The News is Bad For Your Health

Damn it. My blood pressure is rising! I know that it is probably in the interest of my mental health and well-being to stop reading the news in the morning when I am opening at work, but I can't seem to help it. It's a little ritual I afford myself to be in the know since I don't have cable or Internet at home. I try to read a variety of sources, both local, national, international and non-English. The local ones get to me the most because I tend to read the comment sections. I really, really need to stop doing that!


Anyway, one of the big stories of this week is the proposed ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility to be opened in downtown Portland, near the university and OHSU. First off, let me just say, if you are a POC like me, don't read the damn comment sections about this news article. The point is though, the news is bad for your health. Everyone has an opinion about news articles, and many of them are nasty when it comes to immigration. Racists. Yeah, that's the word of the day...and don't try to call it something else.


I am definitely not for this facility to be opened up, because I am pro-immigrant and pro-America (the ICE is contrary to American beliefs and ideals!) but also because it will change the face of Portland. What happened to the Portland I moved to years ago? Yeah, there's a lot of racial problems here, little racial diversity...but for the most part we all got along. I feel that the opening of an ICE facility will further damage this city. We're supposed to be "progressive" here, so why are all these local anti-immigrant (racists) folks on the net applauding the idea of an ICE facility in Portland to round up "illegals"?


Where is my blood pressure medication!?

Racism-induced Exhaustion

I wasn't sure how long the men had been on the train, to be honest. I don't usually pay attention when I am on my way home from work. At some point I had started a short conversation with the two Brazilians nearby mostly because I never get to speak Portuguese in Portland.


Later on I was talking on my phone to a friend, in Spanish, relating to her my day and the neatness of running into Portuguese-speakers on the commute home. As the train pulled into the last stop, my stop, I put my phone away and as I approached the exit heard the loud end of a conversation about how "we should just close the borders and then tell them all to shut up."


My knee-jerk reaction was rage, of course. Those men weren't looking directly at me when they said it...but you know that feeling you get when everyone is talking about you but they're not actually acknowledging your presence nearby? They probably didn't think I even understood English...and I'm not even Mexican. At all. The shocking part was their appearance...they all seemed rather innocuous...for older White men. People are ugly when they think you're not paying attention or that you don't understand what they're saying.


So when my friends or acquaintances (mostly the White ones) whine at me about how they don't understand why these horrible racist things happen to me or around me and that  I "must be hanging out in the wrong areas" or with the "wrong people," I smile now, thinly. I don't have anything to say anymore. I'm too damn tired of experiencing it,  pointing it out, and "discussing" it.

 I just want to know who the hell you're all hanging out with.