I have never seen anybody else so accurately express the combination of fear and anger i feel when somebody is Inefficient In Bureaucracy, and the need to go through the system efficiently and unnoticed. And the conflict between that need and my politics and ideals!
This was a great piece, and I feel a little less alone in my own head today
Those same emotions one feels when you get pulled over by a cop. What did I do? What contraband do I have in my car? (Narrator: None. The answer is always none.)
Man, so entertaining. Sorry to make light of your uncomfortable and ridiculous encounter w/ the powers that be these days. I hate 'border' crossings. But pretty weird when you're coming back to your home country and get interrogated. It's getting scary out there.
I happen to be a shade of white that puts me in danger of mistakenly being identified as a vampire, but that did not stop me from being racially profiled for my "latin" last name when signing up for an ACA health plan in late December.
My partner and kid with a different last name, residing in the same house, applying for the same insurance plan were not asked to verify their citizenship. We are all natural born citizens.
It mostly made me more ANGRY than scared. I was tempted to include a picture of me and my VERY LILY WHITE SKIN along with the attachments of the documents to verify my citizenship.
"Look you effing morons, not everyone with an ethnic sounding last name is a brown person."
But I guess, in the larger scheme of things its good for people like myself to witness the abuse and subversion of our government systems to try and catch people in a racist dragnet.
This is exhibit 674 in inner Fascism, heh. Conform and prove you're "innocent". Few will pass the test. There's always some reason we should be put in the dungeon, even if we don't know what it is...yet.
Dear John Paul, I love that you shared your harrowing experience with us in an intriguing short story form. I love your writing. Vigilant self-surveillance is exhausting. Carl Jung would have us accept the ''shadow" thus taking away its control over us. Not easy. HUGS!
Wait -- that was good, but this is actually better:
"Time for me to come clean: While I hate these government-flavored errands for normal reasons like the time-suck and the inconvenience, the thing I hate most about them is that they put me in perilous contact with my inner fascist. In environments such as these, I access a hyper-awareness to nonconformity and an accompanying bloodthirst to see it stomped out that would be the envy of feds everywhere."
I'm very much like this, too. That inner fascist voice barks loudest at the DMV, the security line at the airport or at any kind of corporate intake/training session. I'm pretty sure I've doodled genocidal plots in the margins of my legal pad to head off rage-induced aneurysms...
I'm sorry you have similar tendences. Frankly I'm also sorta glad it's not just me.
I did a double take while reading the phrase "inner fascist." Back in my teens, I used to think of my own darker moods and impulses with that exact phrase. I mean, exactly that. I'd picture myself as older, crueler, and louder, standing at some imaginary podium railing against the people around me who were Getting Things Wrong and Deserved Punishment. And that same mental figure railed against whatever slight I feared I'd just committed. Looking back, it was a lot of Catholic guilt and trying to live out certain masculine ideals, same as you mentioned.
I feel a huge weight off my shoulders to see it written out to wonderfully here!
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
I live in Mexico full time and am now very anxious every time I have to return to the US. So far things have gone smoothly but anything can happen. Very entertaining read, even though I definitely felt and share your anxiety.
A lot of fun and good writing, but, I'm sorry to say, I just finished The Castle and it is not kafkaesque.
If it were kafkaesque, after you finished waiting in line, they would have told you that your paperwork contained several mistakes and, anyway, this was the completely wrong department. But you could take the corrected paperwork to the correct department, to which they would be happy to direct you if you took a number and came back tomorrow. Then, you would have spent the rest of your life in the National Museum of the American Indian waiting for your number to be called.
(Now, working with the BOP as an attorney trying to help an inmate--THAT's kafkaesque.)
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
There is a book out by Mel Robbins called, "The Let Them, Theory". It's really good. John Paul, I want to see your graphic novel published. How may we help you self-publish it? I would contribute to a fund for that and I'll bet many others would too. HUGS!
This story hits so many (witnessed) points anybody traveling might realize but not really, unless, like me, you've been going with someone who is not white for 25 years. TSA, airport officials, immigration really don't always treat them the same. And if you tell this to other white people they often deny it in some way like, well. maybe he stuck out because....And the person has an international background (UN) plenty of travel experience. This was true even before 9/11. The Global Entry program seems to be a good solution; can see your parents point for you.
There's another Derek Smith in Yonkers, NY (disclosure - I lived in Yonkers, NY more than 20 years ago) who has been hounding me for the past 40 years.
First: he was shot in the head (a friend called me up and woke me from a sound sleep to ask if ... I'd been shot in the head.)
Second: he defaulted on credit cards, car loans, etc, and I'd get weekly calls asking for payment.
Third: a Derek Smith who was born in Jamaica, Kingston to be precise, as I found out from a debt-collector who came to my door but was disappointed I was not wearing dreads and had the wrong skin-tone he was expecting.
Fourth: like John Paul, I was pulled aside and my passport taken, sent to a holding room until I waited for a HomSec functionary who asked for my middle initial, compared my picture to the other Derek Smith on their screen. She smiled and, chuckling quietly, handed my my passport and told me I could go. "What was that all about?" I asked genially. 'I can't tell you, but it is ridiculous they pulled you in." Probably the screen had a Jamaican guy from Kingston with dreads.
Lastly: a security guard at a large yeshiva in New Jersey slipped my driver's license into a reader, and a red beacon and horn announced I was a sex offender. My colleagues were a bit alarmed until the guard swung the screen around to show me a ... picture of a Black guy with dreads (not sure if he was from Jamaica, or Kingston for that matter.) "You're not this scumbag. You can go in."
I have never seen anybody else so accurately express the combination of fear and anger i feel when somebody is Inefficient In Bureaucracy, and the need to go through the system efficiently and unnoticed. And the conflict between that need and my politics and ideals!
This was a great piece, and I feel a little less alone in my own head today
Those same emotions one feels when you get pulled over by a cop. What did I do? What contraband do I have in my car? (Narrator: None. The answer is always none.)
Man, so entertaining. Sorry to make light of your uncomfortable and ridiculous encounter w/ the powers that be these days. I hate 'border' crossings. But pretty weird when you're coming back to your home country and get interrogated. It's getting scary out there.
haha no apologies necessary! Making light of it myself made me feel productive
I happen to be a shade of white that puts me in danger of mistakenly being identified as a vampire, but that did not stop me from being racially profiled for my "latin" last name when signing up for an ACA health plan in late December.
My partner and kid with a different last name, residing in the same house, applying for the same insurance plan were not asked to verify their citizenship. We are all natural born citizens.
It mostly made me more ANGRY than scared. I was tempted to include a picture of me and my VERY LILY WHITE SKIN along with the attachments of the documents to verify my citizenship.
"Look you effing morons, not everyone with an ethnic sounding last name is a brown person."
But I guess, in the larger scheme of things its good for people like myself to witness the abuse and subversion of our government systems to try and catch people in a racist dragnet.
This is exhibit 674 in inner Fascism, heh. Conform and prove you're "innocent". Few will pass the test. There's always some reason we should be put in the dungeon, even if we don't know what it is...yet.
Dear John Paul, I love that you shared your harrowing experience with us in an intriguing short story form. I love your writing. Vigilant self-surveillance is exhausting. Carl Jung would have us accept the ''shadow" thus taking away its control over us. Not easy. HUGS!
THIS! "...putting away my giggly idiot persona and brandishing the more serious one that plays online chess and has a Traditional IRA."
That is some TOP SHELF self-awareness wrapped up in an immaculate clause. Well done!
Wait -- that was good, but this is actually better:
"Time for me to come clean: While I hate these government-flavored errands for normal reasons like the time-suck and the inconvenience, the thing I hate most about them is that they put me in perilous contact with my inner fascist. In environments such as these, I access a hyper-awareness to nonconformity and an accompanying bloodthirst to see it stomped out that would be the envy of feds everywhere."
I'm very much like this, too. That inner fascist voice barks loudest at the DMV, the security line at the airport or at any kind of corporate intake/training session. I'm pretty sure I've doodled genocidal plots in the margins of my legal pad to head off rage-induced aneurysms...
I'm sorry you have similar tendences. Frankly I'm also sorta glad it's not just me.
I did a double take while reading the phrase "inner fascist." Back in my teens, I used to think of my own darker moods and impulses with that exact phrase. I mean, exactly that. I'd picture myself as older, crueler, and louder, standing at some imaginary podium railing against the people around me who were Getting Things Wrong and Deserved Punishment. And that same mental figure railed against whatever slight I feared I'd just committed. Looking back, it was a lot of Catholic guilt and trying to live out certain masculine ideals, same as you mentioned.
I feel a huge weight off my shoulders to see it written out to wonderfully here!
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
I live in Mexico full time and am now very anxious every time I have to return to the US. So far things have gone smoothly but anything can happen. Very entertaining read, even though I definitely felt and share your anxiety.
Great article!
A lot of fun and good writing, but, I'm sorry to say, I just finished The Castle and it is not kafkaesque.
If it were kafkaesque, after you finished waiting in line, they would have told you that your paperwork contained several mistakes and, anyway, this was the completely wrong department. But you could take the corrected paperwork to the correct department, to which they would be happy to direct you if you took a number and came back tomorrow. Then, you would have spent the rest of your life in the National Museum of the American Indian waiting for your number to be called.
(Now, working with the BOP as an attorney trying to help an inmate--THAT's kafkaesque.)
This is spectacular. It was so good I looked you up on Amazon and bought your memoir! Can't wait to read it. It's like Kafka with salsa!
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
This has always been my hang up on every visiting the US of A as someone from a South American country. It's always an interrogation, I tried to apply for a visa in my early 20s, and it wasn't even an interrogation over the phone as to -why- I wanted one but a straight up accusation that my Real intentions were to stay there illegally. In spite refuting it with "why would I leave my very powerful insurance and accessible high education for whatever it is you guys do?" Which was probably the Wrong Answered instead of groveling or whatever.
This is before this circus you guys have in office. My last name may have been a little too middle eastern-y, my accent too accent-y when speaking in English, who knows, it was the early 2000s.
There is a book out by Mel Robbins called, "The Let Them, Theory". It's really good. John Paul, I want to see your graphic novel published. How may we help you self-publish it? I would contribute to a fund for that and I'll bet many others would too. HUGS!
Glad you're safe.
This story hits so many (witnessed) points anybody traveling might realize but not really, unless, like me, you've been going with someone who is not white for 25 years. TSA, airport officials, immigration really don't always treat them the same. And if you tell this to other white people they often deny it in some way like, well. maybe he stuck out because....And the person has an international background (UN) plenty of travel experience. This was true even before 9/11. The Global Entry program seems to be a good solution; can see your parents point for you.
There's another Derek Smith in Yonkers, NY (disclosure - I lived in Yonkers, NY more than 20 years ago) who has been hounding me for the past 40 years.
First: he was shot in the head (a friend called me up and woke me from a sound sleep to ask if ... I'd been shot in the head.)
Second: he defaulted on credit cards, car loans, etc, and I'd get weekly calls asking for payment.
Third: a Derek Smith who was born in Jamaica, Kingston to be precise, as I found out from a debt-collector who came to my door but was disappointed I was not wearing dreads and had the wrong skin-tone he was expecting.
Fourth: like John Paul, I was pulled aside and my passport taken, sent to a holding room until I waited for a HomSec functionary who asked for my middle initial, compared my picture to the other Derek Smith on their screen. She smiled and, chuckling quietly, handed my my passport and told me I could go. "What was that all about?" I asked genially. 'I can't tell you, but it is ridiculous they pulled you in." Probably the screen had a Jamaican guy from Kingston with dreads.
Lastly: a security guard at a large yeshiva in New Jersey slipped my driver's license into a reader, and a red beacon and horn announced I was a sex offender. My colleagues were a bit alarmed until the guard swung the screen around to show me a ... picture of a Black guy with dreads (not sure if he was from Jamaica, or Kingston for that matter.) "You're not this scumbag. You can go in."