TAKE BACK the NITE at the border

Open letter to anyone in our country who cares

            I first crossed the u.s. border at Tijuana into Mexico in 1973, traveling across the country in a van with my 3 year old daughter, another single mom and her 4 year old son, and her male roommate who also was the owner of the van. I visited Oakland for the first time also on that trip.

            Although we drove over 6 thousand miles roundtrip, I mention these two places – Mexico and Oakland – because both times when white people knew we were intending on visiting, we were told “Oh no, don’t go – it’s DANGEROUS there.”

            Fast forward to 2010 and my gift to myself for my 60^th birthday to leave the country and travel around Mexico into Central America and maybe even ending up exploring Bolivia and Venezuela.

            And rewind to the “Oh no, don’t go – it’s DANGEROUS there.”

            I don’t think I have to reiterate the fear mode white people refine and cling to in this nation – it is well documented elsewhere when the reality is that white people are probably the most coddled, the least likely to be victims of violence around the world, even though we want to believe we are at risk everywhere. The reality is that the most danger white womyn are likely to face comes from within their own homes and communities.

            Fast forward to today, in Brownsville, on the u.s. drawn border of Mexico. I’ve been hanging here with the mostly white people who have come to witness what is happening at our border. And every single day, at least a couple times a day, someone brings up the fear of danger with a slight nod toward the bridge, the river, the refuge camp, the city of Matamoros, whether directly wild-eyed stating the danger fear (for u.s. people) or more subtly insisting that no one cross the border by oneself, to even fearfully asking if it’s true that it’s dangerous in the refugee camp.

            Tell me, does anyone know of a refugee camp that is NOT dangerous for the people forced to seek ‘refuge’ there?

            I was even told that we have to make sure we’re back on this side – the wonderful u.s.ofa. side – of the border before nitefall. When have we heard that before?

            It is not the fear-mongering that I want to talk about but the real fear, the fear of violence, of being raped and murdered, the fear of cruel men with guns or without guns willing to inflict harm on others. And what is our responsibility in protecting humans from that violence.

            We don’t want to think that those people are in danger because of the practices of our government, military and corporations – the very practices that make us material wealthy, give us access to ‘cheap’ goods that we think we can’t live without, and provide many opportunities for superiority and justification why we leave before sunset to bask in the ‘safety’ within the walls our wealth can pay for.

            Or we want to blame the past violence of our military’s onslaught of Mexico in 1849 or the Texas bloody Rangers who were the white male murderers of both Indigenous inhabitants and Hispanic ones further clearing the way for white colonists, or the drawing of boundaries/borders through communities and lands that openly flourished for thousands of years, boundaries that benefitted u.s. business interests. Or the bracero program in the 40’s that basically enslaved people from Mexico to provide labor in the fields deserted by white men going off to war. If we even know that much of our history.

            We don’t want to think about how 26 years ago NAFTA hit Mexico and 1.7 million – that’s MILLION – farmers lost their lands. But farmers losing their lands has similar rippling consequences to the community as what happens when you cut down a tree: it’s not just the tree that is gone, but all the animals and insects and birds that made that tree their home, the soil, the water, the air are all impacted.

            And certainly few want to make the connection between the impact of NAFTA and the upsurge of violence of murders and disappearance of thousands of uncounted womyn and girls especially from Juarez.

            And let’s go to Honduras where many refugees are fleeing from and our military instigation and execution of the coup against a democratically-elected president Zelaya and the installation of an army dictatorship under Obama, leaving this tiny country so devastated and dangerous for her citizens but lucrative for allowing u.s. corporations to be Honduras’s biggest economic and trade partner, capitalizing and expanding the cheap labor pool to provide us with cheap goods, a u.s. of a. consumer demand and entitlement, yes?

            What are we doing here at the border sitting during bright sunny daylight hours in the safety of u.s. soil brought to us by genocide, war, racism and misogyny? Please don’t get me wrong: I believe we need to be here in droves. (As I believe we need to be in D.C. in even larger droves.) I just believe we do NOT need to daily desert the humans trapped a few feet away by escaping to the safety of our dark rented rooms and homes.

            We here on the border want to loudly blame tRump and rightly so for the creation of these refugee camps and the demolition of asylum, but like the white northerners pointing the finger to the south during slavery times but who did not refuse but embraced the ‘cheap’ goods and wealth brought to them by enslaving people and stealing their resources, we also today easily point our finger to tRump yet are mostly unwilling to turn our backs on the lifestyle that has been enriched by the historical and present day looting and controlling of these countries that has not just impoverished the people but increased violence against them and forced people to flee.

            What I’m saying is why aren’t we – the womyn, especially old womyn – donning pink berets, warm ponchos, arming ourselves with bright lights and maybe hefty brooms and canes, and patrolling these camps at night to ensure the safety of refugees?

We KNOW that the two things that are most likely to ensure safety are lights and the presence of people.