black & confident

its not only bad writing but its extremely harmful to people who actually live with conditions that are misrepresented in media. when i found out i had DID, my mom freaked out because her only point of reference was Sybil. when i was younger and first went on psych meds, i thought it meant i was set on a track to be a bad person, because in so many movies and video games you find out the bad guy has medication in his bed side table for some sort of psych disorder. the worst thing a hallucination has ever made me do was wake my mom up at 3 AM to check my bathroom to see if the bugs i saw everywhere were real and the worst thing an “episode” of any sort has made me do is hurt myself. my ptsd doesnt make me kill people, my alters dont kidnap people, my autism doesnt make me so morally unaware that ill murder for senselessly, my ocd doesnt make me hurt people etc etc etc

I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:

Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.

Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.

Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.

In this case:

“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”

“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”

*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*

“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”

1) Even someone who’s working could be here on a migrant (or other sort of) visa (hey, there are a few thousand per year, and *someone*’s got to get them, right?) or could be waiting for their case to resolve in immigration court, after having come to America to join a born or naturalized American family member. 

2) Even people who are working improperly could have come into the country legally – and just overstayed their visa or be violating the conditions of their visa, and you have no idea what the niggly little regulations that govern that might be. 

3) If a law enforcement officer asks you about a neighbor/friend/etc., take this moment to remind them that, unlike them, you cannot ask a random person off the street for their ID and be entitled to a response. 

4) Even if someone has told you that they are undocumented, you still don’t know, do you? Humans lie all the time. How could you know for sure? You can’t, because they can’t prove that they have a lack of papers. Just because you haven’t seen papers doesn’t mean they don’t exist! 

5) Don’t ever talk to cops in general. Why are you talking to a cop? Stop that, as soon as it is safe and feasible. 

Love,

Viola

Harmony

Melody

Cadence

Carol

Hymn

Celeste

Clef

Agitato

Oboe Player

F Sharp

♮

Barbaro

Plagal

Smorzando

ii♭ 6-4

Emoji spell for a little cash to come your way soon

summer feels

ANNIE HSIAO-CHING WANG

then we also need to honestly promote this as well