Recently at a rally, the President of these currently United States called himself a “Nationalist.” White, was implied. The stomp of his followers may be deadened by the whine and duck-honk squeak of all those rubber-soled sneakers, but the goosesteps will be the same when they fall into sloppy formation. This is indeed the Upsidedown. The Big Sad. The Dark Days.

When I can get vertical, to push against gravity and perform the simplest of red-blooded American tasks, I ride waves of unmitigated heartbreak: the constant surveillance of black people, the possibility that my trans friends and all their comrades will be rendered invisible in the eyes of the government and subsequently deemed unhuman and erased from the annals of human rights. I worry that the 7,000 people walking to the U.S. border will be turned away, by force.

A Brief and Harrowing History of Our Voting Rights

My Big Sad began with the undoing of The Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down a key provision in Shelby County v. Holder. Chief Justice Roberts said that it was no longer necessary to ensure equality in voting, since the number of black registrants and white registrants was nearly equal everywhere, including Alabama, the birthplace where the Voting Rights Act was forged.

The battle in 1965 between peaceful protesters and good ‘ol Southern aggression led by Alabama State Troopers is know in modern U.S. history as Bloody Sunday. Touched off by the murder of unarmed black activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by the hands and bullets of Alabama State Troopers in February of that year, Hosea Williams and John Lewis — then a 21-year-old student and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) — attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7.

They were stopped by Governor Wallace, and his troops. Marchers were trampled, teargassed, beaten, and attacked with water canons and bullets. Reverend James Reeb died as a result of police action that day.

Eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress saying, “Their cause must be our cause, too.” On March 21, 1965, 3,200 people peacefully marched, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, embarking on a 54-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, over the course of five days. By the time they arrived in Montgomery, they were 25,000 people strong.

Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending legal restrictions that barred black voters from going to the polls. If you didn’t already know this history, I’m gonna go ahead and say — you should have. (Ava DuVernay’s harrowing film Selma and John Lewis’ graphic novel March are excellent places to start.) 

As soon as the ruling was struck down, Alabama began instituting new ways to stop not just black folks, but anyone else considered marginalized from voting using new tactics, like enacting the Voter ID Law, purging voter rolls, requiring proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote, failing to inform felons of their voting reenfranchisement status, and slicing up voting districts by ethnicity and income.

Maybe now it’s clear what we lost when we said nothing as the Voting Rights Act was dismantled.

Be Here, Now.

Mr. Gerrymandering has always been your neighbor, but now, he’d like to clearcut the trees in your yard so you forget where you live. Now he’s worried that you’ll actually exercise your right to cast a ballot — if you can get off the couch and stay vertical long enough to vote.

When I can’t get vertical, I watch TV. (I’m currently addicted to 9-1-1, but that’s another story.) I’ve been quite pleased with the unveiling of the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who, played by Jodie Whittaker, and recently watched episode three. On that episode, the TARDIS time machine took us to Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, a few days before she refused to give up her seat. I was relieved that, thanks to Noughts & Crosses author Malorie Blackman (you better believe this episode was co-written by a black woman, the first time in Doctor Who history), this white woman did not swoop in — intergalactic white-savior style — to save the day for Mrs. Parks.

What the Doctor did do was “nudge it.” The Doctor battled the villain, not by “empowering” Rosa Park, but by supporting the perfect conditions for dissent. And dissent, Rosa Parks did. History had already been written, but that didn’t mean small changes couldn’t make an impact.

This got me thinking about how we’re living in the eye of a dumpster fire right now, and perhaps, all we have to do to shift the narrative is “nudge it,” and by that I mean vote.

(No, that’s not ALL we have to do — we have to educate ourselves, fight for our fellow humans, visit some people’s Venmo and PayPal accounts, and get relentless about stomping out the systems that uphold white supremacy. But if you’re not actively doing any of that, voting on November 6th — or casting an early vote, or voting by absentee ballot — is a good way to start nudging the long arc of the moral universe a little closer towards justice.)

What’s amazing is that there are so many worthy candidates running for just about every level of political service, from a seat on your city council in your town, to judge to Senator in your state. You don’t have to vote for “the lesser of two evils” on November 6th. There are 435 seats in the House up for grabs, 35 Senate seats, and 36 gubernatorial races—not to mention all of the local races at stake.

You have the opportunity to vote for candidates you believe in, choose the legislation you wish to champion, and protect those you love, all with your vote.

Voting on November 6th is a good way to start nudging the arc of justice towards, you know, actual justice.
Click To Tweet

Calling this a voter guide is a little deceptive. All the political races that affect us most acutely, most immediately, and seemingly most imperceptibly, are local. There’s no way to cover all the electoral races that are happening in the United States on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 (set an alarm, add the date to your Google calendar). But hopefully, this information will get you excited about “nudging.”

Maybe you know who you’re voting for in the big races, like for House and Senate. If you live in Texas, probably no one has to beg you to vote for the most “woke” white man running, Beto O’Rourke.  But what about all those judges?! Save yourself the guilt of skipping candidates or trying to read the extremely small print of those bond issues by grabbing a sample ballot for the election in your city.

(In most cases, you can view and print your city’s sample ballot online. Although watch out for incorrect sample ballots, as in the case of St. Louis County, which distributed over 300,000 incorrect sample ballots due to a “print error.” Uh-huh.)

And maybe don’t bother to find a sample ballot buried on the Georgia voter webpage. The Georgia NAACP is filing a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) over the 53,000 voter registrations forms submitted by majority black voters on hold. Apparently, there’s palpable fear that people will actually participate in the glory of civic duty. Kemp — who is also running for Governor — was caught on a hot mic expressing his worry about the persistent success of the campaign of Stacey Abrams, who he’s running against. “It continues to concern us,” he said, “especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.”

As of eight days ago, Abrams and Kemp were nearly tied in their race for governor.

Speaking of Stacey Abrams, the Georgia gubernatorial candidate would become the nation’s first black woman governor is she wins on November 6th. If you are a resident of the state of Georgia, you could be part and parcel of the — potential — blue wave that could crash upon its shores.

If you’re eligible to vote in Florida, keen to help make American history — or interested in tackling climate change, gun reform, prison reform, and expanded health care for all — you may want to cast a vote for Andrew Gillum for governor. As a bonus, he called out the blatant racism of his opponent, Ron DeSantis. Go ahead and bask this sick burn while DeSantis grinds his teeth to a fine powder.

American history can be made in Minnesota as well by voting for the first Muslim congresswoman in history — meet Ilhan Omar, who just won the democratic primary; if you’re registered to vote in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, and you want health care for all, a fair and just immigration system, and economic justice for working families, get out there and support her.  

And soon enough — fingers crossed — your autocorrect will learn the name of Deb Haaland from New Mexico. If she wins, Haaland will become the first Native American (Laguna Pueblo) woman to hold a seat in Congress. And for Haaland? It’s personal. It’s time to bring the fight to Washington, to stop the fossil fuel industry from fracking under her ancestral homeland Chaco Canyon. (Haaland also champions education, tax reform, and gender equality.)

If you’re looking to queer up the vote, The New York Times reports that there are more than 430 LGBTQIA candidates running for office across the nation, and more than 200 have advanced from the primaries to November’s midterms.

The community platform Them has a beautiful and robust data map that allows you to search queer rights, legislation, and protections — by state or by policies — and includes a 2018 midterms voter’s guide. If you live in Vermont, you could vote for the first trans candidate for governor of a major party — Christine Hallquist — who is taking on the opiate crisis in her state, as well as universal health care, civil rights, and racial justice.

Or…maybe you wish the United States had a three-party system? Well it won’t unless you start voting and engaging in two-party discourse; there are at least a baker’s dozen of candidates running as Democratic Socialists.

Kaniela Saito Ing — who supports affordable housing and tuition-free college among other people-centric issues — is running for a congressional seat in District 1 in Hawaii. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Democratic Socialist, Julia Salazar, beat incumbent Senator Martin Dilan for the nomination in the 18th district amid a hotbed of controversy surrounding her “immigrant, working-class background.”

More than 430 LGBTQIA candidates are running for office across the nation, and more than 200 have advanced from the primaries to November’s midterms.
Click To Tweet

Perhaps the most critical voting, however, will occur in the states where fat-cat, GOP incumbents are standing on shaking ground. Democrats need to flip 24 seats in the House of Representatives to take back the House. Swing Left is a great resource for identifying the swing districts in your state where your vote could make the difference in how your daily life is governed.

And let’s not forget that midterms are just the beginning of the paradigm shift. If you’re looking for a 2019 campaign to support, start sinking your latte money into Kalyn Rose Heffernan’s mayoral campaign. Born and raised in Denver, and the front person for the internationally acclaimed band, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kalyn’s “fix this shit” laundry list is long, and the list starts with access for all.

Kalyn Rose Heffernan’s 'Fix this shit' laundry list is long, and the list starts with access for all.
Click To Tweet

And of course, meet President Kamala Devi Harris, 2020.  Okay, the California Senator has not declared that she’s running, but she hasn’t ruled it out, either.

If you thought voting didn’t matter too much before, you might have been a little bit right. However, these midterms are different. These midterms could birth a whole new universe, and hopefully tip the Upsidedown right side up again. It’s like a supernova, poised on the cusp of galactic splendor, but it needs our collective energy to explode it.

On November 6th, 1572, German astronomer Wolfgang Schüler observed the “new star” Cassiopeia — a ruby red supernova — as it erupted in space. Often attributed to the more famous Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, this celestial event was visible by the naked eye.

In truth, it doesn’t matter who sees it first; we all just need to look to the vast opportunity right before our eyes in five days. When we vote on November 6th, 2018, we’re not wasting our time, our vote, or our lives. We’re part of a global event on the only planet we can currently call home.

Get vertical. Get relentless. Go vote.

“I tell my kids, if you have self-control, you have everything,” says Melanie, the innkeeper at our B&B in Fairbanks, Alaska. “It applies to any situation, whether it’s with a wild animal, a school bully, me and their dad. Self-control… it will serve them well anywhere.”

A few days later, my husband and I are sitting in the Denali National Park Visitors’ Center, watching a wildlife safety video. Home to grizzly bears, moose, and caribou, among other creatures, the park is one of the few places remaining in the U.S. where humans are intruders—and need to behave accordingly.

We like to hike, but we’ve never encountered anything larger than deer in the wild, so we’ve been leaning toward exploring Denali behind the protective steel and glass of our rental car. But just in case we feel like wimps once we’re out in the forest, we decide to watch the video so we can make a last-minute call. The trails are open year-round, after all; we can always stoke our bravery later.

Four guides narrate the 30-minute video, structured as a list of do’s and don’ts. The tips for bears in particular are enlightening:

• Minimize surprises—make noise to announce your presence
• Suppress any scents so you don’t attract bears—no fragrances, all food in bear-proof packs
• Stay vigilant: When stopping, choose sites with good visibility. Have everyone in your group face a slightly different direction, so you can see anything approaching
• Bears are curious, and their behavior is contextual; you never want to provoke or set precedent (e.g., don’t keep food in or near your tent—then they’ll think tents equal food)
• Keep bear spray close—you don’t want to be fumbling for it in a crucial moment. Make sure you know how to use it before you head out
• If you do come upon a bear and it spots you, don’t run! (That could trigger the bear’s predatory chase drive.) Back away if possible, but don’t turn your back on the bear. If you can’t retreat, stand your ground and put your arms over your head to look as large as possible
• If the bear attacks, lie in the fetal position, cover your head and neck

As the video wrapped up all the different ways hikers and campers could get in trouble, one of the youthful park rangers offered a final thought: “Don’t be afraid to go out and explore!”

Despite this encouragement, we ultimately opted to stick to our original plan. We drove to Mile 30 and back on Denali’s main road on two consecutive days: the first in afternoon sunshine, the second in morning mist and light rain. On both occasions, the weather revealed different shades of the mountains and valleys, and a variety of animals came out to greet us: bald eagles, caribou, and yes—two grizzly bears. The afternoon bear sidled down the mountain and crossed the road, less than 30 feet from our car; the morning bear stayed up on the hillside, munching on the brush. We snapped a few pictures, the gargantuan beasts transformed into mere specks on our smartphone cameras. We continued on our way, enclosed and safe.

But something about the situation rattled me, and it took me a few days to understand just what exactly it was.

I acknowledged that when I go hiking at home in New England, I am seeking out silence, as well as the opportunity to clear my mind. The recommendations for Denali—being loud and constantly on high alert—seemed in direct opposition to what I’ve always pursued when I hit the trail. I hike to relax, and this type of endeavor was vigilant — maybe even tense.

In fact, I thought, if I wanted to be constantly on the lookout and poised for a potential attack, I’d just stay home and continue my usual, “commuting on public transportation” and “woman walking alone in the city,” routines.

But something about the situation rattled me, and it took me a few days to understand just what exactly it was.
Click To Tweet

Suddenly I realized that those safety tips from the National Park Service video weren’t so different from what I learned in a self-defense class a few years back.

• Stay constantly alert! Don’t wear earbuds or talk on your phone. Know your surroundings at all times.
• When going out, look large: Practice safety in numbers
• Dress conservatively, watch how much skin you’re showing—you don’t want to trigger a prey drive
• Yell and make noise so others know you’re in trouble
• If you’re going to carry pepper spray, make sure you know how to use it. Otherwise it could be grabbed and used against you!

And it then hit me—do we regard men the same way we regard wild animals?

I thought of Mike Pence, who refuses to dine or be alone with any woman who isn’t his wife. Louis C.K.’s compulsions. School dress codes that make sure girls don’t distract boys. The string of assaults against women in my former Boston neighborhood — conducted over repeated years by the alleged same assailant — which terrorized residents so much that the local community center provided the aforementioned self-defense classes free of charge.

I thought of the flood of #MeToo stories, encompassing friends and strangers, famous men and everyday men. My own stories, my friends’ stories. In every case, the proprieties of respect and social mores fall away and the feral urges dominate the experience (and headlines). That sense of unpredictability, that succumbing to animal nature, sets the foundation for repeated indignities—and worse.

He can’t be controlled. You need to be smart. (You need to take that self-defense class!)

Boys will be boys—it’s in their nature.   

Don’t tempt him or be a tease—he can’t help it.

Do we regard men the same way we regard wild animals?
Click To Tweet

We took a red eye home from Anchorage and promptly fell asleep. When we were somewhere over the Midwest, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford started her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Jet-lagged and bleary-eyed, I watched a video recording of her opening statement later that evening. She was composed, with self control.

I watched Justice Kavanaugh, raging and roaring; Lindsay Graham, red-faced and sputtering; both as volatile as creatures disturbed in the wild. And I suppose they were—here was an interloper daring to call out how they roamed their habitat. In both her statement and replies, Dr. Ford refused to continue the narrative that they had no self control.

Of course, this narrative won’t go away quietly—cultural mores built over millennia don’t just course correct or even adapt immediately. Just this month, for example, the Atlantic gave Newt Gingrich a lengthy (and often bizarre) profile, opening the story with its subject stomping around in a zoo and featuring choice quotes comparing all of human nature to the animal kingdom. Photos show him grinning alongside menacing dinosaur skulls and petting giant turtles.

“It’s not viciousness, it’s natural,” he chides after the reporter pushes back. Later in the story, citing a 2016 speech Gingrich gave to the Heritage Foundation, our president is compared to (what else?) a grizzly bear—specifically, the ferocious bear in the movie The Revenant: “He will walk over, bite your face off, and sit on you.”

Here was an interloper daring to call out how they roamed their habitat.
Click To Tweet

But for those of us who have never wielded power — who have never been regarded (or permitted to be regarded) as wild or ferocious — we know by default that there are other ways of moving through the world.

For those millions of us who have always been held to a higher standard — who have never had the privilege to unleash any “wild” tendencies — we know collectively what’s possible. That we all can do better. That the narrative of “nature dictates violence” has to stop. In short — that we all can exercise self control.  

Two days after we returned home, my husband and I drove up to Plum Island for a hike through the nature preserve. The sun was high and the salt marshes spread as far as the eye could see. It was quite a departure from Denali—mostly flat without a predator in sight.

But at a certain point, I got ahead of Andy on the boardwalk trail, and saw a solo man a few feet away. The wind rustled through the brush that flanked the narrow pathway. It was just him and me as we approached each other. He could be a bear, I thought, or he could be a crane.

And just like that, all senses were firing.

I took a deep breath. Self control, I thought, and hoped it would be enough.

I wondered if he had even an inkling of the same thought.

“Hello,” I said as we made eye contact.

“Beautiful day,” he said, and we continued our opposite ways.

Something is wrong at school.

It’s Tuesday morning, and you’re supposed to be in the middle of art class. Ginger, the art teacher and your close friend’s Claire’s mom, often runs late, but never like this. You’re still adjusting to fourth grade, but you’re looking forward to class with Ginger, who knows what she’s doing and disregards rules.

Claire is at school, so Ginger can’t be absent because her daughter is sick. In the words of Madeline’s Miss Clavel, something is not right.

The following series of events seems simultaneous. Ginger walks into the small room where your Montessori school’s Upper Elementary class keeps its math supplies and language material. The main teachers, Ms. Tethel and Mr. Josh, tell the entire class to sit in a circle on the floor. Someone pushes a TV on wheels inside.

You learn new words that day: The first is hijack.

Somebody hijacked two planes and crashed them into a tall building in New York City — another plane is aiming for the Pentagon, which until this day you only know as a shape.

The second is terrorist — the people who did this are terrorists.

Why will be impossible to grasp, but right now you’re concerned with the what. You don’t know much about war or attacks — years ago, when your dad tells you about Iraq, the enemy in a war, you picture lines of people shooting muskets, alternating like some twisted version of Red Rover. At Montessori school, you’ve only learned peace.

You aren’t sad yet, because you still don’t understand. What if someone calls from the airplane toilet, Akangbe, a sixth grader, jokes to sound clever in a situation the group doesn’t understand. You don’t say anything, but you know people can’t use electronics on a landing plane from all the times an attendant has told you to shut off your GameBoy. And crashing is like landing, right?

When your mom picks you and your sister up from school that day, which rarely happens, she says that Jodi, her boyfriend, and the soccer team are coming over. They need somewhere to react.

A bunch of blonde girls, teenagers, cry in your family room. They need something to eat, and you need a minute away from them. You walk to the snack drawer — next to the freezer, bottom drawer. There’s a bag of tortilla chips that’s stale, but they don’t seem to care.

You never paid much attention to Afghanistan before, but now you feel pressed, awkward. Afghanistan is right next to Iran. Does that make you complicit? There is going to be a war and people are sending anthrax around in envelopes. Even opening the mail can kill somebody now. You write “no” next to Taliban, terrorism, and war in your diary. If that’s in there with your most personal thoughts, people won’t think you’re lying, right? Don’t people know you want the world to be better?

Things change at school. It reminds you of the divide you felt last year during the election, one of the first times you realized people don’t get along. Is your dad going to fight in World War III? you wonder. Then you remind yourself that he is almost 40, safe because he’s too old. You draw words — elementary protest signs — opposing the war. Years later you learn about radicals and you want to become one. Maybe even for Iran.

High school is emotionally excruciating, but at least nobody seems to care about you being Iranian. It takes you years for you to realize it’s because you look just like your white American mother. You lucked out: People like your grandmother’s rice and call you exotic. Your friends never assume you’re Muslim (of course, as an arty kid, most of your friends are freshly declared atheists), or associate you with the threat of nuclear weapons. Instead, they thank you for bringing them headscarves back from Iran.

Barack Obama takes office, and over time the battles overseas and in your mind subside. Even in the summer of 2009, when the election is rigged and a quasi-rebellion hangs in the air, people side with the Iranian populace, especially after seeing a militiaman shoot Neda Agha-Soltan in the heart, the one death that overshadows Michael Jackson’s. Your worries subside a little, because it looks like Americans finally understand that Iranians are people.

You move to another city for college, opening up a new world — a world that, to your surprise, teaches Farsi. Obviously, you take it — you’re obligated. Maybe within a few years you’ll be less embarrassed, able to communicate with great aunts and uncles who never fully mastered English.

Introductory Persian is challenging, but manageable. There’s a good mix of students in your class: international affairs and political science majors, a handful of Iranians and halfies. You take every available class for your degree, and as you advance you feel further behind. Class sizes dwindle and your handicap sticks out more: your accent, your cruddy compositions you can barely read, your inability to roll your tongue or sound out unfamiliar letters.

At home, you felt Iranian. Your grandparents practically lived with you — for a few years they did live with you. Your father, the patriarch, decides everything. You eat rice and eggplant stew for dinner at least once a week. You dance with your hands at loud parties. But here, among real Iranians, you are different. You don’t look like them or speak like them. You realize you are not very Iranian at all. Something is wrong, and it’s you.

You are 24 on Election Day when you pull into a church parking lot to cast your vote for the country’s first potential female president. Today feels symbolic. The system of buildings connected to the church used to be your school. The swings and slide are still there in the front playground where the older kids spent recess. You smile at the porch outside the room where you learned about September 11th, but right now your mind’s set on the future.

You’re on a friend’s couch, eyes rapt on the television, cracking open a beer because you’re starting to worry. You tell yourself it can’t happen, but at the same time you’re not surprised about certain states. You know a state that won’t let people use the bathroom is going to vote red. Perhaps you see more evil in the world — by this point, you know damn well that not everyone is considered a person. And you’re right. Another red state, another beer. You seek comfort in addition, calculating the electoral vote. You try to think about the FiveThirtyEight projection that turns out to be horribly wrong. Michigan’s results come in and you know numbers can’t help anymore.

You only worry about yourself a little, because in the second debate he approached the “Iran issue” like a business deal. Iran has oil, saffron, caviar. Messing with Iran when all you care about is money is moronic. You’re fretting over everyone else you care about: those who really have something to lose. You can’t believe that voters would put so many people in danger to keep their sense of superiority and enjoy slashed taxes — never mind, you can.

“I’ll be okay, but I’m afraid for everyone else,” becomes your new motto.

You aren’t Muslim — hell, you can pass for one hundred percent white girl, or at least Jewish — but you are a dual citizen. Your existence is tied to a place news commentators think is bad. At this point, you don’t want to believe he’ll take charge. That denial won’t fade.

Your existence is tied to a place news commentators think is bad.
Click To Tweet

And you’re angry with everyone who voted for him, everyone who thought they were more important than all those people who have something at stake — like your stepmother, whose child shares your Iranian blood. As a pacifist, you understand where she comes from to a degree, but you’re still angry, because that language didn’t spark a shred of hesitation or concern.

And you know they ignored him because they thought they had nothing at risk, even though you know they did.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

January comes and everyone starts quoting Orwell. 1984 becomes a bestseller again, but you think the country’s become like Animal Farm. People who wanted to keep their power are about to lose it. You have to be more than white to have power these days — you have to be the one percent of the one percent. A hundredth.

It’s kind of funny, actually, because this “dystopia” people say America is becoming is based on real historical events, as all dystopia is. Government corruption is inevitable. People just don’t care unless, or until, it’s personal.

His name is inescapable. You can’t stand to use it, to acknowledge that the “freest country in the world” was that easy to con, so you call him The Government. The guy you used to make fun of in middle school is the President, and now there are thousands of rich white males who want to annihilate people you care about from this hypocritical conglomeration called democracy.

Less than a week before you’re supposed to leave the country, the government tries to enforce a travel ban. No Muslims. By this point, you know that “Muslim” just means brown, or white but not white enough. Iran is on that list of seven countries. The fear that haunted you a decade ago rushes back because he’s trying to start a war. Iran isn’t the same as it was 30 years ago, but you know most people here don’t know that. No, they don’t care to know. For the first time in your life, you are afraid to exist.

There’s a protest at the airport tomorrow. You have to go. You have to. You spend hours assembling an Iranian flag from nine pieces of construction paper, exacerbating the tendinitis in your elbow, to draw the four crescents to scale. The next morning, you become inspired to write “TRUMP IS THE NEW SHAH” on your masterpiece, but first you need a silver Sharpie. If you aren’t going to mince words, then people need to be able to see them clearly.

You talk to your dad about it. The government is horrible, you say, but seeing so many people come together gives you hope. Movements are afoot. “You didn’t grow up in a totalitarian government,” he responds. He doesn’t have to say anything else to assert that you don’t understand.

If you aren’t going to mince words, then people need to be able to see them clearly.
Click To Tweet

Your parents don’t want you to drive to the airport — they don’t want you there at all. They’re worried about you getting stuck in traffic, detained, harassed, hurt. “People are crazy,” they say, and emotionally exhausted, you pass out. You don’t think Atlanta will become Tehran, but you also don’t want to argue.

You realize you’ve taken your luxuries for granted far too long. That others have dealt with far worse for far longer.

At work the next morning, your boss cracks a joke about a coworker not being able to come back from France. He’s unambiguously white — they all are.

“Sarra, you’re not a dual citizen, are you?” But you are, and you’re terrified. You’ll probably never get to see certain relatives again — your great aunt will die and you won’t even get to say goodbye. And you make sure to say it in a dry, distraught tone. It must have not worked, though, because those jokes keep coming back.

You’re still mad, three days later, at the airport. Of course, you actually have a reason to be scared. While your group works out a check-in mishap, you flip through family passports. First, you admire yours, and catch the place of birth: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA. Then you thumb through your dad’s. It doesn’t bear a city, just IRAN. It might as well say THREAT. You start breaking down in TSA because your father’s passport bears a word that shouldn’t be heavy. He tells you not to cry, but you’re convinced the law will capsize in a few days and you won’t be able to come back, that he’ll get taken away. The pressure weighs you down like a wrecked car, compacting panic and pushing out tears.

You dad’s passport doesn’t bear a city, just IRAN. It might as well say THREAT.
Click To Tweet

You learned early on that being Iranian means you’re always on the defensive. That people will avoid your family and struggle to understand that Middle Easterners share their humanity. Maybe it doesn’t even matter who’s in charge of either country. People learned to hate the country that both is and isn’t yours long before you were born; they’ve just been invited to openly embrace that prejudice once more.

At least, you think, the government can’t take your tears away. So you just keep crying.

I almost hesitate to contribute to the flurry of commentary around the now infamous New York Times op-ed.

The Kavanaugh hearings demand the disinfecting sunlight of an O-type star—burning very hot and very bright—after all. But the subtext of the op-ed points to two of the most alarming things about Trumpism. First, the fact that most of its opponents—especially on the right—condemn Trump’s style rather than his substance; second, that as a result of this, the groundwork is already being laid for Trumpism sans Trump.

The op-ed is a not-so-subtle plea to do the very thing we must never do: blame Trump’s proto-fascism entirely on the personal failings and quirks of one man:

“We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

The editorial is, in truth, the confession of an enabler and—despite its nearly unprecedented nature as a devastatingly public betrayal from within—a very traditionally Washington attempt by the author to position themselves for future jobs.

As scathing as the press has been about Trump and his omnishambolic government, there remain two glowing bright spots where even they must buckle and fawn in praise: American military strikes (let us recall Brian Williams’ woeful misunderstanding of Leonard Cohen’s music when the anchor said he was “guided by the beauty of our weapons”), and the mythic “adults in the room” of the Trump White House. These are the “men of honour,” mostly ex-military, who are supposedly sacrificing themselves to be close to Trump, and thus are able to restrain him.

The op-ed author made sure they eagerly claimed the “adult” title, and with good reason: Their audience was not ordinary Americans, but the country’s intelligentsia—political operatives, the non-profit world, academics, and journalists. It was a lullaby meant to reassure them that the “adults in the room” were real, implicitly noble conservatives who put “country first.” In that vein of media-friendly mythologizing, the coup de grace was shamelessly grabbing onto the coattails of the late John McCain’s newly sewn, saint-like hagiography.

The editorial is the confession of an enabler and a very traditionally Washington attempt by the author to position themselves for future jobs.
Click To Tweet

Why? Remember that this administration has been uniquely radioactive for its employees and officials. Normally a White House stint is a golden ticket to plum jobs worldwide. That’s not proven true for Trump’s feckless adjutants, however. There’s a skin-deep stain of association with things like Trump’s Charlottesville remarks, where he praised neo-Nazis, insisting there were “good people on both sides” of a one-sided assault—acts which culminated in a terror attack that cost a young socialist counterprotester her life and injured many others.

“Out, damned spot!” cry Trump’s staffers and murderous ministers. They scrub feverishly in hopes of removing the mark that might keep them from a lifetime of corporate boards and preselection for safe seats. Painting themselves as the “adults in the room” media darlings—snatching the halo unworthily bestowed on Chief of Staff John Kelly or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis—is the only way they might cleanse themselves.

We shouldn’t allow this to work. The true thesis of the op-ed is “Trump is horrible, we know, but we’re good people, really.” The signal is sent up, particularly to other conservatives and the baleful number of credulous liberals who still desperately need to believe in the “compassionate conservative”:

“Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.”

Take them at their word. Don’t get them wrong. They’re right wing and fine with the continual looting of our country and its imperialist ambitions. They just don’t want to be as uncouth and “anti-trade” as Trump. But for malingering as they have, like a long lasting cold, they deserve no mercy or sympathy.

As this is the umpteen-thousandth take on the op-ed I’ll only delve into one more issue, which I feel hasn’t received its due attention. The op-ed is deliberately designed to instill complacency. The last section, which invokes the ghost of Senator McCain in an unintentionally apposite way, is a call to lay down arms.

“The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility. Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.”

The author blames us all for our fate. We allowed ourselves to sink low with Trump, and even our opposition to him is darkened by his long shadow. Aside from the fact that one should always beware anyone peddling “no labels” as a solution to social problems—even the Bible begins with a parable about the importance and power of naming things—this is the bit of the op-ed where you see the oil leaking.

The allegations in the op-ed are deadly serious, and yet that merely indicts the author further for their craven complicity. Even now Republicans are lamenting that the op-ed has backfired because it will make it harder to “contain” Trump. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) went so far as to validate the piece’s major claims about Trump, yet still laments its publication. They represent a perverse GOP consensus with the author: although Trump can be removed, they’d rather control him. No matter who gets hurt.

There’s something slick about it all; it’s all Trump’s fault, but it’s also the nation’s fault. Who’s not at fault? The author, and their cadre of “resistive” but polite proto-fascists.

This sly nonsense should be met with resistance worthy of that name; it is how we’ll deal with the immediate crisis of Trump and the aftermath of rebuilding a shattered society. Resistance must not be limited to opposing one man; it must address itself to the conditions that made him possible—such as the venality of operatives like this anonymous official. We must dispense with the comforting myth that these “adults in the room” are anything but efficient enablers.

In a word: fight. Treacly unity smothered by the flag is precisely the sort of sleepwalking that led us into Trump’s fever dream. To get out of it, we’ll have to dare to call things what they are, disobey—and horror of horrors—break decorum.

The author wants to tamp down on this as it might upend their plush boardroom chair. No more or less.

The author soft-pedals the “adults in the room” line as “cold comfort.” It’s no comfort at all to know that an administrative coup—with repercussions that will far outlast this presidency—is taking place and lies in the hands of such cowardly people that they’d sacrifice us all to Trump’s furies for a tax cut.

There is but one ice-bath of cold comfort in this mess: the knowledge that Trump himself is absolutely tormented by the question of who wrote the op-ed, and that its author is equally tormented by their tell-tale-heart beating beneath the White House floorboards.

When the two finally meet, each will see the other and find himself; they’ll know, silently, that they deserve each other.

By the time the waiter came to take our drink orders, K had asked if I’d ever been married and if I wanted kids. I admit there was something exhilarating about the directness, like a game of truth or dare.

K’s pupils were a little too black—too fixed somehow—making me wonder if he were on drugs, but perhaps it was just the contrast against his pale, grey irises. Other than the intensity of his stare, K looked just like his profile picture — tall, square-jawed, boasting a buzz cut and a tan.

By the time the waiter came back with our drinks, K had ascertained the length of my last relationship and whether I rented or owned.

“What about politics?” he asked. “Do you lean left or right?”

“Left.”

K held up his forearms like goal posts, in case he wasn’t being clear.

“Hillary or Trump?” I looked him dead between the goalposts and laughed.

“Bernie!”

K lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “You don’t know about the socialist plans he has for our country?”

“Socialist plans?” I repeated loudly. “You mean like equal access to healthcare and education? Hell yeah!”

K had no comeback. He must have though the s-bomb would resolve the conflict swiftly and decisively in his favor, and now he was stuck without exit strategy.

I looked down the barrel of his black pupils. “Are you a Trump supporter?” I asked.

He blinked. “I’m a Conservative Republican.”

“That’s not the same thing. Not all conservative Republicans support Trump.”

“I support a lot of what Trump’s trying to do,” he said, “but I get frustrated with all the red tape.”

“I know,” I said sweetly. “You can’t just tweet and make it so — thank God!”Just then the poor waiter returned in hopes of a dinner order.

“I’m ready,” K said.

“Cheater, you must’ve read the menu online before we got here.” I’d barely glanced at the thing.

“No, I’m just good at making decisions. I know what I want.”

I felt him watching smugly as I perused the menu, which had suddenly come to signify my every life choice. My exes flashed before my eyes:

Pasture-raised New England beefcake, roasted over spent uranium fuel rods from the decommissioned nuclear power plant, then smothered in Grade A maple syrup and topped with organic jealous greens.

Free-range Coque au Mexique, raised on a diet of GMO-free corn, Saturday morning cartoons, and ‘90s sitcoms, with just a savory hint of macho seasoning.

Wild-caught south shore man-child, marinated in academia until soft and flaky, served over a cannabis and Adderall comfit.

After the waiter finally made off with my order of Gorgonzola and sweet potato ravioli (analyze that) I tried to steer the conversation back to safer waters. I asked about K’s travels: Zion National Park, I’ve been there too! Bryce Canyon, beautiful, isn’t it? Colorado, great hiking! Afghanistan, Syria, umm…

His OkCupid profile hadn’t mentioned military service. Unfortunately, the subject of Syria lead us to the subject of refugees, which led us to the subject of immigration, the political issue with which I’m most personally involved.

“You think ICE is actually separating families?” K asked. “Or you’re just afraid of that happening?” (This was a few weeks before we awoke to images of ICE agents ripping children from their parents’ arms.)

I slapped my hand on the table. “It’s happening alright! Three blocks from here, there is a woman living in a church basement to avoid being deported and separated from her American-born children. She’s afraid of being sent back to Russia where she faces persecution because of her sexual orientation.”

“Wait, she’s a lesbian and she has children? I’m still confused how that works…”

I sighed. Loudly. “It works, okay?” Now was not the time to educate a 38-year-old man about the birds, the bees, and the butterflies.

I plowed on with the story of Irida Kakhtiranova and launched into that of Lucio Perez, the heteronormative father of four from Guatemala, who has sought sanctuary in another local church since October. I’ve gotten to know the Perez family personally through my volunteer work with immigrants’ rights groups. K nodded sympathetically as I described the emotional and financial toll on the family.

Now was not the time to educate a 38-year-old man about the birds, the bees, and the butterflies.
Click To Tweet

“I still don’t think Muslims should be allowed in this country.”

“Excuse me?”

He said it so casually I thought I’d misheard.

I hadn’t.

“In my experience, all Muslims want to kill us.”

Suddenly the waiter swooped in with our plates. I stared at the little pile of limp gluten before me. My mind raced. Should I just walk out? Throw my food in his face? My shoe? Could I even get it off in time? Why didn’t I wear slip-ons instead of lace-up boots?

Here was my big chance to stand in solidarity with my Muslim friends and neighbors, but something deep inside me resisted making a scene.

Partly it had to do with being an introvert. It’s also not easy to go against generations of social conditioning that make accommodating men and their opinions, no matter how unacceptable, almost second nature. And if I did call K what he was — a bigoted Islamophobe — I could be labeled hysterical, or a snowflake. A hysterical snowflake.

I took a deep breath. I was too upset to muster my most logical arguments (more crimes are committed against Muslim immigrants than by Muslim immigrants; high-skilled tech workers will go to China instead). But why should I need data and statistics to justify the basic humanity of 1.8 billion people?

“All Muslims?” I said. “Every single man, woman, and child? You can’t say that. You just can’t.”

“When I was over there, even the kids wanted to kill us.”

“That was war. You were occupying their land. Of course they wanted to kill you.”

“I’ve read the Quran,” he said. (And yet he obviously didn’t make it all the way through my OkCupid profile). “Mohamed was not a peaceful guy.”

K calmly munched his steak tips and scallops, while I ranted about religious interpretation.

“You just can’t make blanket statements about an entire of religious or ethnic group. You just can’t. How do you like it when people make sweeping generalizations about Christians? About people in the military?”

To my surprise he set down his fork.

“You’re right,” he said. “You can’t.” A couple of mouthfuls later, “You’ve given me a new perspective.”

I paused and met his eyes. Was he just saying this to shut me up? I’ll never know why he uttered those five words, but it allowed us to get through the rest of dinner quickly and peacefully and part with a firm handshake.

Just how did I end up here? Nothing in K’s online profile hinted at such extreme views. He was the right age, fit, attractive, enjoyed travel and the outdoors; he loved dogs and children.

He did mention that he had “high standards”— “too high,” according to friends — but haven’t we all heard that if we are still single over 30, let alone 35?

And if K had such high standards, why did he offer to drive a hundred miles from northwest Connecticut, to Northampton, Massachusetts of all places—the western outpost of the liberal elite empire—to meet a woman whose only qualifying characteristics were age, availability, and attractiveness?

Nothing in K’s online profile hinted at such extreme views.
Click To Tweet

If he had dug just a little into my profile he would have more-than-discovered my political leanings, or at least inferred it based on other information. I’m sure they’re out there, but I have yet to meet an MFA in Creative Writing, or a human service worker, who is a Trump supporter.

But in truth, if K pegged me based on education, profession, and place of residence, he would have been engaging in the same kind of gross generalizations I’d just called him out for.

Recent, compelling—but not shocking—research by Yale Professor Gregory Huber and Neil Malhotra of Stanford show that shared political beliefs factor significantly in our choice of romantic partners. And according to the authors of a 2013 study entitled,“The Dating Preferences of Liberals and Conservatives,” online dating contributes to America’s polarization by making it easier to sort partners by political affiliation.

If I remember correctly, earlier versions of OkCupid listed members’ political affiliation in a sidebar with other basic stats like age, height, education, and astrological sign. Maybe now you have to pay $29.99 a month to find out if you match a Scorpio or a xenophobe?

Malhotra and Stanford colleague Robert Willer argue—check out the TED talk—that the danger of this kind of unnatural selection breeds “ideological silos.” Without exposure to dissenting viewpoints, both sides become more extreme in their ideology.

This perspective makes me feel better about having stuck it out and attempting civil conversation with K. However, I also refuse to accept that religious pluralism is an extremist view. It’s one thing to debate democratic socialism over the dinner table, but it’s quite another to call into question respect for basic human rights.

I noticed that K ordered steak tip and scallop salad—the first item on the menu. Maybe the problem wasn’t high standards, but a failure to appreciate the full range of options, in life and in love.

Former White House advisor David Axelrod tweeted today:

Kind of amazed and appalled by the number of folks on Left who applauded the expulsion of @PressSec and her family from a restaurant.

This, in the end, is a triumph for @realDonaldTrump vision of America:

Now we’re divided by red plates & blue plates!

#sad

The only thing that triumphed here is Mike Huckabee-esque anti-humor.

Meanwhile, a more sober take comes to us from the Washington Post editorial board, whose genteel relativism urges us to “let the Trump team eat in peace”:

Those who are insisting that we are in a special moment justifying incivility should think for a moment how many Americans might find their own special moment. How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families?

It’s not hard at all to imagine what a moral emergency looks like to the extreme right. They’ve murdered abortion doctors and shot up clinics already. We were living in the Post’s grim dystopia for decades before this point. Right-wing extremists, hopped up on their eschatological visions of the world, have indeed taken matters into their own hands repeatedly. They’ve committed massacres at mosques and schools, and from the Pizzagate crowd — deep in thrall to an alternate universe without peer even among the wild fever dreams of conservatism — we’ve only narrowly avoided mass shootings at a pizza parlor and a homeless camp in Arizona.

Thus, I’m less than perturbed at the fact that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was politely asked to leave a restaurant — indeed, she was even told the food she’d already been served was “on the house.” More uncivil, arguably, was the DSA protest that drove Kirstjen Nielsen from a Mexican restaurant in downtown DC, but this involved no violence either and was eminently fair as she’s a cabinet secretary in a public place. By her own claim, she was having a “working dinner” at the restaurant, to boot. So even the Post’s “private time” distinction hardly applies.

The truth is that for all of the recent handwringing about civility, the methods now being employed against the administration’s core supporters are actually quite civil. The manner in which Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave was actually the portrait of civility; it was a communal decision taken by staff, she was informed of the decision in private and politely asked to leave, and was not charged for any orders that had already been delivered. So what happened, exactly? Well, she was shunned. A social consequence was applied to her actions as Press Secretary that served as a powerful reminder: What she does is not normal, and should not be taken lightly.

This seems to be less the embrace of Trumpism than its precise opposite: the enforcement of normative moral standards through the application of polite, non-violent social consequences for immoral acts.

Why Punching Nazis Is Not Only Ethical, But Imperative
theestablishment.co

Trumpism, by its nature, is consequence-free. Just witness how Huckabee Sanders herself abused her power as Press Secretary to publicize the incident on her government account, leveraging her status and calling down a rain of abuse on the restaurant. That she used her @PressSec account to do this is a violation of White House ethics policy. It won’t matter.

This is one of many problems with Trumpism. Scott Pruitt’s bizarre, expensive peccadilloes and overt ethical violations as EPA secretary haven’t cost him his job; Kellyanne Conway spruiking Ivanka Trump’s fashion line in her official capacity didn’t cost her hers; Trump himself experiences next to no oversight from the Republican-dominated Congress and routinely positions himself as being above the law — his simpering defenders on cable news argue much the same.

Therefore, an ordinary citizen took it upon herself to quietly, politely, apply a much needed consequence to a member of a government that thinks itself beyond responsibility to anything but Trump’s whims. That doesn’t seem like a validation of Trumpian callousness, but a repudiation of it.

Trumpism, by its nature, is consequence-free.
Click To Tweet

Of course, when you use the smooth, overgeneralizing language of the Posteditorial board — the same rhetorical gesture that categorizes even life-or-death political battles as “disagreements” — this can all be effaced. One act of incivility is as bad as another. I’d dispute that the Red Hen owner’s actions were uncivil, but even in a case where a dollop of rudeness was at play, like the Nielsen protest, such things are necessary for exactly the same reason: Without these mechanisms, these people would experience no meaningful consequences for engineering and supporting horrors.

The people are doing the checking and balancing that our government will not. We should be much more worried that we’ve arrived at that point than about the politesse of a private citizen.

But if we must indulge the “civility” discussion, then it’s worth saying that these acts of civic protest remain peaceful. They are a humane response to inhumanity, and, frankly, one more manifestation of democracy and decency. People who support this administration’s cruel Zero Tolerance regime, whether from a White House podium or from a Twitter account spewing memes and hashtags, should be made to experience the power of shunning. It is, at bottom, a peaceful way to say “this is not okay, and you should go away and think about what you’ve done; then you can rejoin society.”

The people are doing the checking and balancing that our government will not.
Click To Tweet

Furthermore, unlike, say, “conscience”-driven bigots who wish to use Christian belief to refuse service to LGBT people, the owner of the Red Hen wasn’t antagonizing any class Huckabee Sanders belonged to. She was responding to Huckabee Sanders’ actions as an individual. The very things she, and she alone, are responsible for. In another time, conservatives might’ve called that “personal responsibility.”

Shunning is harsh in its way — we are social creatures, after all — but it is also humane and non-violent. In short, it is civil. Even better, it’s grassroots. Citizens are taking their responsibilities seriously. As the Red Hen owner said, “This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

That’s more than can be said for Huckabee Sanders, Miller, or Nielsen, who rely on a consequence-free environment in order to do their dirty work.

I’ve often been leery of applying the language of interpersonal abuse dynamics to politics. “Gaslighting” is a word perilously close to being defined out of all meaning, just as “trigger” has been all but stolen from trauma survivors. But there is merit in the observation that abusers define any resistance to their actions as rude and uncivil, that they apply one standard to themselves and another to any who might raise a voice against them. That’s long been the case here.

What Huckabee Sanders experienced was nothing compared to what she’s propagandized for from her podium. She goes home to a warm bed and her loving family, not a cage where she sleeps on concrete under foil; her children will not be parted from her before being spirited through a ramshackle, Kafkaesque prison system that refuses to track its wards.

The Atrocities On Our Border Prove Trump’s Base
Isn’t Worth Talking To
theestablishment.co

A powerful government secretary was denied the momentary privilege of eating at a specific nice restaurant. Even if I had tears left to shed, this would be the last thing to draw them from me. If these people are so concerned about civility in restaurants, then perhaps they can more aggressively take ICE to task for incidents like this.

We should not fall into the moral trap of analogizing a children’s prison camp to a principled denial of service. Or, indeed, analogizing the latter to Jim Crow or shops that discriminate against queer people, as a breathtaking number of people have done in the last few days. We must be smarter and more discerning than this. We owe that much to ourselves.

Where The Washington Post sees sorrow, I see hope. If our government cannot hold its leaders accountable, then the people must.

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

Dear Mothers,

Not mine.

My mother was allowed in the country without questions — an infant in her arms. My mother was given a green card and told to go forth and prosper in the American Dream. She knew only elementary English.

My mother got a job quickly. She stayed with the same company for decades and rose through the ranks. Bootstraps. My mother had a salary; not extravagant, but enough to take care of me.

My mother became a citizen 17 years after she stepped onto American soil — never once afraid of deportation in the interim. My mother was naturalized and no one was excited but us. A quiet assumption: She was American. Like them.

A “good” immigrant with auburn hair and seafoam eyes. A model immigrant for posters hanging in U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices.

My mother is white.

I am brown.

Dear Anyone Who Is Listening
theestablishment.co

Brown like the mothers who are seized at U.S. borders. Mothers who cannot move so freely through the world for fear of having their children ripped from their arms as they await trial for crimes they did not commit. Brown like the mothers seeking asylum. Mothers who want the same safety for their children my mother provided me. The same chance afforded to my mother as she arrived in a new country. I am brown like the mothers in holding cells, wondering if their children will survive in internment camps.

My mother’s whiteness afforded me the safety to grow up in her arms, not a cage. My mother’s whiteness afforded me protection from a system that criminalizes mothers who look like me. I am often plagued by the idea that if I were my mother, trying to do what is best for my child, my story would not be so kind.

So, Dear Mothers:

You deserve safety.
You deserve respect.
You deserve humanity.

You deserve to live a life like my immigrant mother.

Mothers, I love you.

The Trump administration is engaged in an all-out war against abortion rights—and pregnant immigrants are on the front lines.

Joey Thompson/Unsplash

Since 1973, the Constitution has prohibited the government from imposing an “undue burden” on a person’s right to choose what’s best for their reproductive health. Immigrants to the United States, authorized or otherwise, have never been excluded from that constitutional right — until now.

Currently, the Trump administration is engaged in several simultaneous battles that constitute what is an all-out war against women and gender-nonconforming people’s reproductive rights. Forty-five years after Roe v. Wade ensured the right to abortion, the Trump administration is trying its best to slowly chip away at the precedent set by the landmark Supreme Court ruling, and they’re starting with a population that is one of the most vulnerable in Trump’s America — pregnant undocumented immigrants.

“They come to our country and find themselves pregnant and under the control of the state in a way that is so profound it is hard to overstate,” says Michelle Oberman, professor of law and author of Her Body, Our Laws.

“They’re young and far away from caring adults, many have been victims of sexual violence, and now they find themselves pregnant and in custody. To watch these cases play out is to understand how fully a government might assert control over a person’s reproductive autonomy.”

Since last October, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a subsidiary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has operated with complete disregard for Roe v. Wade protections, as well. Under the leadership of ORR Director Scott Lloyd, the federally funded office has attempted to block at least four undocumented minors — the Janes Doe, Poe, Roe and, most recently, Moe — from obtaining abortions, the most recent of which occurred in late January.

‘To watch these cases play out is to understand how fully a government might assert control over a person’s reproductive autonomy.’

The Constitution does not withhold any inalienable rights from immigrants. The Fourteenth Amendment, which ensures that no state entity can deprive a person of their life, liberty, or property without due process, or deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the law, is particularly relevant—and oft-challenged—in immigration law proceedings. But with so many different government entities overseeing various aspects of the immigration process, pockets of grey area have emerged and allowed the Trump administration to show its hand with regard to their plans for longterm abortion rights reform.

“I just have not seen anything quite this brazen from a federal or state government before,” says Brigitte Amiri, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

“They have, in each brief, doubled down on going further in their quest to coerce young women to carry their pregnancies to term by forcing them to go to religiously-affiliated crisis pregnancy centers, telling parents in their home countries about the abortion decisions—even if that means harm potentially to the minor or other family members—and that’s all a coercion tactic to try to force the young woman to carry her pregnancy to term. And if those tactics fail, they basically say, ‘We’re not going to let you access abortion.’ They hold them hostage to prevent them from accessing an abortion—just when I think it can’t get any more extreme, it does.”

In their initial filing concerning Jane Doe last October, the ACLU positioned their case as a class action lawsuit “on behalf of a class of similarly situated pregnant unaccompanied immigrant minors in the legal custody of the federal government.”

I Had An Abortion Because I Love My Son

According to the ACLU’s court documentation, the federal government reported that in Fiscal Year 2016, 59,692 unaccompanied minors were referred to the ORR. “The class is so numerous that joinder is impracticable,” asserted the documentation, meaning that it is impossible to calculate exactly how many undocumented immigrant minors would be affected by the outcome of the class action lawsuit. “In any given year, there are hundreds of pregnant unaccompanied minors in defendants’ custody.”

And the Trump administration has not limited their attacks to solely undocumented minors, either.

In the appendix of Trump’s 2019 budget request, which he sent to Congress in early February, there is language that would give any employee working under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the right to refuse to facilitate the procurement of an abortion for any immigrant woman—whether the federal government is paying for the procedure or not.

ICE has never been allowed to use federal funds for abortion services unless the life of the person carrying is at risk, or the pregnancy is a result of rape and/or incest, but detainees who wanted an abortion outside those circumstances were still allowed to procure one if they came up with the funds themselves.

Now, under the proposed stipulations of Trump’s 2019 budget recommendation, ICE officials and employees who are morally or philosophically opposed to abortion wouldn’t have to aid in the facilitation of the services, a contentious caveat to Roe v. Wade eerily reminiscent of the birth control rollback mandate made late last year (which was ultimately blocked at the district court level in December).

In a vacuum, this proposed facilitative change wouldn’t be quite such a cause for alarm — Trump’s proposal is just that, a proposal — but this is not an isolated circumstance.

Between January and April of last year, ICE detained nearly 300 pregnant women, often in breach of the organization’s own protocol for dealing with expectant immigrant mothers. This led the ACLU to filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of Inspector General in September 2017. They called upon the governing bodies to investigate ICE’s treatment of pregnant people in its custody.

Then, as recently as Thursday, according to a report from The Daily Beast, the Trump administration released an executive order unequivocally ending an Obama-era policy that limited the detainment of pregnant women in ICE custody to only “extraordinary circumstances.”

As for the Janes, the ACLU has thus far been successful at securing their abortions. U.S. district court judge Tanya S. Chutkan is the presiding judge who’s ordered the Trump administration to allow the Janes to get their abortions on a case by case basis thus far. Yesterday, she ruled that the ACLU will be able to proceed with their class action suit, effectively blocking the ORR from preventing undocumented minors in their charge from seeking an abortion in the meantime.

But no permanent change or established protections for pregnant undocumented minors will occur until the courts determine whether the ORR has the jurisdiction to circumvent constitutional precedent on the basis of its leader’s religious beliefs and questionably revised operational protocol.

How U.S. Policies Shape Abortion Rights Around The World

In March of last year, according to ACLU court documentation, the ORR quietly revised its policies not only in flagrant disregard of Roe v. Wade’s constitutional precedent, but in conflict with its own ORR-specific protocol set forth in 1997 by the Flores v. Reno Settlement Agreement.

The Flores Agreement, more than 20 years old, legally obligates the ORR to provide care to the young people under its jurisdiction—specifically including family planning services and reproductive health care. The revisions to these provisions last March effectively prohibited all federally funded shelters from taking any action that facilitates abortion access for unaccompanied minors in their care without direction and approval from the ORR.

It bears noting that Lloyd, the current director of the ORR, is vehemently anti-choice. Under his jurisdiction, young people fleeing violent home lives in other countries are doubly suffering due to his unyieldingly “pro-life” stance.

Lloyd’s personal beliefs, and the Trump administration’s unveiled aversion to a person’s right to determine their own reproductive future, have dually contributed to a cultural climate in which it is not unreasonable to fear a future in which Roe v. Wade has no constitutional tack at all.

According to the New York Times, “It was unclear late Friday whether the Trump administration would appeal the ruling.”

Under Scott Lloyd’s jurisdiction, young people fleeing violent home lives in other countries are doubly suffering due to his unyieldingly ‘pro-life’ stance.

The possibility that they will is quite plausible, seeing as the administration has challenged several rulings related to the Janes since the first case occurred last October.

As the Trump administration continues to operate with little regard for the constitutional precedent that should govern all of its subsidiaries, this outcome of this class action could be monumental.

“The unique time that we are in is where a federal appointee, a Trump appointee, is setting policy that is blocking young women from being able to obtain an abortion — shaming and stigmatizing them on top of everything they’ve already been through — and (is) being supported in his decision,” says Amiri.

“This isn’t a rogue government employee. This is a Trump appointee who has the backing of clearly much higher-ups. The Department of Justice is defending Scott Lloyd’s action to the full degree. I think that’s also what’s surprising, is that there isn’t anyone in federal government at the higher level saying, ‘What you’re doing is not only blatantly unconstitutional under well-established Supreme Court precedent, but it is also just downright cruel, the treatment of these young women.’

I think that’s what’s really scary to me. There is no check on Scott Lloyd’s ideologically-driven attempts to coerce and block young women from accessing abortion despite the fact that it’s blatantly unconstitutional. I think that signals what’s going on in our federal government in general. We know we have a president who has vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade.”

So, what’s next?

“We are relieved that the court issued an order preventing the administration from continuing this practice while our case proceeds,” says Amiri. “With yesterday’s rulings, we are one step closer to ending this extreme policy once and for all and securing justice for all of these young women.”

Amiri says the ACLU will now push forward in the district court, seeking documents from the government and asking for depositions of Scott Lloyd and others. When that is completed in several months, the case will be decided finally with a trial or briefs—and, one hopes, the decision will align with justice.

Looking For A Comments Section? We Don’t Have One.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/every-day-can-be-a-horror-story-if-you-tell-it-right-f9588d3f9d5b-2/ Thu, 08 Feb 2018 22:09:19 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=4056 Read more]]> I’m not talking here, deliberately, about the give and take of sexual play, of dominance, of submission. I’m talking about images grafted into my brain against my will.

Content warning: sexual violence

The other day I walked to work in a rage, for no reason exactly, except for every reason. And as I walked, I prayed for someone to say it to me. I scowled and stomped. One foot, two foot, up then down, hard and harder: Say it. Say it. Say it.

Will some motherfucker please just say it?

Tell me to smile.

And oh, how magnificently I would have blazed. The bus would’ve stopped mid turn; women pushing strollers would’ve cheered; some man would’ve called me a crazy bitch and I would have laughed. Yes, I am. Today I sure am.

But the street left me in peace. And I remembered a woman I know, pregnant and past the assigned due date, anxious, not wanting to be induced. Since I couldn’t fight, I thought I’d try and be of use, and called her. Listened. Then, she went off to finish a painting, and I walked into my school to teach Horror Writing to teenagers.

What is the thing you fear? That one thing. Write it down on the page, your eyes only.

Now, come up with an image for that thing. Write it down.

Anyone want to share?

Oh, how magnificently I would have blazed.
Click To Tweet

A white room with white walls that morphs into a long white tunnel with no end. A doppelganger that is you, but not you. A locked door, without escape. Someone in your home, waiting for you when you arrive.

Now, what is the idea behind the thing? What are you really scared of?

I name mine: fear of enclosed spaces; a sealed wooden box like a coffin; fear of the loss of control.

The students nod. They write down the fear behind the fear in their notebooks. For their eyes only. In an oft-cited quote of Stephen King’s, there are three types of horror: the gross-out, the horror (aka the supernatural), and the terror — that feeling that the unknown has been made manifest; that those secret, intuited fears are in fact a reality.

The Dropped Trump Case Reminds Us That No Rape Is ‘Believable’

One of the women who has come forward, and retreated, with charges against our president says she was 13 when he raped her. She says that at a party he tied her up (he would have had to use ropes, maybe belts, perhaps his tie) and forced his penis into her vagina over and over again until his pleasure at this act — this tied up, terrified, naked child — peaked into an orgasm and he ejaculated. I suppose he then untied her. She has said she’s repeatedly dropped the suit because of death threats, to her and her family.

Before you get all righteous and Democratic about the fact such an individual is our president, remember how very many allow it, participate, are not outraged. And think of this: When articles of impeachment were introduced in the House in December, the House, Republicans and Democrats united, voted to table the article, effectively sidelining it, 364–58.

At lunch, the woman-identifying students gather in the library for our weekly affinity group. They fill me in, how last Friday, S. went to the deli and a man on the street tried to talk to her. She ignored him, and crossed the street. He followed behind her. He said, “Are you going to ignore me? I’ll punch your fucking face in.” She ran, and he chased. She made it safely into school, but said later that the fear would not leave her body.

A billboard flown across the horizon line of the beach this past summer; a headless woman in a bikini. Get this body. Now.

She made it safely into school, but said later that the fear would not leave her body.
Click To Tweet

I was at a party yesterday, an afternoon gathering, and my two-and-a-half-year-old child wanted to nurse. There were soft couches and chairs in that room, it was un-crowded, I could have (I used to) sat on one of those couches and nursed and kept chatting and nibbling cookies. Instead, I was ashamed, and went with my son to the playroom and sat on the floor surrounded by plastic toys. It was fluorescent lit, low ceilinged, with no windows. I nursed alone with my back against the wall.

Already, I’m hearing it, disguised as inquiry. Has this gone too far? How powerful should an accusation be? How much weight should we give one woman’s word? What if they just mean it as banter? What place does flirting have in the workplace?

It’s the same as asking what she was wearing.

On the radio, a call-in for an intergenerational response to the wave of accusations, which is a disguised opportunity for older men to talk about how much they don’t understand what’s going on; that the standards have changed “so much,” and blah blah blah blah.

It’s happening again, the same again and again — the phenomenon of speaking out is the phenomenon being examined. Not the relentless physical and verbal assaults. Not what it means to live in bodies we call “girl” and “woman.” Not the fear that guides me away from the wooded path in the park, pushing my stroller towards more populated places, the hypothetical protection of more people present.

We are not talking about flirting. We know what flirting is.

It’s happening again, the same again and again—the phenomenon of speaking out is the phenomenon being examined.
Click To Tweet

Do you know the story of Cassandra? In an attempt to seduce her, Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy. Foreknowledge of the future. But when she refused him, he spit in her mouth, cursing her; though she would always know and speak the truth of what was to come, no one would ever believe her.

I remember being a kid with my mom in the park on a sleepy city summer day, pushing our bikes up the big hill, too tired to ride them, and these teenagers, these young boys, walking by and slapping my mother on the ass. I remember the strange slow-motion stillness that followed as we all continued to walk the steep hill, the boys laughing, and how there was nothing my mother or I could do about it. It was like the taste of fluoride at the dentist, the way it made my teeth hurt, the doing nothing, the disrespect of my all-powerful mother, the assigning of status.

Have you stood and looked at the array of magazines at a newsstand recently? I mean, really looked? Do that. Notice.

I am on the couch being intimate with my partner, who has a penis, and unbidden into my pleasure flashes a series of images — cinematic, not memories — of rape, assault, violence. I’m not talking here, deliberately, about the give and take of sexual play, of dominance, of submission. This is not about that. I’m talking about images grafted into my brain against my will.

#MeToo Has Made Me See Anyone Is Capable Of Sexual Abuse—Including Me

Forget the Bechdel test, try this one: Refuse to take in any images or scenes of a woman being beaten, arrested, tortured, raped, or killed. See what’s left.

(Hint: not a whole lot.)

Shall we review some numbers yet again?

1 in 6 women will experience an attempted or completed rape.

The majority of sexual assault takes place in or near the home.

The majority of offenders are people the victims know.

I don’t know any woman who has not been assaulted or threatened.

I don’t know any woman who knows a woman who has not been not assaulted or threatened.

To quote Stephen King exactly this time: “And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute.”

1 in 3 men would rape if they could get away with it.

1 in 16 men are rapists.

I know more than 16 men.