Denial

[redbird]

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.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Like I say, being white is really similar to having civil rights...

[erik]

Well of course. The innocent have nothing to fear!

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Your link isn't proper, BTW. I'm guessing that you left off the closing tag.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The link worked for me, and what redbird gave is exactly what it says at the top of the page.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Did you read my account of the experience my son, his friend, and the friend's elderly auntie and uncle had when they were going to Vietnam? I'm quite sure that it wouldn't have happened if they had been white. (Not the TSA people aren't ever asses toward white people; they are. But in the context of the situation, I'm pretty sure this had to do with their being Asian.) It made me really worried about what might happen when my son and his friend (both U.S. citizens) came back into the country, but that went smoothly.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of the Arar case before now, and was interested to read about it -- although my gorge rose and rose as I did so.

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.

[redbird]

Yes, I did. One more thing to worry about.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Oh, the link itself works. It's the tags in front and behind it that are wrong.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord. I'm not saying white privilege doesn't exist, but it's a poor and unreliable substitute for actual rights even if we set aside queasy ethical qualms about benefiting from a double standard. If people fail to give you your rights, you have recourse.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

The picture of the man in the article bears a striking resemblance to my own sweetie -- the eyes are different but otherwise they share a lot of similiarities.

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.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

It's called "riding in the front of the bus." As in "I refuse to ride in the front of the bus when others are forced into the back." The trouble is, sometimes you can't TELL. How do you know if you're NOT being hassled because you're white?

This sort of thing drives me crazy.

[redbird]

I'd left out a <. Fixed now.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd have told her that last time rysmiel entered the US he was, in fact, fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. Even if he doesn't look Arab. But I'm awfully snarky and disrespectful to my elders.

MKK

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'm headed out of the country again in a week's time -- I hope I can get back in. (Then again, I almost hope I can't)

Re: Denial

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah.

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.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Anybody who's that nervous about the US - and I'm not saying they don't have cause to be - Montreal isn't nearly far enough away.

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.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I will admit that this post, and other comments of a similar nature elsewhere, aggravate me.

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.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I don't find being fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated to be in the same league as being put in a camp for 3 years without charges.

But then, I'm snarky like that.

(And have been fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated by my own country in order to have my fiancee come live with me.)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Well given that the person involved is an Irish citizen living in Canda, roughly the same position of Arar, they had no wish to repeat the experience or give them an opportunity for -- other nastiness. As papersky says, "Even one day being tortured in Syria is too many."

MKK

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that Ireland and Syria had similar policies on the persecution and torture of their citizens.

I also wasn't aware that Irish citizens were being globally targeted as potential terror suspects in the way that citizens of many Middle Eastern countries are.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Well, all we could figure when they did it to rysmiel but not papersky or zorinth when they were all traveling together is that someone somewhere considered Ireland a possible terrorist country. For which you could make a case you know.

But if you feel so passionately about this perhaps you should argue it with papersky and rysmiel rather than me.

MKK

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

You'd be pretty much correct.

We aren't talking about Customs or INS here, we're talking about Homeland Security and those people are scary. TSA isn't any better; they once threatened not to let me get on a plane because I had the temerity to mutter under my breath that I thought something was stupid. And once when I rolled my eyes. Full stories at my blog (http://marykay.typepad.com/gallimaufry) if you're interested. I think those incidents were in May and June orJuly. We travel a lot and deal with them a lot and they're scary.

The power given to both Homeland Security and TSA are frightening and it is definitely being abused. Their primary targets ARE dark skinned, but they are happy to abuse whatever white skinned people come their way. Especially those of us who are white but not sheep.

MKK

[liv]

Since I don't know you at all, your taking this position does not cause me to think less of you. However, when someone claims that white people shouldn't complain about oppression, I find myself tempted to quote Niemöller.

[redbird]

Nobody owns oppression.

The argument that only certain people need to worry about oppression of a given sort is an argument that many people--usually the ones who are told they needn't worry--use to defend the oppression as either unimportant or necessary. It's very close to "innocent people have nothing to worry about."

No, rysmiel doesn't look like the stereotypical Arab. The unwritten policies that were used to send Arar to Syria don't have a mathematical algorithm for how dark or otherwise in a "suspect class" someone has to be in order to be disappeared. [The logical suspect class that ought to be searched more closely, based on the 9/11 attacks, is "men traveling alone in first class", but that maps closely onto well-to-do businessmen, so it's not used.] And I cannot fault someone for not wanting to visit a country that disappears non-citizens because someone thinks they look like they might know something about someone who might be hostile.