep tending to this community as we simultaneously decline to unlock the king’s doors for him. However you decide to work toward this world, please know I am cheering for you every step of the way. We got this, friends.