Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? · 7:35pm Jun 5th, 2020
there's pretentious latin in the subject line, gotta be a darf-blog
We hesitated making a blog about anything currently political because we feel privileged and unequipped to adequately discuss the topics at hand. After some discussion, we've decided to link to some blog posts from other authors on the site who have said things better than we could.
In addition, here are some thoughts from us related to the subject:
In Canada, we have had numerous encounters with the police. The most frequent ones were during our intense period of mental illness following our suicide attempt and dropping out of university. Several times a month, a police officer could or would come to the door, explain that someone had called in that we might be a threat to ourselves or others, and take us away from our home whether or not we wanted to leave. They would repeatedly cite the 'B.C. Mental Health Act' as substantiation for taking me out of my home when I did not want to go. After reading and researching this act, there didn't appear to be any clause or qualifier letting police remove you from your home without a doctor's substantiation of your condition in written form. No such writing was ever found or supplied for us, but we were physically dragged out of our apartment a number of times. Once, a police officer bent our arm and pushed us against the police car when we didn't want to go in the hospital. We had a panic attack in the parking lot, and in the waiting room. Every time we went to the hospital, we had to walk home, because we couldn't afford the bus. The walk was over ten kilometres each time.
Once we became homeless, we didn't see the police as much. One time a police officer implied we had sexually assaulted a girl nearby our home to try and get us to provide extra information about the incident which we didn't have. The police always wanted to know if we were doing drugs, but never anything else about our lives. Later on we didn't see them as much.
When we had our 30th birthday and came out as trans, our family decided we were crazy and didn't want us around. They got the police to take us out of our home by force. We screamed 'trans-hate crime' at the top of our lungs and tried to get someone to help us. The police officer made it clear in no uncertain terms that he could shoot us if we didn't cooperate. He pinned us to the ground and made us stare at his gun.
Most of the time when the police take us away, they don't make sure we have our inhaler for our asthma attacks. They don't let us bring our stuffed animal Squinky, they don't let us talk to anyone in the psych ward, they put us in solitary confinement, they change our medications without telling us, they ignore us for days at a time, and then they discharge us with our medications completely removed and a nicotine inhaler in our hands that they handed to us because we were anxious and they didn't want to give out real anti-anxiety medication. we have been addicted to nicotine for over a year and a half since leaving the hospital with that nicotine inhaler.
We don't believe the mentally ill, drug addicted, or homeless are treated well in Canada. We believe they're primarily seen as the lower rungs of society that everyone wishes would just wash away and drown. We are part of that part of society. We have slept on park benches and in fast-food waiting rooms and in an alley when it was raining. We have gone weeks with barely any food and only the voice of God in our head to keep us company.
We don't know what the conclusion is here. It feels like, if we were writing a story a hundred years ago, that if we described the things that had truly and really happened to us, people would say something like "wait a minute, that can't be right, the future won't really turn out like that, will it?"
Oops, I guess.
Lastly, to clarify:
#BlackLivesMatter
#IndigenousLivesMatter
#TransLivesMatter
#someapplicablehashtagfornonneurotypicalpeoplewhoarescaredofpolice
#ACAB
if you read any of this and felt like commenting to tell us why we're politically virtue signalling or say 'statistics can't be racist' or be, like, a nazi in any way
nazi pones
nazi pones
nazi pones
FUCK OFF
i'm really sorry that happened to you darf :c
You are loved and cared for in this community and thank you for speaking out.
I'm sorry to hear about all that happened to you. Police reform isn't just a US issue. Canadian police are more than capable of being just as horrific, and more people need to realize this applies to every place with police. #ACAB.
Good blog <3
Thank you for sharing what must have been very hard words and experiences to share, as someone who struggles with their own mental challenges (nowhere close to what you struggled, and still likely struggle with) it saddens me to see you were treated this way. Nothing excuses what happened, and though I know the words of a stranger who doesn't even live in the same country as you are cold comfort, I am sorry and I hope you are doing better.
Again, thank you for sharing with us.
Echoing everyone here: Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. ACAB forever. Love ya.
It makes me incredibly bitter that such abuse still happens to people all over the world, is happening right now, has happened to you. No one deserves to be treated in such a manner, least of all when we are vulnerable and in dire need of help. So much has changed since the middle ages and yet so little. I wish I knew how to help. I feel so powerless.
Black, Trans, Indigenous... honestly.
Labels. #ALLLivesMatter