Quiet paranoia.
That's the feeling I've been experiencing lately.
I was browsing my bank accounts earlier this week when I had a sudden thought: I'm a former Federal employee, and I've got all the records to prove it. I'm entitled to a Federal pension—not a big one, but enough to buy a hamburger in the year 2062 (maybe). What if one day the Federal government decides to delete my employment records, to make me look like I was never a Federal employee at all? Surely that would be illegal... but what's to stop them?
I'm one of the few people from the United States of America that actually has money saved for retirement—and I acknowledge the great privilege of having retirement savings. Well, the majority of my retirement money comes from my Federal government service. If the Federal government erases my employment records, do they take back all of that money? That doesn't sound very legal... but again, what's to stop them?
I was born on continental United States of America soil. Therefore, I am a birthright citizen. I've had a US passport since I was a child, and I have a valid US passport now. What if the government decides to take my citizenship away because they didn't like something I said on TikTok? That doesn't seem very legal, but… what's to stop them?
This is quiet paranoia. It's the paranoia that comes from asking the question, "what happens when those who enforce the rules decide to make up their own rules as they go along?" You may recognize that such paranoia is not at all a new thing. Black and brown folks in the United States of America have been experiencing it for a long time. Indigenous people have been experiencing it since the very beginning—after all, the United States of America was founded on Indigenous erasure. It was founded by people who specifically set up the system of rules to make Indigenous erasure legal.
I've become fond of saying that the first step to decolonizing our minds is to practice thinking beyond binaries—to practice moving from "what's possible?" to, "what's probable? What's likely?" Decolonization of our minds also involves asking ourselves, "what does my privilege allow me to do that others are not able to do?"
My wife is fond of asking how we would get our money if World War III happens and all the banks shut down. I usually tell her that such a thing is highly unlikely and our money is probably safer in banks than it is under the mattress. But the truth is, I’m able to tell her that because we have certain privileges. We are both US citizens with US bank accounts. We have our money in banks that are relatively stable, and bank runs don't happen too often in the USA... with some notable exceptions. The truth is, World War III is already here in places like Palestine, Sudan, and Syria. The truth is, there are people on this planet who have never had access to a bank account... whose only money is that which can be stored under a mattress, or in a jacket, or in a desk drawer, or stuffed inside of their own shoes.
It turns out that a major step in decolonizing our minds is realizing that the likelihood of certain events is directly connected to our privilege, is directly connected to our positionalities... which is context-specific by definition. Because of our positionalities, we may never experience certain events that other people deal with on a daily basis. We may never understand certain feelings that other people grapple with every day. That's just a fact. It's not something to feel guilty about; it is something to acknowledge. We can acknowledge our privilege and ask the questions: what do we do with this privilege? How can we act with this privilege? How can we be with this privilege?
I can counter my quiet paranoia with the notion that the Federal government taking away all my money is probably relatively slim, while at the same time acknowledging that there are people for whom the word "paranoia" doesn't make any sense... because the government really is after them. I can ask myself what precautions I can take to keep myself and my loved ones safe. And then I can ask myself: what more can I do for those with less privilege than me?
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My position
My name is Chris Musei-Sequeira, and I use he/him pronouns. My mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago as a descendant of enslaved Africans brought to the Caribbean during the time of European colonization. She came to the United States of America (USA) at the age of 10. My father is Goan and was born in India, in Mumbai, and raised Catholic and English-speaking. He came to the USA for his graduate studies, where he met my mother.
My sister and I were born in the USA and lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of multiple American cities. I studied aeronautical engineering and technology policy in university, then worked at the Federal Aviation Administration and as an aviation consultant. I've lived in cities up and down the USA East Coast since the age of 18, until very recently. Now I live in Eastern Europe with my wife and our cat.
I thank Heather Luna and Lavinia Muth for showing me the importance of publicly expressing our positions. Because of our positions, all of us are very familiar with some aspects of the world while having no idea of other aspects. Positionality expresses how our individual positions affect our relationships with other people and with the world as a whole.
IMAGE SOURCE: File:Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart EA 99-001 Bue 305 Nr. 1963 Bild 1 (1-697131-1).jpg - Wikimedia Commons. (11 November 1938). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Landesarchiv_Baden-Wuerttemberg_Hauptstaatsarchiv_Stuttgart_EA_99-001_Bue_305_Nr._1963_Bild_1_(1-697131-1).jpg -- This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
