[January 22, 2025 – Cross published on Substack and Grouchy in Paradise]

So, that sham of an inauguration happened. That bloated rotting heap of human excrement was once again sworn into the highest position in the land. As much as I want to ignore the spectacle of this, as much as I want to starve the narcissistic abuser of attention, as much as I want life to just carry on, I can’t just hide my head in the sand and pretend that nothing significant is happening. 

He ran on a platform of racial hatred and grievances against anyone not standing with him. The only ones not surprised about this are the people who’ve seen him and believed him the first time. We didn’t need a second attempt, an attempt to sane wash him, an attempt to gaslight us into believing he and his racist little terrorist cell are worthy of reaching across the aisle and working with. We didn’t need it, but here we are. Now, we just try to survive the onslaught.

And we didn’t have to wait long for the onslaught of cruelty and contempt for anyone who isn’t a cis/het, abled, Christian, affluent, white, male to begin. Once again, the majority of us get to mourn what could have been and reconcile ourselves to the facts that the long battle for freedom and civil rights has had another significant setback. And really, the writing on the wall has been there for quite some time, we’ve just failed to take heed. 

None of this is new. While some people may frame the history of this country around our higher angels, a steady slow march of progress, and whatever other whitewashed version of our history some wish to believe in, I choose to center my thinking on reality, history, facts, data, and you know — reality. 

The writing was on the wall at least since the Dobbs decision was handed down in 2022. Many may remember that the compromised and corrupt SCOTUS, Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion that pointed to other rights given by the highest court in the land. Specifically, he pointed to marriage equality (Obergefell), birth control (Griswold), and same sex intimate sexual acts (Lawrence), stopping short of going after mixed race marriage (Loving) or desegregation (Brown). All of these cases rest upon the same legal arguments as Roe and Thomas pointed a way forward to rescind and limit bodily autonomy in other cases. This was just the beginning and many of us knew that; we just couldn’t fully predict two years ago where that might lead.

Since Dobbs (and certainly long before), the attacks on trans people’s bodily autonomy ramped up to hypersonic speed with states pass anti-trans bills with record speed. Each more archaic than the last. Each ignoring the actual science – biology and social – of it all. Each ignoring the real human toll these violent acts have on actual living human beings, young and old. Each ignoring the suicide pandemic in youth aged 10-24 years old. Each ignoring the suicide pandemic amongst LGBTQIA2S+ youth. 

Yesterday I woke up, we all woke up, to the onslaught of executive orders from the bloated rotting windbag. And while I could likely write tomes about the several (could be hundreds, I didn’t care to count) of executive orders the bloated rotting heap of human excrement signed yesterday, there is only one that I’m thinking about today because I think it illuminates many of the others and the clear direction he and his racist terrorists are hoping to take this country. Birthright citizenship. 

If we strip these arcane executive orders all the way down, one thing becomes clear to me. Not to sound like Kenya Barris, but it all started with the enslavement of human trafficked Africans. All the human and civil rights, all of the freedoms, and yes, all of the bodily autonomy we’ve enjoyed these past 50+ years is because of the freedom struggles of descendants of enslaved Africans. I don’t say this to be argumentative or dismissive. I say this to illuminate truths that remain hidden away in order to illuminate them for myself, most specifically, and others, generally. Mostly I say this so that others can more deeply understand why when we say listen to Black women, there is deeper context.

After we (African descendants of enslaved people) freed ourselves (it wasn’t Lincoln who freed the slaves, I know this is one of those national myths we like to pretend about – a narrative that obscures the facts) – so, after we freed ourselves, we were still not considered humans worthy of citizenship. Even while our ancestors had toiled on these lands for centuries without compensation and our freedom granted us no back pay, no way forward, and zero protections from the degradations of white supremacy, we were still seen as less than human and therefore, less than worthy of civil and human rights. And this could all be done, because the U.S. Constitution made no room for us and centuries of constitutional law before and after were wrongly interpreted, denying us citizenship and bodily autonomy. 

Citizens are granted the highest degree of bodily autonomy and the only group who have never had to justify their right to bodily autonomy are the cis/het, white (European descended white, not Latiné white, not Arab white, not Persian white, not Asian white), affluent (land owning), abled, Christian men. 

Three years after the end of the Civil War, the 14^th Amendment was ratified into law, granting birthright citizenship upon formerly enslaved Africans, that had thwarted generations of enslaved Africans from being citizens of the country they built. However, citizenship was not so easily won as ratifying an amendment. The old white terrorist guard fought long and hard (and are still fighting today) to defang the 14^th A. It took many more generations of descendants of formerly enslaved people struggling against the white supremacist zeitgeist to win our civil and voting rights, solidified by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – organizing, marching, educating, being fire hosed, firebombed, driven from towns and states, lynched, and murdered. Note that the 15^th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote would not be abridged or denied by the national or state governments based on race, color, or prior enslavement was ratified in 1870. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the 15 A was enforced nationwide. So, just because there is an Amendment does not mean things change. My formerly enslaved ancestors fought and died for their right to vote to not be denied or abridged.

The 14^th Amendment is what almost all of our collective civil and human rights stand upon. It also grants birthright citizenship. It may be the first and only time that Black people were the first considered for a progressive law of this land; I cannot think of any other time this happened. And since then, African descendants of enslaved people have consistently worked to expand those rights for all groups. My ancestors knew then what I know now, which is we are stronger together – like the African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. 

Since the ratification of the 14^th A and the passing of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, hell, since the end of the Civil War, white terrorists have been working overtime to turn the clock back. And after decades, really centuries of ripping at the social and cultural fabric of this country, we have reached the point where the one grand dragon has materialized to unite all the fighting factions of white terrorism to dismantle what never really was anyways. We’ve only had about 60 years of our full citizenship rights in this 250-year experiment (almost 400-years if counting the years before 1776 – the early years of colonization) and we are now in the midst of a full-scale roll back of all rights stemming from the 14^th A. In other words, a repealing of the 14^th A.

First, they came for women’s bodily autonomy, then they came for trans people’s bodily autonomy. And a lot of people didn’t speak up, didn’t take it seriously. Once they are through coming for the undocumented immigrants and those recently naturalized, they’ll eventually turn to Black folx. But not any Black folx, the descendants of formerly enslaved people, specifically, the people that were made citizens by the 14^th A. 

Without bodily autonomy, it is not a far slide to the recission of citizenship – birthright citizenship. Because if you don’t have bodily autonomy, are you even human? Pets don’t have bodily autonomy. Children don’t have bodily autonomy – no matter how much we think they should. Plants don’t have bodily autonomy. And there’s a tie into commodification and capitalism here that I’m not touching with this essay that is absolutely worth exploring – all I can think about is the necropolitics of it all. And if that is dismal, well, that’s how I feel. 

It all starts with bodily autonomy. The first people on these shores who had no bodily autonomy were the Africans human trafficked across the Atlantic to serve multi-generational lifetime sentences on concentration camps that people love to host their weddings on these days. And we were the only group of people that laws were made dictating how we could exercise our bodily autonomy throughout the centuries up until 1965. Now, we get to experience it in reverse. What a time to be alive.

But be warned. This birthright citizenship doesn’t end with undocumented immigrants. They are an easy political mark but they are the beginning of the game, not the end. So, for Black people who voted for this, good luck; for Brown people who voted for this, good luck. I want to wish you all get what you voted for, specifically you. But the pain never stops there and we will all be impacted; and indeed we all are being impacted and soon, we will all be targeted. So, maybe this can be a lesson for some – when we fail to stand up for the least of us, it won’t be long until they come for the rest of us – just like Martin Niemöller’s poem said.