Identity & Refugeeism

We don’t get to forcibly decide or dictate through law who others are allowed to be, what they are allowed to say, where they are allowed to live and when, whether or not they are allowed to live at all, what value they are worth, or how they live. Notice, I said forcibly. That includes coercion. In doing so, we open ourselves up to the same. We normalize it.

We can only set boundaries, request dignity, offer it liberally when safe, decide what we accept as treatment from others and how we show up for others, and leave if it isn’t safe. We can only be the best we can be where we are, and everyone has a right to move for a better safer life.

Unchecked Violence is the cause of the modern immigration crisis.

It’s sexual violence glorified as an outlet in men in which we need to amend through porn and state sanctioned warfare techniques. We need to name it, it’s not violence against women, it’s violence in men. Slavery shaped the old world; trafficking has shaped the new one. It’s covert and no one’s wants to admit it.

Moving more bodies by force or by pen won’t help. It’s race based fear talking instead of problem solving and civilization building. This isn’t a hardware problem. The color of our bodies and where they are located in spacetime are less important as time goes forward. Our software needs an update.

We need to be able to hold space for multiple people having multiple painful experiences possibly due to each other and create systems of transparency, communication, mediation, and restoration for justice no matter where we are. Or when.

Who we are is who we show up in the world as, and an extension of who our ancestors were.

I do not believe in black, white, tan, yellow, or brown color and identity labels. We have rich histories and stories, we have to deconstruct the ideas of whiteness and blackness and replace it with unique stories that are true to heritages everywhere.

I’m not a beige person. Im not white. I’m not black, yellow, or brown.

I’m an English/ Irish and Lebanese woman by ethnicity; former American now applying to rep Canada by nationality. I’ll always opt for individual stories over overarching labels and narratives. They always cause harm and future consequences.