We'll See How Brave You Are
Our current administration wouldn't know courage if it hit them with a Cybertruck
On March 20, 2003, at 9:43 pm, the Iraq War began.
I knew something was up, because I had class in the early evening, and walked into the subway to see the National Guard at Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station. They were in tactical gear and holding semi automatic weapons. I knew the thing I feared would happen was likely happening.
I still remember the night Desert Storm started. My father was out with friends and my mother and I watched the news together until he arrived home. We were all a little scared. I didn’t know anything then, I was ten. This time, I knew why this war was happening, and I knew it was bullshit.
And here I was, once again, watching a war start on live television.
I called my mother the next day, and we talked about the war, which we both agreed was stupid and shouldn’t happen. I told her about the National Guard in the subway.
“Didn’t you feel safer, though?” she asked.
I didn’t. I was a young woman on her way home from class. Seeing armed men and dogs in our subway did not give me the illusion of safety. It told me something bad was coming, that power was being abused, and that we were accepting this way too easily. And, not even two years earlier, just blocks from where I was, we were attacked from the sky. I didn’t see how this was making us safer when we weren’t even kept safe the first time, despite the Bush Administration having enough advanced knowledge to at least ramp up airport security.
New Yorkers were attacked. We lost close to three thousand people and lived under a cloud of toxic smoke. We still didn’t want a war based on lies. Certainly not in our name. And we didn’t want the fucking military in the subway when we were just trying to get home.1
AND STILL DON’T.
The deployment of the National Guard in 2003 wasn’t intended to combat citizens for protesting. In fact, there were already protests against the war. They also had the permission of the New York State government to be there, even if I disagreed with the necessity of it.
That is not what is happening in Los Angeles.
What we are seeing is an unauthorized and unconstitutional deployment of troops to assault, threaten, and silence Americans.
Note I didn’t say citizens, since there are plenty of folks who are not yet legal citizens but are Americans nonetheless. If you live in America and work in America, if you are part of communities in America, if you pay taxes in America, then you are an American. It was written hundreds of years ago now that if you are living in America, you enjoy the civil liberties and protections afforded to everyone else. Until now, I guess.
Let me address the so-called Alphas, the Big Brave Men in charge:
You’re not brave. You’re whiny little pissbabies.
You’re so terrified of people that don’t look like you that you are directing police and military to shoot young women point blank in the streets with rubber bullets, simply because they are standing up for their neighbors and communities. You know that your bullshit isn’t going to work forever, so you’re trying to create an alternate reality. You’re so insecure and sniveling that you cannot STAND any sort of opposition. You all sit in your gaudy ass houses drinking Diet Coke and doing ketamine or whatever the fuck you’re doing. You make fun of us for being “snowflakes”, but you can’t take one joke at your expense without literally trying to kill people. Women didn’t want to fuck you, so you raped them, harassed them, and then took away their rights.
I try not to speak for anyone, but I bet you my life savings that the poor mother crying in LA because she didn’t want to be deported just to be murdered in Honduras is more brave that you could ever imagine. I’d like to see how much you’d shit yourself if someone tried to cram you into a hot van, knowing that you’d likely not survive.
Hell, I’m fucking braver than you assholes. I left a chaotic, abusive environment and was completely on my own at 19 years of age. I was a kid and I was braver than you, you absolute dickwads. This isn’t a brag, it’s actually quite sad how we allowed the weakest men on earth to peddle their fake strongman bullshit.
What single thing have any of you done that was actually courageous?
I could go on, but as I was drafting this, I read
’s recent post and….not much more needs to be said on this front.
As for you, MAGA voters….
Many of you are trying to say “I didn’t vote for this”.
NOPE.
You did. You heard his words and you decided that sounded great, because you didn’t think it would affect you. You didn’t think it would happen to the lady who has to touch your disgusting feet so you can have cute toes for the beach. You didn’t think it would happen to the line cook who helps you feed your family when you don’t feel like cooking. You didn’t think it would happen to the mechanic who services your third new car in five years.
I am not sure what’s worse; being that selfish or being that stupid.
If you really hate what’s going on, and want to change, there’s this thing called “making amends”. The onus isn’t on the family members who had to cut you out when you made it clear you were willing to vote against their safety. The onus isn’t on the people out there in the streets doing the work to try and fix this possibly unfixable mess. It’s on you.
You want to atone? Get busy. There’s plenty of shit for you to do. All I see you doing is crying on TikTok. Quit your whining and do something. Go to a protest. Make some calls. Beg your queer kids for forgiveness.
I strongly suggest you summon whatever is left of your conscience, and fast. Find your Jiminy Cricket, if you didn’t smash him under your shoe.
But don’t ask US for forgiveness. Don’t ask for absolution.
Witness this. Witness your choice. Look at it.
You’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life.
As for the rest of us…
Welp.
We’re going to have to be brave.
I, for one, am pretty sick of having to be brave. I am tired of being scared and showing up anyway. I am tired of waking up every morning wondering what the hell is going to happen. I am tired of it all. Everyone is tired.
But here we are, at the turning point. At the place we knew we might get to. We have arrived at the threshold of authoritarianism, and if we don’t stand up, there’s no going back. Not anytime soon, anyway. Most regimes like this fail. But how long? How many dead? How many more lost years? These are all questions I hope we don’t actually have to find out the answer to.
Don’t get me wrong, I am scared. I am terrified for my neighbors. As I have mentioned, I live in one of the most diverse neighborhoods on the planet. People from over 100 countries live in Astoria, Queens. When I was on
’s podcast a couple of weeks ago, I said that if Queens isn’t “Real America”, I don’t know what is. America is supposed to be the place that anyone could come and build a life for themselves. To raise a family. To be part of a community.If and when ICE descends upon my beloved borough, I vow to use my privilege as a middle class white lady over 40 to be annoying as hell. I have a tendency to freeze, especially if I’m dealing with a man holding a gun, but I am going to have to summon up all my courage and my rage to protect my neighbors. Protests make me anxious, but I’m going anyway. Because fuck this.
I never aspired to be an activist, and I don’t think I am particularly good at it. But so long as I have breath in my body and the freedom to do so, I will say THIS IS WRONG with my whole chest.
Because it is wrong. Period. What they are doing to people is wrong.
It’s not as if we didn’t have a part in it. Our complacency was wrong. Our greed was wrong. Our trust was wrong. All of it was wrong.
I hope it’s not too late to make it right.
If you would like to support my work, there are many ways to do that!
A paid subscription is currently 50% off in honor of Pride Month (yearly subscriptions only), or $2.50/month.
If paid subscriptions are not your thing (I get it, we all get sooo much email and times are tight), you can Buy Me a Coffee as a one time show of support.
You can always subscribe for free - I don’t paywall often
Most importantly - if you like what you read here, please comment, like and share. Most of my readership comes from my work being shared right here on the Substack app.
Thank you for being here.
xo
KBQ
Unfortunately, military presence in the subway became normalized, and our governor deployed them again just last year.
hi Kari, just wanted to add a suggestion to something that you wrote: "If and when ICE descends upon my beloved borough, I vow to use my privilege as a middle class white lady over 40 to be annoying as hell."
I read this right after coming off of a volunteer shift doing "court watch" in my city. what I've been observing recently in this work (which admittedly is new for me and I don't have a ton of experience with), is that ice seems to be pretty happy to arrest people at the immigration courthouse because it's a lot more difficult to de-arrest someone there. so what a lot of immigrant justice organizations are trying to do is have people physically present, observing immigration court proceedings and making a note of the name and "A number" of anyone who is detained by ice. then that information can be turned around to any volunteer attorneys that are working to get people out of detention.
since just last week my local courthouse has had a significant increase in the number of dhs/ice officers that are on site to detain people, I think in response to what's happening in LA.
I wanted to share this because people may be waiting to respond until ice comes into their neighborhoods, as you described. however, many ice detentions are happening in other spaces... and I think it's crucial that we actively step in whenever and however we can to let them know that they are being watched and intervene when possible.
if at all possible I strongly encourage folks to see how they can get involved with court watching and similar activities; observing first hand I can see just how critical it is to have people there in solidarity and watching what they are doing.
in community, as always.