This makeshift Confederate army is not about crime. It's about control

This is not about crime. This is about control.

The proposed deployment of the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis is not a response to public safety. It’s a political stunt engineered by a twice-impeached, multi-indicted president exploiting Black suffering and white fear to reclaim political relevance.

It’s a charade rooted in fearmongering, cloaked in the rhetoric of “law and order” but animated by the same authoritarian impulse that called troops to Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. and cages to the border for immigrants. And Memphis, yet again, finds itself on the night shift of American injustice.

Let’s be clear: according to reports from the Memphis Police Department, violent crime in Memphis is at a 25-year low. That should be headline news. Instead, we’re being sold a spectacle — military trucks rumbling through Black neighborhoods, uniforms in place of understanding and surveillance in place of safety.

This isn’t public protection. It’s political theater.

Manufactured misfortune, misleading metrics

This deployment is not isolated. It’s part of a broader pattern where President Donald Trump and his allies target majority-Black cities, especially those with Black or Democratic mayors, as staging grounds for his white nationalist theatrics.

He’s not sending the National Guard to predominantly white towns with drug epidemics or mass shootings. He’s not showing up where far right groups like Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are organizing. No! He’s only sending troops into the heart of Southern Black communities, where governors like Tennessee’s Bill Lee are all too eager to oblige.

This is a makeshift Confederate army, operating under the guise of public safety, weaponized against the very people it claims to protect.

And when the statistics show that crime was already decreasing before the National Guard landed, Trump will no doubt claim victory for what he didn’t cause. He will take credit for what was already happening. And many will believe him, because authoritarianism always rewrites the facts before it rewrites the laws.

Beware the blowback

Some Memphians, even some Black ones, are applauding the National Guard’s presence. I understand the fatigue. I understand the trauma. But I caution us not to confuse fatigue with clarity, or trauma with truth.

When Latino voters supported Trump in 2024, many assumed his deportation policies would only target “others” — those without papers, those from different countries. But immigration crackdowns don’t ask for green cards before the cuffs come out. Similarly, when some white voters supported anti-DEI policies thinking only Black communities would be impacted, they learned quickly that cruelty rarely stops at the color line.

Memphians who think this military presence will only criminalize “the worst of us” need only look at the ICE detention center in nearby Mason, built on a former prison site and now holding undocumented immigrants caught in the dragnet of “tough on crime” posturing. According to NBC News, 40 percent of the 2,300 people arrested during the National Guard presence in D.C. were undocumented immigrants. This isn’t speculation — it’s precedent.

Hypocrisy in high places

What’s most galling is the hypocrisy of state lawmakers cheering this intervention. The same officials who’ve refused federal aid for healthcare, blocked Medicaid expansion, and lamented “Big Brother” when it suited their politics are now welcoming federal boots on our blocks. They’ve done nothing to stem the flood of guns in Tennessee, passed no meaningful policy to support youth or mental health services, but now demand military muscle as a cure-all?

This is intellectually dishonest at best and unserious at worst.

And those of us who dare to call it out are accused of being anti-police or unpatriotic. But I love Memphis enough to tell it the truth: You cannot incarcerate your way to safety. You cannot militarize your way to peace. You cannot criminalize your children and expect your community to thrive.

We’ve been here before

In my sermon this past Sunday, I reminded my congregation that some of the most liberating work has always been done during the night shift. My mother — Claudia Mae Fisher — worked the literal night shift for decades on a bridge in Michigan. And in the spiritual and political sense, we are on the night shift right now. Just like Jesus encountering the man born blind in John 9, we are being asked who is to blame. But I contend the better question is: What is God trying to reveal through this misfortune?

As I said in that sermon, we are not called to applaud political stunts or submit to scare tactics. We are called to do the work of liberation—day or night, with or without military presence.

We are not blind. We see what’s happening.

A call to action

Now is the time to demand clarity and accountability from our mayors, our state legislators, our governor, and those in the White House. We must push back against political spectacle with principled resistance. The presence of the National Guard is not protection. It’s provocation. It is an occupation of our streets and a betrayal of our dignity.

We deserve policies, not performances.

We demand investments, not intimidation.

We are not pawns in a political war. We are people, and we deserve to be treated as such.

Let this be our charge on the night shift: to shine light, speak truth, and refuse to be silent in the face of spectacle.

• Rev. Earle J. Fisher, Ph.D. is the Senior Pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee – The Blackest Church in Memphis and Shelby County. He’s also the founder of #UPTheVote901, a nonpartisan voter empowerment initiative committed to producing political power and increasing voter turnout in Memphis and Shelby County