This week when a man shouts Get out
of my country and opens fire on two brown
men sharing beers on the patio of a restaurant-
bar, it is not a dream. Today when a software
engineer returning to New York from Lagos
is given a test by border officials to prove
his tech credentials, it is not a dream.
When the foreign-born gallery owner
who is a legal resident is detained for more
than nine hours before being deported to Argentina,
it is not a dream. When a child traveling with his mother
is separated from her and taken alone to a holding cell,
it is not a dream. When the insolent border guard
shouts Arabic? Arabic? repeatedly at a grandmother
in a wheelchair who does not speak English but Farsi,
it is not a dream. All of this is happening
right now wherever the real agents of hate
and terror are drawing heavy lines and putting up
barriers in the common soil. That’s where we
need to insist on language: for every dark wound.
In response to Via Negativa: Hawk.