The unpleasant chore of coming home to your own country
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This is the sort of picture that can be an icon of the times. These are not good times.
The writer Jeff Sharlet took the picture of his daughter, 9, at a covered bridge in St. Alban's, Vermont, the border crossing into Canada.
They went to Canada a few days ago, then came back over the weekend.
He posted his coming back story on Twitter.
Entering U.S. involved a lot more questions. The guard questioned Saira. Who is, as I said, nine. But she smiled a lot and all was ok; then he told us to turn off the car, & Saira gasped. Border patrol were surrounding car next to us, hands on their guns, shouting...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
"About 28," Saira later estimated. Wore a nice white tank top, glasses. Latinx. Hands in the air. Face stunned and scared. They made her walk backwards, grabbed her arms. "Are they going to--" Saira asked. They did. They cuffed her.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
I took pictures. There's a sign on the border booth forbidding cameras, & I didn't notice, so that part's on me. The prohibition of documentation of armed agents of the state? That's on the U.S. government. The guard, tho, blamed me...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
"Daddy," she asked, "are you going to get arrested, too?" I sighed. "No," I said, "I don't think so, but I might lose my phone." This distressed her, too -- it was filled w/ our vacation pictures. "Pull over," the guard said. "Go through the green door."
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
Why were white people called before the many non-white families who'd been waiting longer? You can guess easily as my 9-yr-old did, but the journalist in me can't say for sure. That's part of power: evidence of discrimination without certainty. Everyone guessing.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
I was worried about my daughter, of course. And that concern shaped something ugly in me: A hope that our whiteness would keep us out of further trouble. One more aspect of power's control: it plucks the strings of the ugliest chords within you...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
I said what I believed needed to be said, especially with my 9-yr-old holding my hand: "I'm sorry. I was stupid." The guard nodded, & handed over our passports & my phone. "We deleted the pictures you took," he said...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
I've reported in countries where men with guns forbid pictures, & I've had men point their guns at me & order me to delete my pictures. But before I was a journalist, when I was 20, I crossed the Sahara with my older sister. We ran into trouble in Algeria...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
We were visibly American. A soldier separated us from the crowd. His rifle strap was too big for his frame, & as he walked the gun slapped his ass. Bap, bap, bap. I was 20, dumb, & I laughed. Bad move. My sister began apologizing. Then she said something in Arabic; he laughed...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
They offered her sugar & asked if she was married & what kind of man she wanted to marry & if she might marry an Algerian man. She smiled. After three hours, they let us cross. Everyone else remained, inside the country collapsing into war. That's how power works...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
So even with the guns & the yelling & the confiscated phone, crossing back into the U.S. was a lot easier than out of Algeria, & for that I was glad, & ashamed. "What happened to the couple?" my 9-yr-old asked. I had to her I didn't know, that I was afraid we couldn't know...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
"It might have been," I said. She asked if we'd done something wrong taking pictures. "No," I said. She pointed out I'd said it was stupid. "Stupid because I got caught," I said. "Stupid because I was with you. I'm sorry." "It's not your fault," she said. Which was true...
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
When we got to St. Albans, VT, we pulled over and went for a walk. I asked my daughter if she'd been afraid. She surprised me. "No," she said. She thought for a moment. "Mostly, I was burning with anger."
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
Later we came to a covered bridge on which someone had chalked "Love=Rage." That fit her mood, & the chalk was still there, so she added her own message: "Keep our country colorful." That helped, but she was still mad.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
...as if the power of authoritarianism threatens only people of color. It threatens POC more; but it threatens *everybody.* That's what authoritarianism is. You do nobody any favors by imagining you're immune.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
Authoritarianism cultivates paranoia & self-censorship. It depends on us to internalize the ways in which it pushes around; it wants us to feel guilty for being afraid. It wants us to speak in the passive voice.
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
So here's a new picture. I don't put my kids' pictures on the public internet, but with my daughter's approval -- this is part of her "burning anger" -- here she is, adding her slogan, #keepourcountrycolorful, to one of which she approves, not far south of the border. pic.twitter.com/aQLniu1USF
— Jeff Sharlet (@JeffSharlet) July 29, 2018
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