Maybe the Angry Women - 10

Body wisdom, peace, systems failure. Opportunities?

She considers the term "to regulate"...I think of it as coping strategies. 

In Norway, the FB page Girl God Books by Ailey Jolie offers this as well!

"You cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy. You cannot cold plunge your way out of structural oppression. You cannot meditate, journal, or yoga your way out of conditions that were designed to dysregulate you.

This is not to say that nervous system regulation tools aren't valuable. They are. I use them. I teach them. I believe in the body's capacity to settle, to find ground, to return to itself.

But when regulation tools are offered as the solution to chronic activation without naming the cause of that activation, they become a form of gaslighting. They locate the problem in your body rather than in the conditions your body is responding to.

O'Keeffe

The message becomes: if you're still anxious, you haven't tried hard enough. If you're still activated, you haven't found the right technique. If you're still struggling, the failure is yours.

But what if your nervous system isn't broken? What if it's accurate?

What if your chronic activation is a correct response to living in a world where your body has never been fully safe? Where your rights can be legislated away? Where your value has been tied to your appearance, your compliance, your ability to serve? Where violence against women is endemic and normalized. Where the mental load is invisible and unpaid and never ending?

You're not dysregulated because you're doing something wrong. You're dysregulated because your body is reading the environment correctly.

What if your body's activation is not a problem to be solved but a truth to be witnessed? What if the shaking, the racing heart, the inability to settle is your body saying: this is not okay. This was never okay.

And I refuse to pretend it is.

There's a reason oppressed peoples have always used the body as a site of protest. The body that refuses to be calm is a body that refuses to comply. The body that stays activated is a body that is telling the truth about what it has survived.

Published in We'Moon Calendar 2019

I'm not saying don't regulate. I'm saying regulate with your eyes open. Know what you're regulating for. Notice if your regulation practice is helping you show up more fully for your life, or if it's helping you tolerate conditions you'd be better off changing or leaving.

There's a difference between settling your nervous system so you can be present and settling your nervous system so you can continue to be extracted from.

One is healing. The other is sophisticated dissociation.

Your body knows things. It knows what's safe and what isn't. It knows what's sustainable and what's depleting. It knows when you're in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong room.

The question is not how do I make my body stop reacting. The question is what is my body trying to tell me that I haven't been willing to hear.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is not calm down. Sometimes the most radical thing is to let your body speak. To let it be a witness. To refuse to regulate yourself into compliance with conditions that are slowly killing you.

Although you cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy, you can listen to the body that has been registering its impact all along."

—Ailey Jolie

Chakra Centers and the nervous system in the spinal column.

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See my earlier blog about systems failures by Rebecca Traister. This will be a recurring theme for me I think!

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How does non-violent protest work? It's got a long history...from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, to Starhawk to the Women's Marches, to the Buddhist Monks Walk for Peace, to the Minneapolis ICE OUT protests.

One taught non-violent protest to the world. One is still teaching peaceful living to all, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi.

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Systems thinking...

When thinking about something in a systems way, I look to see if the problem that is current might be a result of the system behind it.

For instance, a recent comparison of two CAT Scans of my lungs felt like I wasn't getting good information. Were they ok? Were they having a problem that could be addressed? My status was supposed to be clarified by this test of 400 pictures of slices of my lungs.

But the radiological report compared today's test to my last one, taken when I was hospitalized with pneumonia in last September. At that time the radiological report said it wasn't clear which spots were part of my Bronchiectasis or were from pneumonia. Fast forward to today's report, where again it is concluded there might be a bacteriological cause of the spots. Recommendation to get a sputum test to send to a lab and see if I should again take an antibiotic.

No they didn't use the term spots.

But I got to see what the CAT scans looked like, and my Dr. showed me an earlier set from 2020 just after I'd completed a respiratory rehab after my cardio rehab. So 6 years ago my lungs didn't have the obvious little white feathery tendrils all over the place. Now I could tell that my healthier lungs did indeed look quite different than currently.

The problem with the first comparison is a system problem. Radiologists have followed a procedure set up in the system, which is flawed when comparing a patient's pictures from sick to sicker ones. They make their conclusions based on this.

To solve the problem and obtain more accurate information could be simple, by just adding a suffix to the records of the letter "s" to indicate the patient was sick. Or something similar. Of course the radiologists don't know if the person is sick, so that would be up to someone who sent the patient for the test (a Dr. probably.)

If I hadn't been there to tell the Dr. that the pictures from last September weren't good ones to compare (because of being sick at the time) he would have thought I was always walking around with these spots. I thought he was comparing apples to oranges, and giving me no useful information.

Anyway, that's a simplified way to say a system doesn't work the way it was designed to.

In order for me to think of a system, and look for a solution there, rather than to consider the radiologist was stupid - I think of Barry Stevens' explanation of playing cards.

There are rules of play. Then there are conventions. To win, one must play by the rules. But to win often one has certain conventions that help, like looking at the discards of the opponents and figuring out what cards they might have in their hand.

The rules are the system of the game. They also are the procedures that a radiologist goes through in writing his/her conclusions. As well as how the Dr. explains them to the patient.

The conventions are unspoken rules, which govern much of society on a broad level. This is how a system exists which might be invisible. But everyone understands that it exists. The convention my Dr. used was to scan back until he found a CAT result which was clear, to compare to today's condition.

Now what systems do you notice might need something better happening for it to work?

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For the record: how do immigrants become legal in the US?

 Immigrants

The facts about immigrants... how they are legally processed by the US systems in place.

I'm making a separate post when I have these journaling records of what I see happening in our lives in the US under the Musk/Trump regime. However, some of my regular posts will also have comments, just not quoted articles!

I didn't know this! From a daily newsletter here in the Asheville NC area...so it talks about local organizations and interviews an employer in Buncombe County.

Posted by Facebook group Immigrants Rising

"The U.S. limits the number of employment-based green cards — officially known as Permanent Resident Cards — issued each year, and the backlog occurs because the demand far exceeds the available supply. At the start of fiscal year 2024, approximately 34.7 million green card applications were pending, according to the Cato Institute. Given the annual cap of about 1.1 million green cards, only about 3 percent of applicants were expected to receive permanent status last year.

The system for approving or rejecting applications is overburdened. Waits are often measured in years. It’s the same for applications for asylum. In North Carolina at the end of 2023, the most recent data available, there were 24,662 pending asylum applications in the state, and the average wait time for a hearing was more than four and a half years, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

Although some undocumented workers are paid “under the table” for temporary or infrequent jobs, like housekeeping, many others — despite not having legal status — pay federal, state, and local income taxes, as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes, through payroll deductions by their employers.

According to the American Immigration Council, undocumented immigrants in North Carolina paid an estimated $1.8 billion annually in federal, state, and local taxes. The Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates that undocumented immigrants and their employers nationally contribute around $12 billion per year to Social Security through payroll taxes, even though the workers are ineligible to collect Social Security benefits. They also contribute to Medicare through mandatory payroll deductions, but rarely receive benefits.

Undocumented immigrants also contribute billions of dollars in sales taxes through everyday purchases, such as gas, clothing, and groceries, and indirectly pay property taxes, through rent payments, that fund local services like schools and infrastructure.

The government does grant undocumented immigrants a handful of benefits that are deemed necessary to protect life or guarantee safety in dire situations, such as emergency Medicaid, access to treatment in hospital emergency rooms, or access to healthcare and nutrition programs under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

“Probably 60 percent of our workforce is Hispanic,” one employer said. “All of our employees are run through E-Verify. They have to have two forms of identification. So all of our employees have gone through all the legal proceedings to be qualified as legal employees of this company.”

E-Verify is an internet-based system through which businesses electronically confirm the employment eligibility of their workers. The employee fills out a verification form and that information is matched against U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases.

Undocumented immigrants use stolen or false names and Social Security numbers and forged documents to pass through the E-Verify system. In those cases, it’s unclear whether the worker or employer is exploiting the loophole.

“If their documents look legitimate and feel legitimate, and we question them beyond that, that’s considered discrimination,” [this] employer told Asheville Watchdog. “We don’t discriminate against our employees. We take their documents and we submit them, and then it’s E-Verify’s job to verify that those are legal documents.”

Once the employee is cleared, “all of their taxes get deducted from their paycheck,” [this] employer said. “All of that gets reported and deducted for their pay scale and everything. Their tax money goes to the government, just like any other employee’s would.”

Concern about workplace immigration raids in Buncombe is growing among area employers.

“If a police officer or an ICE agent shows up at our door, we’re not going to willingly aid them unless we are required to by the confines of the law,” [one] employer said. “This is private property, not government property. So if anyone shows up and wants to search our premises, they need a judicial warrant. If they don’t have a judicial warrant, they’re not necessarily welcome to come search our property and ask questions.”

Going after employers

The Trump administration has signaled that it intends to use the Internal Revenue Service and its agents to pursue undocumented immigrants and their employers.

In a Feb. 7 memo to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested the IRS pursue financial audits of businesses suspected of having undocumented workers, and to deputize IRS agents to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with apprehensions, detentions, and removals of individuals who are in the country without authorization.

The deportation of potentially hundreds or thousands of undocumented immigrants who are working in Buncombe County would have far-reaching consequences for local employers, some of whom are themselves undocumented.

In campaign speeches, Trump said he would deport “between 15 and 20 million individuals,” although the number of undocumented immigrants is generally estimated to be 11 million. Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, clarified: “Bottom line is, under Trump he’s still going to prioritize national security threats and criminals. But no one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

Doug Brown, chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party, told The Watchdog via email that because the Trump administration is deporting only criminals, the impact on Buncombe County’s labor force will be minimal.

“Venezuelan gangs, pedifiles[sic], and criminals are not our workforce,” Brown wrote. “So, if you are working, such as landscaping or washing dishes, as opposed to being a criminal, your gamble to enter the USA illegally is probably a safe gamble.”

Removing people who entered the United States without authorization “would save us money spent combating the crime, treating the wounded victims, replacing the stolen merchandise, over-burdening our police and sheriff departments — costly consequences of letting millions of people illegally enter our country,” Brown wrote.

Research shows that immigrants — including those who are undocumented — are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born residents, according to the American Immigration Council. As of Feb. 9, there were 41,169 ICE immigrant detainees in custody, according to TRAC. More than half, 54.7 percent, had no criminal record, and many more had only minor offenses, including traffic violations.

What are your rights?

Rebecca Sharp, the founder and director of La Esperanza, an outreach program of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Mars Hill that serves Latino families in Buncombe, Madison, and Yancey counties, said preparations are already under way to help immigrants deal with the expected increase in enforcement.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that certain constitutional rights — excluding the right to vote — extend to everyone living within the U.S., not just natural-born citizens or legalized immigrants. This includes “due process” protections under the Fifth, 10th, and 14th amendments.

ICE enforcement officers typically use administrative removal warrants — signed by agency administrators, not judges or magistrates — to carry out their duties. Unlike a criminal warrant issued by the federal court, a removal warrant for civil violation of immigration laws does not authorize the ICE officer to enter into a home, school, church, or other restricted area to execute the warrant — unless invited to enter.

If refused entry, the ICE agents must obtain a judicial warrant or wait until the subject of the administrative warrant leaves the house or other private area. For many undocumented immigrants, that means every trip to the grocery store, to work, to take children to school — even to go to the doctor — becomes a frightening risk.

“I have heard that there are people that are too scared to leave their houses,” Sharp said. “For the most part, you can’t do that. You have to get food, you have to work, you have to pay the bills, but there are people that are definitely lying low more than in the past.”

La Esperanza also works with Pisgah Legal Services to help immigrants on the typically complex path to long-term lawful immigration status.

Originally called Mujeres Unidas en Fe (women united in faith), the nonprofit organization changed its name to La Esperanza (the hope) as the numbers of volunteers expanded. It now supports dozens of immigrant families in western North Carolina.

Rumors of ICE activity in western North Carolina — most of them untrue — spread via social media, Sharp said.

“We educate people that social media can overwhelmingly be evil,” Sharp said. “People say ‘Well, I saw on social media that ICE is here. I saw on social media that my neighbor can turn me in.’ So I’m telling people, get off social media. Really look for groups and gatherings with people that you trust.”

SOURCE: excerpts from ‘I love this country, and I want to stay here’: An undocumented immigrant in Buncombe tells his story, annotated in Feb. 20, 2025: "The Asheville Watchdog," by JOHN BOYLE, LINUS SCHAFER-GOULTHORPE and PETER LEWIS