Disposable.

I refuse to believe
that the only choice this country has
is to separate families.

I refuse to believe
that the only choice this country has
is to isolate babies
and to cage toddlers, children and teens
in barbed wire boxes.

I refuse to condemn parents for
trying to bring their children
to a place where they hope
to find
safety and hope
for their future.

These are people.
Just people.
Like me and you
and us.

What is happening to these people
is a warning sign.

Any government that is able to brainwash its citizens,
into believing that protecting this country means
tearing families apart
and inflicting permanent emotional and physical harm
on infants, toddlers, children and teens

is a government that will come for you next.

For me next.

What random power-fueled excuse will it be
when the next round-up is called?

Who will they next train their eye upon?
Which of us in in their way?

Professors and teachers perhaps for teaching history and reason,
for training young minds to think critically and deeply,
for nurturing new ideas and new voices?

Writers, artists and creators perhaps
for giving word, voice and form,
exposing the truth and
fanning imagination and hope?

Who will be next?

America has been here before,
it has stood on this doorstep
of intolerance and atrocity.

We know what it looks like
and we know the generations of
pain that follow.

The US has done this all before,
the circumstances both different and similar:

Native Americans.
Slaves.
Japanese-Americans.
Muslims.

Chinese Exclusion Act.
School segregation.
The Civil Rights movement.
Women's rights.
LGBTQIA+ rights.
So many others...

We watched it happen in other countries,
in Nazi Germany.

We condemned what was happening
"over there"
 brazenly confident in our
great American democracy,
so sure
that it wouldn't be us.

And yet it has always been us.

Human history--
US history--
is awash with a river of
what were seen as "disposable people"--
people who were different,
people who were OTHER.

People who were seen as  standing in the way
of whatever was defined as "good" and "proper".


But I ask you,
at what point are any of us
ANY OF US
safe from becoming
disposable?

People

This morning I woke up
got my coffee
and re-read an opinion piece
by author Christopher Myers.

He wrote it on June 24th, 2016-
a little over a week after the
June 12th shootings at the Orlando Pulse
nightclub.

And in that piece Mr. Myers
gently,
sorrowfully,
peeled back the layers
of fact, fiction and feeling
surrounding the Pulse shootings,
surrounding the aftermath,
surrounding the violence and death
suffered and caused by

People.

People.

The knot that seems to
always be  in my chest
tightens and aches
as I write this.

It's a knot that has been in my chest
for too many years
because I have never fully
EMOTIONALLY
understood
how people could look at each other
and feel such
fear,
hatred,
intolerance.

It's as if what my brain intellectually knows and learns
doesn't quite sink into the deep core of me that feels.

Because I love  people.

I love the idea of what people could...
could create
could dream
could reach
could cure
could heal

could be.

My love for people has grown
from accepting people.

And I admit my acceptance is
imperfect and ever-growing
because I,
like every other person alive,
must work at educating myself
so that I can better accept others.

 I make mistakes
and keep working
so I don't make them again.

People think acceptance is easy,
intuitive and natural.

But it's not.

Acceptance is a relationship
and just like any relationship
it takes work.

We must work
to not be ignorant of
all the ways people yearn
to be recognized.

Recognition matters because many humans are made to feel like they are not
people.

They not accepted for what and who they are.


And when  a person is  not accepted for what and who they are,
they are made to feel

like they must prove who they are. 

Like they must take it apart and make it explicit for those who refuse to do the work of acceptance.

Like the intolerance and hatred is THEIR fault and it is THEIR job fight against it.




Identity is perhaps the only part of being a person that cannot be taken away.

It can be silenced, mocked, insulted and tortured, but it cannot be taken away.

Not even in death.

Today I will re-read articles written in memory of the
people who died on June 12th
for no other reason than they were
being who they were,
celebrating the fleeting joy and acceptance of community. 


They deserved to live.
and they deserve to be remembered.


Like all of us
they were people.