Jeanette Vizguerra-Ramirez – Feminism and Religion

Andrew Young famously said that ‘anything is legal if 100 businessmen decide to do it.” I would add a more modern take. Nothing is too low, too immoral, too illegal if 5 or 6 Supreme Court justices decide to allow it.

Their recent decisions could fill a book on how corrupt they are. (I’ve discussed this before. But this post is looking at immigration and the cruelty that this administration is fomenting. We have always been a cruel nation. Patriarchy has honed cruelty as its worked to crush women’s bodies while silencing women. How else would women have agreed to our loss of power? Carol Christ has written eloquently about this. Immigration policy has blown the lid off this pot. Perhaps because it is too new, too shocking. Because ICE is in our faces with agents flooding neighborhoods and engaging in unfettered cruelty.

For example, when ICE raided an apartment building in the Bronx on Feb 24th, they arrested 19 year old Merwil Gutiérrez. When they realized they had the wrong person, their response was “take him anyway.” Read that again, “take him anyway.”

Merwil Gutiérrez was then deported to the notorious prison CECOT in El Salvador. For months, his family couldn’t find him. He was eventually sent to his native Venezuela.

from Egyptian tomb of Pashedu *ca.* 1314-1200 BCE

Once there was a tree who loved two young children, twins, a boy and a girl.

Thay came everyday to play under her canopy.

Gather her leaves and play fairies of the forest.

Climb her trunk and play in her branches

And sleep with their backs against her trunk

They loved the tree and the tree loved them.

Time went by and the twins grew older.

They didn’t come to visit the tree as often.

One day when they did come, the tree asked them to play but they responded they needed money because they wanted to go on dates.

The tree responded, take my apples to sell. But leave enough behind for the squirrels and birds and other animals so they can eat too. Leave enough behind for the seeds.