Living under hostile occupation is weird
My friend asked me the other day if LA was as much like Blade Runner as the news made it seem. Maybe, I said, but in the real world, Blade Runner would be mostly silence and fear and empty streets, interspersed with joy and violence and dishes and work and heartbreak.
It's a funny thing, to feel the need to put boxes over people's faces in a photo. I used to think that if you had to wear a mask to do something political (not talking about for health reasons), it was a pretty good sign you weren't a good guy. But I've recently changed my view: if you have to wear a mask while you are doing something peaceful, it's a pretty good sign you live under authoritarianism.
Sorry to make this post political. I know people are tired. But, well, it's really hard to write about anything else when you live in LA right now.
On Saturday, I went to a couple No Kings rallies.
Downtown was huge and festive and defiant. I've read about 200,000 people were there. Do you guys understand how many people that is? It's like, the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa, or Richmond, Virginia. When I was there, I saw these guys in green suits with giant guns. They didn't look happy to be there, but their guns were very large.
In Los Feliz, it was a giant angry party—the biggest protest I'd ever seen in the neighborhood: a dance party, really. I'd guess 1000 people. The music choices were exactly as good as you'd hope: a whole lot of Sly and the Family Stone, so much Sly. But it also was a little scary. A man pulled up to me in his motorcycle, a giant cross on the back of it, while I was holding the sign I was holding above. He got off his motorcycle, and he flipped us off and stood there, defiant, looking ready to strike. What is it, I wondered, about calling for more money for teachers that made him so angry? My sign wasn't even aggressive. I froze, a stupid grin on my face, part trauma response and part fuck-you-I'm-not-giving-you-the-satisfaction-of-my-hatred. Later, I thought of so many things I wished I'd said. But my brain working was not in the cards, and he took a step towards me, and the lady next to me finally screamed at him to get the fuck out, which seemed to be what he was looking for, because then he seemed satisfied and left then.
Another man drove slowly through the intersection, even stopping in the middle at one point, screaming fuck you, and then returning to the parking lot with his friend to videotape us.
You all, I have seen this movie. This is not going anywhere good.
I wrote to my friend the other day: "I've never lived under an occupying military force before. It's new for me." I thought I was being dramatic. Then they took someone three blocks from my house. Then they were set up in front of the Target less than a mile from me, and I guess the Metro driver was telling everyone to get off the bus before they got there, just in case (bless that Metro driver). I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, but I don't want to sacrifice the truth to seem level-headed, either. It's not like this is occupied France, at least not yet, and this is not Gaza (Good lord thank God it is not that), but it sure as hell feels different than anything I've ever lived through. Do you know how we make our money here? Do you think this administration's policies are good for making movies, or for education, or for international trade, or for tourism or healthcare? It may not be a medieval siege, but we are under a financial and military siege. And it is weird to say that, as dramatic and prone to catastrophic thinking as I know myself to be, and have it be true.
Christ, the fuckers took the Trevor Project off the National Suicide hotline today, after this morning the Supreme Court seriously hurt god knows how many trans kids (be careful how you talk about that – we don't want trans kids thinking the only option now is suicide). I don't know how many ways they can make it clear that they want me, a queer person, to die. I don't know how many ways they can make it clear that they want immigrants to die. I don't know how many ways they can make it clear that they are murderers before most of the country starts to speak up. Unless this is a country of murderers, a thought that, if you spent 10 seconds looking at history, is also quite possibly true.
I remember, the day after I came out to everyone I knew as bi, I realized that I had just gone from being able to act like one of the most privileged people in the world to having to act like one of the most hated. It was a weird feeling, to know that by telling the world who I was, almost 2/3 of Americans (at the time, this was the early oughts) now hated and feared me about as much as they hated IV drug users. They hated me more than gays and lesbians. But then, even then, there were not federal stormtroopers coming for my neighbors. I am fighting as hard as I know how for my immigrant neighbors, and also, I know I—a queer left-wing teacher and writer — am not terribly too far down on the list, though my whiteness gives me a little more leeway than many of my friends. Back in the mid-oughts, the feds with guns usually (though not always) focused on people a world away. Now they are coming for my neighbors and the people a world away. And I really, honestly, don't know how to react right now, except to want to run or fight or freeze, but I know that is not a solution, that this is an autonomic reaction. That with my history of trauma, I need to make sure I do not take myself out trying to help. So I am muddling through, being active when I can, and trying to take care of myself to make sure I can bring my best self to resisting.
And this is the future the whole country has to look forward to, I fear.
In other words, I'm doing what I can, but we need help. Here are some things you could do to help.
Subscribe to L.A. Taco, who is doing the kind of local investigative reporting that has all too often become a thing of the past.
Donate to CHIRLA, who is helping so, so, so many families being torn apart right now.
Also, do everything you can to get MAGA out of power. Support the people currently being hurt, first and foremost, and then the arts. MAGA is at heart a war on the imagination. Call your congresspeople, whether you are repped by a democrat or republican, and let them know that your future support rests on how hard they are standing up right now. Vote. Support journalism. Rest. Do what you are capable of, what you are best at, and do it harder than you ever have before, but do it targeting these god damned evil sons of bitches.
You can also try doing this to your MAGA acquaintances. I'm not telling you to do it. But I am saying it is an option.
