Alien Nations
Archived from Aug 31, 2023:
Remember when the US government tried to soft launch aliens a few weeks ago? Yeah, I hardly do either. It’s hard to take seriously, particularly given the best we got was something about “non-human biologics”, which was just a trigger for conspiracy theorists to very quickly forget that fish exist, or any other living thing for that matter. For the most part, it felt like a distraction from the general inability for any government to take accountability for active environmental catastrophe, crumbling infrastructure and inequitable economies. What struck me as particularly odd was that I realized I’m actually extremely used to hearing American media talk about aliens, and no, I don’t mean in sci-fi. You’re probably very used to it too, but in the context of “illegal aliens”. Now, the general dehumanizing quality of the term was never really lost on me, but I also never spent much time thinking about why exactly the term “alien” was ever used.
Turns out, it goes back much further than I thought. The Aliens and Sedition Act was written into law in the United States in 1797. The laws were written in a time where war with France seemed inevitable. Three alien laws were written, these laws raised the waiting period for naturalization from 5 to 14 years, permitted the detention of subjects of an enemy nation, and authorized the chief executive to expel any alien he considered dangerous. The sedition laws largely expanded existing libel laws, prohibiting malicious or false statements about the government and taking libel laws up to the federal level. Together, these paved the way for modern US immigration policy, and arguably, modern American xenophobia. Originally, this naming convention for these laws made perfect sense, as the English word alien original stems from the Latin alienus, meaning “foreign, other”, with the meaning "residing in a country not of one's birth" being recorded in the mid 15th century. The sense of "wholly different in nature" arrives in the 1670s and finally morphing into the meaning "not of this Earth" by 1920. Especially since the 1950s, the word has become culturally related to extraterrestrials, even if by definition it still applies to anything that can be categorized as “other”.
The cultural prevalence of aliens is obvious, we have plenty of movies and stories about them but what this really got me thinking about is r/USdefaultism.
The whole subreddit is a collection of comments and threads wherein Americans seem to either completely forget or are wholly unable to realise there are countries, laws and languages other than what can be found in the US. It is…mesmerizing. I can’t stop looking at it. The sheer confidence radiating off of these images is astounding and fully unfounded. Now, I live in Toronto and know a lot of Americans who have moved here. I’ve served plenty of Americans at bars, worked with them in said bars and a corporate setting and become very good friends with some of them. I know these comments are not reflective of every American, but they do speak to a hyper-myopic view of the world that seems to be only held by Americans. As one user put it:
Going online for the rest of the world means having to keep in mind an insane amount of hyperspecific trivia about American culture while going online for Americans means having to keep in mind the rest of the world exists I guess.
The subreddit is funny and grim. It offers a glimpse into just how alien many Americans consider basically everything. Look, I’m in no way saying you have to know everything about every country, that’s impossible. Hell, I will even say it makes sense for a large part of your cultural awareness to be based on the country in which you live, but to put up such willful blinders to the rest of the world is harmful to oneself and the world. Mix that up with a definition of the word alien that now refers to non-humans and you start to see how such horrific, violent policies are put into place. When you convince a population that they alone are human, that they alone have the true experience of the world, you create a population that no longer sees immigrants and refugees as human, but as invaders from an incomprehensible place. It is a culture founded on othering, warped into full dehumanization. It is all the more ironic and disheartening when the simplest understanding of US history will reveal that the current, dominant culture was built by colonizers, not the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The US has a long, ugly history with immigration, particularly the immigration of non-white people. As the 2024 US election creeps up, it is imperative to remember that the calls for violence, the condemnation of “illegal aliens”, the war cries are all directed at human beings. Humans who are loved, who love and who are frequently simply looking for a better, safer life. While I may be Canadian, it is not hard to see the impact these violent, fascist talking points have on our own politics. From Maxime Bernier trying to become a discount Trump (Poilievre may be more mainstream, but policy wise is just as dangerous) to New Brunswick endangering trans kids by outing them non-consensually, it is creeping in. Our world is not made better by fear and ignorance. It has never been improved with alienation. We are not made whole by the hatred force fed to us by politicians and companies desperately trying to cling to power. We are made whole, we are made better through grace, through curiosity, and perhaps, most importantly, through love.
Thank you, as always, for being here friends. I was MIA last week because wow being in a wedding party is a busy job. How was your week? Anything interesting happening? Did you also have 11 am beers more than once during the week??
