First off, if you’re out there expecting Anonymous to rise their multi-facet face again and take over the planet through epic legionary hacks that change the world…take a breath. It’s not going to happen. They did their part and now they are resting, leave them be.
Secondly, I distinctly remember the first time the United States of America declared War in the Middle East. I was in second grade. My teacher was Mrs. G and she was a royal…words I can’t say about a teacher. But she was absolutely a racist cow.
That being said, I remember that at that time, I was in Calgary Alberta Canada, with between twenty-six and eight other students, whose parents all worked at the base.
I was one of the few kids whose parents didn’t work on the base, in a school of about four hundred kids. Which at the time both parents and students alike, thought was an astronomical number for a school.
Little did we know.
I remember going to my mom’s friend’s house on the base one day. I also remember my brother’s friend Mike, (mom’s friend’s son) a royal pain in the ass, but a mostly okay kid who didn’t hurt anyone. His dad was in the Army.
Not the Fucking Armed Forces, the Army. He wasn’t a Peace Keeper, as we were lied to in school, he was a dangerous killing machine.
And I learned this when as we were at their house one day, my mom and his wife were watching “live” video footage from Iraq, showing the bunker busters they were using back then, and the bombs, and the guns, and how “Dangerous and precarious” it was for Canadian soldiers.
I remember seeing blood on the screen and realizing in that moment, that I had no concept of what “War” really meant.
It never occured to me there were kids like me in the schools they were bombing, because I was told that Canadian soldiers didn’t throw bombs. I believed them.
Not because I wanted to think they were telling the truth, but because I couldn’t bare the thought of what it meant if they were lying. I bought into the Kool-aid. I wanted to be like Captain Marvel, saving the world, I wanted to be a soldier. It’s important you understand that.
And I’m pretty sure that in knowing that, this is the reason my mother moved us as close to family as she could get while pulling us away from that community as fast as she could.
I understand indoctrination. I fully believed I would return to Alberta and join up to serve. I fully believed that my house would be on the base one day, and that I would do my part for my country.
Until I moved to British Columbia.
Things are different here, but not by much. Many of the pedophiles who abused me in Alberta, found me in BC. To this day I don’t know how. But it wasn’t just them.
I was cool enough for the white kids, finally, but not cool enough for the Black kids, because of course there were very few Black kids around to be cool with.
I was as far as I know, the only Black kid in my first school here, and while I found friends, I also found I didn’t like the people at school. I didn’t like their lack of faith or country love. I didn’t love that they weren’t informed, and didn’t seem to care about what was happening in the world.
Mainly because in BC, kids were just kids. In Alberta however kids are not kids. They are future politicians, future soldiers, future leaders.
It’s both confusing and strange to raise your kid in one community where they are raised to believe one specific thing, and then to pull them out and raise them in another community that is the opposite of everything they know.
In short, I found fitting in after the first war very difficult. But then in the early 2000’s came the next war, Desert Storm wasn’t even over and now with 9/11 the USA was going to War Again. This time in the Middle East, because of course, but to go after very specific targets.
They accomplished their goals, but it took twenty years for them to pull their people out, and many died on the way out because the Taliban which they had been fighting, had grown exponentially and now were able to take over the US base in just under a few hours.
It shouldn’t have been that quick, but because of course the US lied about what they were doing, and their capabilities, we now know the truth.
Now here we go again. This is the fourth war in my 42 years on this earth, if you include what’s happening in Ukraine. And while the USA hasn’t officially declared war, they will, because that’s what they always do.
The only President in my lifetime who did not go to war is Joe Biden and that’s because he was too busy overseeing a genocide, to go to war.
I’m tired, as a human being, but more than tired I am fucking angry and galvanized. I am a powerful voice who refuses to stay silent even when it might look better for the budget, purely because I know what it feels like to be indoctrinated and lied to.
I also know what it feels like to decide to do my own homework, to realize that “I” was the problem, the whole problem and nothing but the problem for a lot of years, and to choose to do better.
I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I miss shit, I am not as psychologically quick as I used to be, and a lot of that has to do with brain damage, but even I can’t say “I’m a cunt because of brain damage.” Sometimes I’m a right twat because I am not feeling well and I don’t recognize the symptoms of not feeling well.
But I am trying. I am trying to make healthy changes that alter the game so that when I am well known and being paid for my work, I can HONESTLY say “Yes, I fucked up, but here’s how I’ve learned to do better.”
Too many people are too comfortable being stuck, because it feels safe. But just because it feels safe – doesn’t mean that it is. Sometimes it’s what feels safe the most, that is slowly killing us.
I learned this the hard way after breaking through the indoctrination that came with growing up in a 99.9% white community filled with folks who only wanted to alter everything about me, so I fit in with them.
There’s a scene in a show called “Switched at Birth,” one of the characters is gay and her adopted mother says to the birth family “Did it occur to you, to learn her language instead of making her keep up to yours?”
Colonizers, true colonizers don’t care about doing the work to do better, and you’ll see that right now as a lot of Israeli citizens who were perfectly fine with Israel’s continuous attacks on Palestine, are now running in fear for their lives, because they are terrified they might die.
They didn’t give a shit about keeping up Israel’s power dome as soon as they realized they might be in danger, they began to run like rats fleeing a forest fire.
Indoctrination tells me “Israel has a right to resist, open your homes and welcome Israeli’s with open arms.” Experience tells me the moment I do that, they will take my home, and kill my family if they don’t rape all of us first.
These are not exaggerations my friends, these are real experiences that Palestinian people experience every single day. I am sorry if I am the one ripping off the band-aid, but saying Israel has a right to exist, is the exact same thing as saying Canada’s genocide against the Indigenous people was a good thing because here we are.
No, it fucking wasn’t, and I say that fully knowing that had Canada not genocided Kanata, then I wouldn’t be here today, but here we fucking are. I don’t actually “Want” to be here.
But because of generational poverty and the fact that in my school days I faced literally every racist teacher in every grade, I didn’t get the access to education, and thus the opportunities that white kids got. Purely because I am Black and Biracial.
I learned a lot about how the kids of Soldiers, treat children of color, and it’s exactly what you think it is – Abusive, bullyish type behavior that is perfectly acceptable, as long as you don’t get caught.
I grew up in the community in Alberta filled with Army Brats, and the children of Peace Keepers, if I am telling you that Trump is going to declare war, please believe me, because when he does, it will be Canadian soldiers, Peace Keepers and fighters, who will be expected to go and clean up the mess.
I hope, it is my genuinely and loving prayer, that any Canadian who is asked to deploy to the Middle East firmly and unequivocally states “I refuse to serve.”
It’s bad enough that America sees it’s only way to hold onto power is to decimate the Middle East, but we do not have to go down that road. We as Canadians can say no to war, no to more destruction, and no to more genocide.
The choice is yours.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 