Aside from giving two interviews in January, I’ve gone a year without engaging with the news media. I am essentially a time traveler from November 2024.
This is, of course, made possible by my privileged position as someone not currently being persecuted by the fascists who control the federal government. I’m not in any danger. Not yet, at least. I suppose it’s never been a better time to be a white man in America, or at least not since Jim Crow.
Small things have gotten through: the “Gulf of America” nonsense, the assassination of that guy who traveled the country yelling at undergrads, stuff like that. But that’s really about it. Whenever I see the flag at half staff, I have no idea why and I don’t care to learn. I assume it was a big enough mass shooting to warrant national attention, or maybe the president is in mourning over the long lost McRib.
I know ICE recently rampaged across my beloved home state, all while I work to close an immigration law nonprofit that I’d worked desperately to save. I know the government was shut down for a while. I know it’s bad. I know it’s awful.
I feel guilty about this. Once I close the nonprofit, I’ll no longer have an excuse to hunker down for the good of “the work.” I’ll have to find new work. I don’t mean my job, though. I mean solidarity work.
Because that compulsion to “do something” hasn’t abated. It’s why I made the misguided decision to join the Army and it’s why I began working with the ACLU immediately upon being discharged.
For now, I’m waiting for one more check to clear and then I’ll submit the final 990 form to the IRS. Once that’s done, I’ll have finished the work I began July 1st, and the North Carolina Immigration Law & Justice Center will be dead.
Then, I’ll have to decide if I can re-engage with the outside world, or if I can somehow localize my work enough that I won’t be aware of the death of the country that I, despite knowing better, foolishly love. A friend is running for office in 2026, so maybe I can focus on that. I don’t know.
I don’t even necessarily enjoy the work, or maybe only half the time. But I can’t not do it. I’ve done enough harm in my life, and simply refraining from causing more harm isn’t enough. I have to live differently than in the past, and that means I can’t revisit those places, or those people. I have responsibilities and duties to fulfill, so I have to continue living, I have to find ways to live with myself: both now and in the future.
An Unhappy Consciousness 