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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2lzWc7R:
I’d been sleeping mostly through the night lately but the ICE raids thing had me fretting at 5am today so I guess we’re back to that!
I did find a website that comprehensively lists local immigrant-related organizations that will naturally be hubs of resistance and assistance, so if writing postcards isn’t enough anymore, at least I have contact info for orgs I could try to help.
Who has citizenship papers on them at all times??!! (under the cut: Me. I do. Why?)
Well, as it happens, I do; my last passport renewal, I paid the extra forty bucks to get the little card that fits in your wallet that’s good for US/Mexico. I did this because while my passport was expired I missed a good friend’s wedding in Canada, I missed several other social functions in Canada, and there were a bunch of awkward “let’s go to Can– oh, B can’t” moments, and I got really sad and fed up. This is solely because I live less than five miles from the border. So I do, in fact, have proof of my citizenship in my wallet.
And now I’m sort of skeeved-out by that, to be honest. Because there were clearly so many policies that went into that, and now they can point to me, and the people like me (half my acquaintances have the card, at least; it comes up occasionally in conversation) and say “Look, see, good citizens have proof on them!” No, I have proof on me because I’m really bad at keeping track of my possessions and so I viewed having a passport I could keep on me all the time as a relief. Also this does not make me a better citizen, it just makes me absent-minded, and also someone who had an extra $40 on top of the $125 or whatever it takes to renew an expired passport.
How many policies went into shaping that eventuality, that so many people would just casually have their papers on them– for one, the totally unnecessary militarizing of our borders with our NAFTA partners, needing passports instead of just any identification (used to be you could use a birth certificate or driver’s license)– but for how long have we been actively building toward this state of just expecting to be routinely stopped for our papers?? How long has this agenda been being shaped? Ugh!
(But nobody’s ever going to ask me, because I’m blonde and don’t have an accent. They can just point to me, statistically.)
I don’t want this. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want my friends to live like this. I don’t want anyone to live like this. The terror not directly affecting me in any particular way does not make it less terrifying.
I cried at my desk yesterday over the goddamn Gettysburg address, of all things. (I guess my Instagram posts don’t come over anymore, I posted about it yesterday.)
I’d been sleeping mostly through the night lately but the ICE raids thing had me fretting at 5am today so I guess we’re back to that!
I did find a website that comprehensively lists local immigrant-related organizations that will naturally be hubs of resistance and assistance, so if writing postcards isn’t enough anymore, at least I have contact info for orgs I could try to help.
Who has citizenship papers on them at all times??!! (under the cut: Me. I do. Why?)
Well, as it happens, I do; my last passport renewal, I paid the extra forty bucks to get the little card that fits in your wallet that’s good for US/Mexico. I did this because while my passport was expired I missed a good friend’s wedding in Canada, I missed several other social functions in Canada, and there were a bunch of awkward “let’s go to Can– oh, B can’t” moments, and I got really sad and fed up. This is solely because I live less than five miles from the border. So I do, in fact, have proof of my citizenship in my wallet.
And now I’m sort of skeeved-out by that, to be honest. Because there were clearly so many policies that went into that, and now they can point to me, and the people like me (half my acquaintances have the card, at least; it comes up occasionally in conversation) and say “Look, see, good citizens have proof on them!” No, I have proof on me because I’m really bad at keeping track of my possessions and so I viewed having a passport I could keep on me all the time as a relief. Also this does not make me a better citizen, it just makes me absent-minded, and also someone who had an extra $40 on top of the $125 or whatever it takes to renew an expired passport.
How many policies went into shaping that eventuality, that so many people would just casually have their papers on them– for one, the totally unnecessary militarizing of our borders with our NAFTA partners, needing passports instead of just any identification (used to be you could use a birth certificate or driver’s license)– but for how long have we been actively building toward this state of just expecting to be routinely stopped for our papers?? How long has this agenda been being shaped? Ugh!
(But nobody’s ever going to ask me, because I’m blonde and don’t have an accent. They can just point to me, statistically.)
I don’t want this. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want my friends to live like this. I don’t want anyone to live like this. The terror not directly affecting me in any particular way does not make it less terrifying.
I cried at my desk yesterday over the goddamn Gettysburg address, of all things. (I guess my Instagram posts don’t come over anymore, I posted about it yesterday.)
