Hannah Gadsby, an Australian comedian, once commented that we tend to focus on the differences between men and women much more than the similarities. Fact is, she said, the similarities far outweigh the differences. For one, we are both the same species. So, if we wanted to talk about differences in stark terms, comparing men and women to zebras would yield far greater discrepancies.

Yesterday evening I ran into a neighbor of mine who was handing out flyers for our annual block party at the end of this month. She does graphic animation for a living, so when I first moved in she gave me a schematic of our block with everyone's names (including their pets) along with emergency contact numbers. For the sake of this story, I will call her Mary. Mary is the sort of neighbor who is very involved. She organizes safety training orientations for the neighborhood. She runs a blog about the community we live in with features that include bartering (are you looking for a used food processors, or lawn mower? Have anything to trade? Come on by and exchange!). She looks in on the elderly neighbors with homemade bread and conversation. She even saved her neighbor's life once by performing CPR until the paramedics arrived. But at our last block party, I also heard Mary comment that we should "arm" the neighborhood in case of a State of Emergency where marauding inner city youths would pillage our neighborhood in the event of a catastrophic disaster.

Yes, the ever looming State of Emergency in all it's colorful forms.

It seems we've had a similar conversation around here about the likelihood of a different kind of State of Emergency where boundaries need to be protected from people who are not "us". I can't say if that deep seated belief is motivated by fear, or by ignorance, but I know in my heart that if we continue stoking the fires of our fears and differences and focus only on the boundaries, we will negate a natural ally during what could be an actual State of Emergency.

Hecate illustrated that sentiment better than anyone I know could, so for those of you who missed his comment, let me re-post it here:

I live in a town that burned down. I remember you yesterday saying that borders and boundaries and such are part of “nature,” and that to disregard borders and boundaries is to “negate,” to “change,” nature. Apparently the fire—and though fire, in my understanding, is generally regarded as a natural phenomenon, part of nature—it was unaware of this wisdom, because it started in the forest, and then it rudely raced over the town borders and boundaries, and burned all the town. It then continued to wantonly burn through various other towns, without regard for boundaries and borders, though it is true that some of the towns were unincorporated, and so didn’t actually have any defined borders and boundaries, and so, probably, at least pursuant to the theories of you, these places deserved to burn, as, in their borderlessness and boundarylessness, they were negating nature.

I remember when I was standing there in the fire and there was no more water and unless somebody showed up with some there was going to be a hecate fry, and then these guys drove up in some fire engines from a place called Granite Bay—which I had never heard of, Granite Bay is not here, so why had they come here, in the middle of the fire, they were negating nature, they should have remained naturally bordered and boundaryed in their place of origin, and if only I had then been introduced to your border wisdom, I would have told them to leave, they had no business here, fighting any fire. But no. This outrageous border-violating negation of nature continued all through the day, and all of the night, as people from a dozen or so other places of origin arrived to around me fight the fire. And in the succeeding weeks the town was overwhelmed by thousands of men and women, outrageously negating nature, by coming here from all over the country, to fight the fire, and begin rebuilding the infrastructure. Some even got in planes in Hawaii and flew across the ocean and landed with nothing, and then rented vehicles and equipment to come up here, to risk their lives in a place they’d never known. They were all negating nature, and should have returned to their place of origin, and at once! What’s maybe worse, is that here they met people who had previously flown from this town to Hawaii, to there provide the same service. So this sort of thing has been going on a long time! Why? Why can’t people stay in their own good holes? Tucked away behind their borders and boundaries? As nature intends?

The negation of nature here continued ceaseless. For six weeks while I was up here with the town closed—that the town was closed, presumably you would have liked that, as that’s kind of bordery—workers who had changed nature by crossing multiple borders to come here to fight the fire and rebuild the town provided me with food and water, though many times I never knew their names, or they mine, and also, now that I think of it, some of the times these workers had pronounced melanin content, and so what I should have done, pursuant to the teachings of your shitlord, is told them to return to their countries of origin, because why were they here in the US, despoiling the whiteness? Though, and let me tell you, sometimes these people were here looking for bodies, or, more precisely, cremated remains, or, more precisely, fucking ashes, and when you burn in a fire, you burn till you’re fucking dead crisp black/grey, I don’t care how white you were when you started, whiteness means nothing, when you burn in a fire. And also, this was complete communism, another violation of the precepts of your shitlord, because no money changed hands, I saw no money the entire time I was up here, they just gave me the food and the water, and I was a communist too, and in addition practicing medicine, and sometimes hospice care, without a license, when I was running the deer infirmary, those first weeks, for the deer who arrived here, though they had no business being here, this was not where they were from, they should have gone back to their place of origin, but here they were, exhausted, burned, injured, and so some of the communist food and water the communist workers gave to me I communist gave to the nature-negating deer. And then all these other communists started coming up here, negating nature, by crossing borders into places not of their origin, for they had never been here, but they came up here, all day, every day, and all of the night, to try to save, rescue, the animals that were here, and burned, and left behind, and why did they do that, that negated nature.

Some 50,000 people were burned out of here, and also out of those towns that were not towns because they outrageously did not have borders map52_n.jpgand boundaries, and now most of those people have negated nature by moving to other places, wantonly crossing borders— borders as if they are open!—you can see them on that map there, and they should have stayed here, they should not have been open-borders people; that their town burned down, that’s just tough shit, they should stay where they belong, even though there’s nothing there for them, and they would die in the streets, but that’s the way it should be, that’s just nature’s way; just like the people in, say, Guatemala, or Somalia, it’s just tough shit, that their lives there are on fire, they have no business coming to the US, negating nature, to there despoil the whiteness, they should stay in their nations of origin, and there die in the streets, as nature intends.

The borderlessness and nature-negation here continues to this day. The other day at the bus stop I met this man from Minneapolis who has come up here to live in his friend’s trailer as the friend prepares to rebuild. The friend is disabled, and cannot do it alone, and so this Minneapolis man, though he had never been here, has come to help. Though he is a US citizen, this man, his people originally came to the US from Somalia, and so, consistent with the teachings of your shitlord, he needs to get back there; as, in the world according to your shitlord, no one of melanin will ever truly be a part of this country, only in whiteness uber alles, may one truly be an American, and so this man, and everyone else such as he, need to get their melanin asses back to wherever from once they came.

There have been many people in this house, since the fire. This little two-block by two-block island in the fire-stream didn’t much burn, and so there are far more people living here now, than before the fire. Pretty much everybody with a surviving structure has one or more trailers or RVs now also on the property. Because nothing’s been rebuilt yet. And people need a place to be. Unless you want them to die on the streets. As nature intends. I can glance over to the right and out the window there and see the trailer that is on this property, as I type. And I have a bed, and/or a couch, always, for anyone who burned, and/or for anyone helping to rebuild, in the burn. I don’t think you’re that sort of person, though. I think you just want to come here to be a shitlord. But if, with your shitlordding talents, you’re willing to pitch in on the town’s nascent sewer system, maybe we can work something out. Though you’ll need to check yourself. Because I believe you said you live in Colorado. And so, to get here, you’re going to need to cross some borders. And that negates nature.

I would like to say that I do agree with one observation from the essay in question: I do believe we are in a State of Emergency, but not from borders and South American citizens. The State of Emergency I am talking about is the one where the power elite infect our minds into believing some of us are zebras, when in fact, we are all human beings.