Staying in the US and fighting

I'm blessed with a family that crosses national borders, and the depth of care and concern I've felt from folks given current events has been moving.

Naturally, folks have been asking: when will you leave the US?

At time of writing, dozens of Executive Orders have been signed targeting immigrants, indigenous people, Black and brown people, queer folks, trans people in particular, women, and people with disabilities and chronic health conditions. Research and data is being suppressed and obscured by misinformation, while the next pandemic is brewing in front of our eyes. Violent bigots and the cowards that enable them with casual bigotry are emboldened.

And there's a blitzkrieg administrative coup unfolding in the US. The Legislature has not yet(?) fought to reclaim its Constitutional duty – the power of the purse – from the Executive. Judges are ruling against some of the Administration's actions, but it's anybody's guess what happens at the Supreme Court.

But this isn't going unchallenged or unremarked. People and our organizations are mobilizing. Anything is possible as we fly through this awful nexus of change. I'm not super optimistic, but better to roll the dice than roll over.

It is, without a doubt, a more dangerous time to live in the US. But what we see happening here isn't confined to our borders, and, frankly, white US-born people like me have a unique responsibility to stay in order to dismantle the systems of oppression born of settler colonialism and white supremacy. To leave the US put that much more pressure on the very people who have been disproportionately harmed by the systems that I've benefited from. Folks who don't have a choice to leave.

Speaking more personally, my roots are deep here. This is my home. I am in love with this land, and the creatures that inhabit it. There are people who count on me. And I live in a place that is relatively safe. Besides, I've seen first hand the difficulty of emigrating even in the best of circumstances.

Faced with life or death, I choose life, because of course.

However, one can't fight if one is dead... so it's not to say that I don't have my red lines. I do. Faced with life or death, I choose life, because of course. When it becomes better for both me, and the people who count on me, to be elsewhere, that's when I'd make a move.

What exactly that looks like for a middle class white person in coastal California who is queer, trans, and multiply disabled is not yet entirely clear. The devil is in the details of weighing up the risk and navigating a complex set of constraints to figure out our options.

Which is all the more reason I'm in no position to judge other people for the choices they make for themselves. Everyone's circumstances are different.

As my favorite saying goes, "Ad astra per aspera." To the stars through hardship.

And the only way is through.