"left"> But I remain as much a stranger today as I was the first day I arrived, and the children shout Neger! Neger! as I walk along the streets.
James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village.
There are painted gangs of raiders, arsonists, thugs. Masked. Those trying to survive the catastrophe look out for the painted ones. All are desperate, and given the world they live in, the raiders and the survivors carry guns. Both use these weapons but not to solve the trouble both groups are in. They use weapons to secure water, food, shelter. Twenty-four hours and seven days a week all are on alert. If Parable of the Sower reads as if there is no Right or Left, the two are indistinguishable, that's because they are but only recognize the Other as Other. Strangers.
Are they really?
I would prefer to write on what is happening in Gaza. Despite the effort of the US and UK governments' attempts to ban support for Gaza, I'm angry about my taxes contributing to the drone attacks that is intended to reduce Gaza to rubble. The reality of a fascist takeover in the US is real, as real as the US's dream of building a paradise for the wealthy where Palestinians lived.
In the US, the Trump administration, in violation of Posse Comitatus, has sent the military to assist ICE in rounding up immigrants, who might be standing in a group of three or four, speaking Spanish, or speaking with an accent or just appearing darker than white Americans. As a black American, I'm not asked here in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to show my papers, passport or driver's license, but I know the history of places such as South Africa where that was once a norm, in a majority black country.
Contrary to South Africa, where I live is an enclave of whiteness. At times, I feel as if I were the contamination, the threat, the criminal among others who look like me and who live where I was born, Chicago. For many in Wisconsin, Chicago is a crime-ridden city, filled with black and latino/a people aiming to rob if not kill white Americans. I imagine folks in Kenosha listen to Trump when he describes Chicago as a killing field.
I remember years ago, a now-deceased friend reminding me that I won't want to fit in a world that denies facts, the reality of a world without the mythical narrative of white innocence. White innocence blankets everything and makes it seem to those who believe that black Americans can never fit in - no more than immigrants here or Gazans living within a mythical narrative that describes them as outsiders. Hamas terrorists, every last one.
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