Entry tags:
Denial
When I spoke to my mother last week, I mentioned (among many other things) that when I want to see
papersky,
rysmiel, and
zorinth, I have to visit Montreal, because they don't feel safe coming to the United States to visit me.
Mom asked why, and I explained. This involved me giving a three-sentence summary of what happened to Maher Arar. Her response was that they had nothing to worry about because "They don't look Arab."
Right. I'm sure that's a great reassurance to them.
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Mom asked why, and I explained. This involved me giving a three-sentence summary of what happened to Maher Arar. Her response was that they had nothing to worry about because "They don't look Arab."
Right. I'm sure that's a great reassurance to them.
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The circumstantial evidence of Canadian complicity in (and cover-up of) his US detention and deportation is so obvious that if I was Arar I would seriously consider emigrating to another part of the English-speaking world.
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Too many foolish, scared people are lumping in all people of Middle-Eastern descent together, not caring if they're Arab or Jew, Muslim, Christian, or other. A bearded guy with swarthy skin is apparently the new Ming the Merciless.
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MKK
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Re: Denial
this is really tearing me up. the *poing* hates travelling, and i take to it much more easily, but i, too, don't want to go to the US anymore. and i don't look arab either. but, i don't trust the "homeland security" people at all, and being caucasian is just not the same as having civil rights, you know? i am weird in many ways. so a part of me is afraid, and the other part doesn't want to go because i am caucasian, and can't abide that my fellow human beings of swarthier skin are treated like second class people, or worse, are persecuted and abused like maher arar.
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I'm not sure if there is a place that is far enough away.
I keep thinking of the Jewish family with the foresight to get out of Germany immediately in 1933. They went to Amsterdam, which seemed like a safe enough thing to do. Their name was Frank.
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Because while I understand wariness of US Customs - let's remember, I went through having my fiancee ripped out of my arms, slapped in a jail cell, and shipped back to the UK only to nearly kill himself with grief and depression over the next 6 months until we could finally get him here properly - the angst I'm hearing from white people over how worried they are about current entrance visa procetures really smacks of a kind of co-opting of oppression that actually belongs to people of color. And I don't like it.
I also admit that I get angry in part because a lover promised to come and visit me (with no prompting from me) and then started backpedaling, and one of the excuses he used was not wanting to be fingerprinted etc. at the border. I'd have gladly given up fingerprints, blood samples, hair samples, and a body cavity search if need be in order to be with him again. Which is not the same as agreeing with the policy.
This comment will probably make me wildly unpopular.
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