Identity & Refugeeism

On Sovereignty, Violence, and the Stories We Inherit

We do not hold the right to forcibly determine who others are permitted to be — what they may say, where and when they may exist, whether they are permitted to exist at all, what value they are assigned, or how they are allowed to live. And I mean forcibly — which includes coercion in all its forms. In exercising that force over others, we invite its return. We normalize it as a condition of civilization.

What we can do is set boundaries. Request dignity. Extend it generously where it is safe to do so. Decide what treatment we will accept and how we will show up for one another. Leave when it is no longer safe to stay. Everyone holds the right to move toward a safer, better life. That is not a political position — it is a human one.

Unchecked violence is the root cause of the modern immigration crisis — not culture, not economics, not the color of bodies moving across borders.

The violence in question is specific: it is violence endemic to masculinity, glorified and exported through pornography and for-profit state-sanctioned warfare. We need to name it with precision. This is not violence against women as a category — it is violence within men as a condition we have failed to address, treat, or hold accountable. Slavery structured the old world’s economy of bodies. Trafficking structures the new one — covertly, and by collective denial.

Relocating bodies by force or by legislation does not solve this. It is race-based fear performing as policy, mistaken for civilization-building. This is not a hardware problem. The pigmentation of our skin and the coordinates of our bodies in space and time are increasingly irrelevant. Our software needs an update.

We must develop the capacity to hold space for multiple people experiencing multiple, intersecting, sometimes mutually inflicted harms — and build systems of transparency, communication, mediation, and restorative justice capable of functioning across geography and time.

Who we are is who we show up as. It is also an extension of who our ancestors were.

I do not subscribe to the color-coded identity taxonomy of black, white, brown, tan, or yellow. These are not histories — they are administrative categories that flattened rich, specific, irreplaceable human stories into instruments of control. Whiteness and blackness as constructs must be deconstructed and replaced with the particular truths of actual heritages.

I am not beige. I am not white. I am not a color.

I am a woman of English, Irish, and Lebanese ancestry — formerly American, now seeking to claim Canada as home. I will always choose the individual story over the overarching label. Labels compress complexity into harm. They always have consequences.