The Four Things that Concern Me About America Right Now

Comment on MY List and Tell Me What's on YOURS.

Look, I chose four so I didn’t have to choose a hundred.

We all know in our bones that things aren’t right. I’m protective. I want to stand like a sentry and watch out for all of us. But I’m just a fifty-seven year old woman with a bad knee and a big heart. I feel a constant helplessness that I’m not making anything better. It’s “Mental Health Awareness Month” and one thing I know for sure is that the methodical dismantling of America and the world order is negatively affecting my mental health.

The Feds of course want us to be confused and scared into silence, anxiety, or depression, so I admire you and me and any of us whenever we can find the wherewithal to think and act in furtherance of equality, justice, and liberation. That’s what America stands for, right?

Here’s what’s concerning me at this particular moment. In the comments, share what you think of my items and what’s on YOUR worry list. Remember, I’m choosing only four topics today, because I know you don’t want to read a one-hundred page email.

FIRST: They’re trying to end “Birthright Citizenship.” This concept goes back to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868 as one of the three “Reconstruction Amendments” following the Civil War). The 14th Amendment overturned what is considered one of the Supreme Court’s worst decisions, known as Dred Scott v. Sanford, which held that a formerly enslaved person who moved to a free state and then back to a slave state could not be a U.S. citizen, because people of African descent were never intended to be citizens. In overturning Dred Scott, the 14th Amendment declares in part that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

But part of the Trumpsters’ grand narrative is that America is a White nation, with the rest of us serving as interlopers, and so they hate the fact that people of color (especially Latin Americans and Africans) are coming to the U.S. and having babies. Whether such folks are here on a temporary status (such as a student, work, or tourist visa), or are en route to citizenship themselves, or are here illegally, they do not want the children of those people to be citizens automatically. This is part of their narrative that America is being “invaded” by foreigners and that this “invasion” needs to be stopped.

Of course, immigrants coming here and having babies is what made America America, if you think about it. (Outside of Native Americans and enslaved Africans, everyone else came here by choice as an immigrant.) And for the better part of America’s existence, European Americans got their U.S. citizenship by being born here to non-citizen immigrant parents. Apparently, what’s good for the goose is NOT good for the gander!

SECOND: White Afrikaners from South Africa now have refugee status in the US. Trump ended refugee status for people from most countries experiencing war and famine. Yet Trump says that Afrikaners – whom as you may know are the white minority in South Africa that created the segregationist policies known as Apartheid – are being persecuted, so he’s letting them in. (Can you see how this is related to my first topic – let’s keep the Colored out and import more Whites!) No doubt Trump’s advisors Elon Musk and Peter Thiel – both of whom lived in South Africa as children and have pro-Afrikaner views – jettisoned this seemingly marginal “concern” to the top of Trump’s to-do list. (For more, read this NYT article on the Afrikaner news, this Financial Times article about Musk/Thiel/South Africa, and this NPR article on Thiel’s views, which quotes me cuz I went to college with him.)

This Afrikaner thing wigs me out because, first, growing up I learned about the brutality of Apartheid wreaked by Afrikaners, and so once Apartheid was dismantled AFRIKANER was a word I hoped never to have to think about again. Second, I see how it fits into the Trumpsters’ larger agenda about which humans’ rights and needs are valid (e.g. aggrieved Whites who feel persecuted by efforts to treat people of color equally) and which humans are undeserving of opportunity, protection, and support (“DEI hires” and “woke” people).

I have long said that an American Apartheid (minority rule) is coming, if it is not effectively already here, thanks to how the Electoral College preferences small states (which are predominantly “Red”) in the Presidential Election, and the impact of the Senate – where every state has the same power regardless of size – having the unique power to confirm judges. Now I think a racial Apartheid may be coming. I’d hate to be right. Tough nut to swallow on a Thursday morning.

THIRD: The ongoing onslaught against Gaza. I’ll start by saying that I am one who believes Israel has the right to exist – because I know that the modern State of Israel was created post-Holocaust when Jews had literally no safe place to BE and needed security SOMEWHERE. Simultaneously I know that when the powers that be in that era (England, and the United Nations) created the State of Israel, it included forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes. Some modern-day Palestinians still have the keys to the homes their families were forced out of. As an outsider to the conflict, what I see is two peoples wanting to EXIST and BE FREE while also avenging past harms.

And now, thanks to the Hamas brutality wreaked on October 7, 2023, in which they killed more than 1,200 Israelis, and they raped and kidnapped as well, the Israeli government has responded by killing over 50,000 Gazans and countless more are experiencing disease and starvation. Recently cease-fires have been brokered then violated. Three months ago the government of Israel set up an aid blockade on all sides which has led to conditions considered “catastrophic.” (See PBS article here.) And as Israel’s greatest ally, the United States is financially supporting what many term a genocide.

In my view, as a person with no expertise in the Middle East, but who cares deeply about all humans thriving, the only way forward is a ceasefire, massive aid to Gaza, a return of hostages and prisoners, and a truth-and-reconciliation process that results in a two-state solution. I belong to a national Jewish organization called “J-Street” which aligns with my views. Its leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, just wrote an important piece on the imperative to oppose what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza. (Read it here.)

Yet our real-estate-mogul President sees Gaza simply as a real-estate opportunity. Today, he remarked:

"There's practically no building standing. It's not like you're trying to save something," he said.

No compassion for the dying. Not a humanitarian cell in his body. Just land, money, and profit. (Read today’s NPR article on Trump’s thoughts about Gaza.) So much of the rhetoric from politicians and regular folk dehumanizes Palestinians as people, like their screams are not the screams of real humans. Like if the people of a Western European country were screaming like this, the powers that be would say Oh stop, HUMANS are suffering. Can you see the relatedness between the South Africa issues, and Israel and Gaza, and the issues within the U.S. today?

FOURTH: ICE raids on all kinds of us. This past Saturday I was stunned into such shock that I found myself just pacing around my kitchen in an endless loop of anxiety, when I learned that the Mayor of Newark, NJ (who happens to be a Black man) was arrested outside of an ICE Detention facility. On top of the news of a woman in Worcester, MA being arrested by ICE as her 16-year-old daughter screamed and was wrestled to the ground by Worcester Police. And a man in Oxnard, CA being removed from his car by ICE while his children were left behind. And an Oklahoma mother and her children, partially clothed, screaming, “We’re citizens!” as ICE rounded them up and removed them from their homes. The Trumpsters are so hell-bent on citizenship yet you have to ask what does it get you these days and does it keep you as safe as you’d hope? (Apparently ICE had a warrant for someone who had lived in the Oklahoma home previously. Oops. Is this an oops like mistakenly deporting Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador?)

View a WBUR summary of recent ICE activity here.

What really threw me into anxious pacing on Saturday, though, was the PHOTO of the arrest of Newark’s Mayor.

The Mayor is in the middle, with his hands cuffed behind him. Three of the men on either side of him wear jackets bearing the word “POLICE”, and two also bear the word “ICE.” But note, one jacket is khaki, one is blue, and one is black. The writing on the jackets is in different fonts and colors. I’m like WHAT THE HELL, ICE, AND IS THIS EVEN ICE, OR ARE YOU JUST A BUNCH OF VENOMOUS PROUD BOYS WHO GOT JACKETS AT SOME SURVIVALIST STORE AND YOU’RE ROUNDING PEOPLE UP? Like, to me, as people are being deprived of due process and potentially being “disappeared” by ICE, the lack of uniformity to these “ICE” uniforms speaks directly to how chaotic this chaos is. Read this post on the website of the U.S. Holocaust Museum on the creation of Hitler’s police force (known as the Gestapo) and ask yourself if we’re seeing the rise of something similar here in the U.S. today.

That’s my short list, for now. Please add yours below in the comments.

After that, please fill out my survey on the “Conversation Groups” topics I’m considering starting up in Julie’s Pod, including conversations about the state of the US. The survey is here.

And as always, if you want to vent anonymously you can call my hotline at 1-877-HI-JULIE. (I won’t pick up, just leave a voicemail. I’m here. I care. Frankly, offering this hotline to you helps me feel like I’m doing something.)

xo