Wednesday, June 26, 2019
An Image That Will Never Leave Us
You've likely already seen it. If you haven't, fair warning. It's a picture that's so disturbing that it physically sickens. As fathers and grandfathers -- no, as human beings -- it shook us to the core.
We just won't post it here.
We want to wipe the image from our thoughts, but we also must remember it.
We must remember the trauma and suffering of the children.
We must remember those who have died trying to reach asylum or while in the custody of the Trump regime.
We must remember how innocent people are being used as pawns and are being treated like they're subhuman.
We must remember how families are being torn apart, some never to reunite.
And we must remember all the bastards whose callous, malignant evil has led us to this. They must be held accountable. They. must. be. held. accountable.
Damn them all.
(Again, here's a link to organizations that are working to help migrants, a task well beyond the moral scope of this administration.)
BONUS: There's a poem by Warsan Shire that valued commenter donnah has shared in the comments that we and donnah think is very compelling.
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4 comments:
I was devastated by the photo, too. It's terrible and it's everywhere.
But maybe, if someone sees it and is moved, maybe they will reconsider their opinion that immigrants are unfit to be saved. A Republican senator just today said as much, that he was deeply moved by the tragic image.
I would like to share a poem. If you don't want to use it, I will understand. It's very compelling.
Home
by Warsan Shire
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city
running as well.
your neighbors running faster
than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind
the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one would leave home unless home
chased you, fire under feet,
hot blood in your belly.
it’s not something you ever thought about
doing, and so when you did –
you carried the anthem under your breath,
waiting until the airport toilet
to tear up the passport and swallow,
each mouthful of paper making it clear that
you would not be going back.
you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.
who would choose to spend days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
unless the miles travelled
meant something more than journey.
no one would choose to crawl under fences,
be beaten until your shadow leaves you,
raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
the boat because you are darker, be sold,
starved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
be pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
with go home blacks, refugees
dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
sucking our country dry of milk,
dark, with their hands out
smell strange, savage –
look what they’ve done to their own countries,
what will they do to ours?
the dirty looks in the street
softer than a limb torn off,
the indignity of everyday life
more tender than fourteen men who
look like your father, between
your legs, insults easier to swallow
than rubble, than your child’s body
in pieces – for now, forget about pride
your survival is more important.
i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home tells you to
leave what you could not behind,
even if it was human.
no one leaves home until home
is a damp voice in your ear saying
leave, run now, i don’t know what
i’ve become.
Thanks, guys.
I've purposely stayed off Facebook this morning so as not to see the sniping going on about which favorite candidate from Democratic debate last night ruled and which they talk trash about. We are lightyears passed the point of inter-party squabbling being anything but a form of suicide.
That drowned father and daughter is just a tiny taste of the shit storm we face if that Orange Bastard gets another term. I find it depressing that while Dems whine about purity and which candidate is just a toady for corporate interests the theocratic fascists that make up the republican party become more brazen about how they want to change the country.
BB - sadly, but not at all surprising, it was all winners and losers, who had the best line, etc. etc., in the mainstream media I've been seeing this morning. The front page of the WaPo front page also played up the "Democrats in disarray" oldie but goodie, though I thought the squabbling itself was minor. I don't have a Facebook account, so that relieved me of some of the angst of seeing people chewing each other's candidates up. It's still early in the game, but I agree that the purity issues need to subside and fast if we're to focus on the existential threat.
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