How to Survive in America

Note: this was originally posted on my Substack back on May 27, 2022. I deleted that Substack a couple years ago and I’m posting these here so they won’t be lost.

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because the law has declared that we are one angry cop, one medical bill, one wellness check, one housing shortage, one traffic stop, one power outage, one biased judge, one fascist vigilante, one border checkpoint, one polluted river, one pregnancy, one viral infection, one drone strike away from death; because the law believes with all its heart that these deaths are right and just; because the law has made our identities, our everyday actions, and our existence criminal;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because shoplifting is a crime but wage theft is legal; because being unhoused is a crime but evicting people to build empty luxury apartments is legal; because you or I not paying our taxes is a crime but when the wealthiest people in history ignore or evade their taxes it is legal; because resisting arrest is a crime but elected politicians overthrowing the government is legal; because manslaughter is a crime but 1 million Americans dead from COVID is legal;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because we will reclaim our right over own bodies; because getting an abortion makes us criminals; because transitioning makes us and our families criminals; because using our preferred pronouns makes us criminals; because being a woman means the law will not protect you from harassment, violence, and terror; because being disabled makes us disposable; because being a minor gives one no standing or protection before the law;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because criminals are not satisfied with Facebook posts and human resources seminars and Instagram posts and book clubs and tweets and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and YouTube videos and cable television interviews and Twitch streams and corporate logos and political speeches and thoughts and prayers;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because Metacomet and Nat Turner and Tecumseh and John Brown and Harriet Tubman and Ellen and William Craft and Henry “Box” Brown and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison and Ida B. Wells and Alice Paul and Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman and Big Bill Haywood and Rosa Parks and Diane Nash and A.J. Muste and John Lewis and Anne Braden and Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X and Kwame Ture and Leonard Peltier and Fred Hampton and Dolores Huerta and Susan Rosenberg and Rasmieh Yousef Odeh and Chelsea Manning and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a thousand others were criminals;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because people who are not rich or not white or don’t speak perfect English who try to enter the United States are ignored for years; because people to try to cross America’s imaginary border without waiting for years are labeled illegals by the law and stripped of their human rights; because the illegals have their children taken from them; because the children of the illegals are housed in camps where they are starved, abused and drugged; because the illegals are hunted, captured, jailed, and deported, no matter how long they have lived in the United States; because the the law has decided the illegals can be cheated, exploited, and killed at work with no consequences;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because our geography is sculpted by the law; because the law is founded in private property and the law determines what counts as private property; because littering is a crime but polluting waterways and oceans is ignored; because when a corporation breaks the law on a massive scale and pays a fine as a result, the corporation considers it a cost of doing business;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because Americans cherish catching criminals using forensic science like pattern matching evidence, DNA analysis, hair analysis, firearm analysis, shoe print analysis, tire track analysis, handwriting analysis, bite mark analysis, line-ups, breathalyzer tests, psychological profiles, and lie detector tests, even though there is no proof that these methods are reliable, useful, or honest; because it is legal for the law to lie to you; because it is legal for the law to pressure you to confess to a crime you did not commit; because innocent prisoners are not allowed to show proof of their innocence or that their lawyers were incompetent;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because the law in America gets qualified immunity; because the law shoots an average of 1,000 people every year; because the law has filled the jails to overflowing; because the law sees mass shootings coming a mile away does nothing to stop them; because the law forms gangs within their own ranks; because the law plants evidence; because the law gets the vast amounts of money shoveled into its budget while vital social programs disappear; because the law embezzles public money and seizes assets; because the law kills 3 times as many black Americans that any other racial group; because the law in America in known around the world for being arbitrary and brutal;

WE SHALL BE CRIMINALS because there are more people incarcerated in the United States than anywhere else in the world; because the law allows us no alternative; because we break the law by talking about breaking the law; under the law there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to be that will not be against the law; because criminals will be brave in America; criminals will thrive in America, criminals will survive in America.