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Today the North Carolina House will vote on a bill that bans the exception to wear medical masks and further criminalizes protesters who block roads. I feel as though my existence is hanging in the balance.
I've drawn this card two days in a row from two different decks. It speaks to the endless balancing act that comes with change. Balance is not a static thing. It requires agility and often movement to restore equilibrium. We live on a moving planet, after all. Even our atoms remain in motion.
The motions to add any amendments to the bill were denied in the Senate. Today's vote will be on HB237 as it is, with only a few changes to language. No amendments that enshrine our right to our bodily autonomy and right to assemble. Whether or not you mask in public places or take to the streets to protest or even live in North Carolina, this bill affects you. Ohio has already passed a similar bill. Georgia removed the ability for bail funds to exist at the same time that it is using its new Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act. This act was used to indict Stop Cop City activists. Homelessness is criminalized as rent is becoming increasingly unaffordable. There are so many more examples of ways that we are punished for being alive and exercising our autonomy. I don't have to tell you how bad things are getting. I think you know, it's just a question of degrees. How close is the danger to me?
I have felt the danger brushing against the nape of my neck and whispering its sordid promises in the thick of the night. I named this project dead_canary because I can see the fragments of truth in my anxieties. I come from people who have lived through displacement and state terror and genocide. I see it happening to people all around me. I understand safety as the illusion it is. This bill would seek to kill me. If not outright by forced repeat infections, then by the slow, cumulative fatal dosage of isolation. If I've been assigned as offal by the state, maybe I am free, in a sense. Free to move beyond serving as a lighthouse's warning flash. Free to raise hell.
Last night, after I gathered up all my cards from where they were spread on my desk, I glanced at the bottom of the deck. Death.