I understand that Chapter 13 of Walking the Rainbow Bridge has the potential to be greatly misunderstood. It is obvious that I dislike the idea of countries, borders, governments, and citizenship in general.
When I criticize the United States of America, many people will say: “If you hate America so much, why don’t you move to another country and see how much worse it is!”
When people say this, what I really hear is: “Yeah, we are not great, but at least we are not as bad as those people over there!”
And yes, I agree. The USA is not as bad as many places in the world. That misses the point entirely. However, I have my specific problems with the USA government. My issue really is with the concepts of countries and states existing.
As should be known by anyone who knows something about American history. The USA, as we know it, started as a bunch of white British settlers who came to this land and started their system. However, there were already native Americans here, and these white settlers from Europe killed and/or moved them continually west until the current day, when only a few descendants remain and some live on small reservations.
As if that was not bad enough, these founders also brought dark skinned enslaved people that they had obtained in Africa. Our history is one of immigrants bringing other immigrants against their will to kill the natives of this land and build an empire that eventually fought to become separate from England.
The Declaration of Independence, written July 4, 1976, specifies in detail the problems the states had under the rule of the King of Britain and why they wanted the states to be an independent nation.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
You see, the start of what we know as the United States of America began by criticizing and breaking free from the previous government that the founding fathers had suffered from. The most American thing that can be done is to criticize the government.
Unfortunately, the Native Americans and the enslaved Black people were not so lucky. They did not have the freedom as citizens of this new land. They were enslaved, beaten, whipped, killed, and chased off the land they had been on for generations.
This act of destroying the people of the land and taking over is called colonialism.
https://www.thoughtco.com/colonialism-definition-and-examples-5112779
The reason I am not a fan of countries is that they almost always involve colonialism and violence at some point. The European settlers were not born in America, yet they all became citizens. The Native Americans were born here, yet they were not treated as citizens and were forced to give up their land, languages, and way of life.
How then can we say that someone coming from another country to the USA has any more right as a citizen to live and work here? Declaring someone like me a citizen because I am born here, and yet not someone who came from somewhere else, makes no sense.
That is why I believe in open borders and equal citizenship for all people regardless of country of origin, race, language, or religion. I am against nationalism. I just don’t believe that I am better or worse than anyone because of my birth here.
But perhaps because American history is what I was required to learn, and because the current USA government is taking away the rights of the LGBTQIA+ people right now, I am quite resentful of the powers that be at the moment, as well as the atrocities done to innocent people in the past. It is therefore why all of my books and blog posts have a tone of anarchism and idealism.
I want everyone to get along. I know this will not happen and that wars will continually be fought over land, resources, and religions. I hope that we can bridge the gap between people of different places and cultures in the same way that I want to bridge the gap between people who are straight or gay, cisgender or transgender, and sexual or asexual.
But let me be clear about one thing that must be understood. A state or country is not the same as the people who live there.
The people are not the land, government, religion, or anything else. Each geographical location contains many different kinds of people, and they should not be lumped together as if they are all the same.
Just as I don’t want the actions of Rose Montoya to be associated with me just because she and I are both transgender, I don’t want to falsely assume that anyone of a particular identity is evil.
And in the past, I have made that mistake. I have been hurt by many people who call themselves Christians, and therefore, I do have a prejudice that I use to protect myself. The link between the interpretation of specific bible verses has been used to discriminate and commit violence against gay and transgender people.
A prejudice is not the same as hatred or anger. However, when you see a snake, your chances of survival are better if you assume it is venomous and get away from it. Sometimes we have to protect ourselves from those we see as a danger. Having a gut reaction of prejudice is not being hateful, but it is being careful.
What I am saying is that it is important to get to know people rather than letting those prejudices, which protect us in the short term, become something worse that causes us to be the very monsters we assume others to be.