By: Gabriela Yareliz
The news coming out of Ceuta, Spain is disturbing and eerily similar to scenes the U.S. border experienced in the past presidential administration. Borders overrun— and not by women and children or even families— no, by military age men.
I have seen videos of local women crying and displaying an emotion that I would say is pure fear. They state that as their town is being quite literally being overrun that there is no military or guardia civil to help. “We are alone,” one woman said in a video.
Some cynics say the people freaking out over the migrant “invasion” are racist or fragil. That the land is Morocco’s and always will be. Spanish citizens speaking out are being “unfollowed” and “canceled,” whatever that means these days.
Many in the comments say this is the price colonizers pay for their past actions, except ironically, no one alive in Spain now committed the atrocities of the past. It’s a narrative that is very familiar.
Some may argue the videos aren’t accurate— listen, whatever. We can argue about who has the moral high ground until we turn blue in the face. (And it may be pointless as it may be neither wins the battle of morality). I do want to say one thing, and one thing only— have you noticed that in every power game in this world, it’s the women who pay?
In colonial times, indigenous and native women were raped and treated like subhumans. The wives of the colonizers had husbands who were rapists and often had all kinds of children running around town (multiple families).
Today, women who live in areas where there are bands of men entering, men who defecate in the streets, rob the vulnerable, create environments of crime— sort of how here in NYC Times Square was pure anarchy when the corrupt migrant hotels had midtown in a chokehold. Motorcycle gangs would go by people and yank purses, destroy property, stab people, and there was no recourse. No police. No help. All in the name of “sanctuary cities.” Sanctuaries for who? I will tell you who didn’t feel safe— law abiding and tax-paying women.
Remember the woman they lit on fire like a torch at the Stillwell Avenue station on the F train? Debrina Kawam. Right here in Brooklyn. No one seemed to care (except for Curtis Sliwa). Maybe because she was a woman. Or because she was homeless. Or both.
You get robbed blind in taxes that go into helping criminals be criminals. Politicians pocket that money and laugh at us. Criminals get released into the streets over and over again, while police focus their efforts on trying to catch normal people trying in life in technical infractions while the city burns in the background because they are cowards. Quality of life keeps going downhill, and then you see women, nervous women, despondent and alone and unprotected.
It’s time men stop playing these f***ing games. You know why this happens? Because good men do nothing. And I don’t mean these trash politicians who get kickbacks and should be in prison for betraying their own citizens— no, I mean the citizens of the country, those men. They do nothing.
And you know who suffers? Who ends up raped, abused, burned alive and dead? Law-abiding women.
I keep seeing women, voice trembling and holding back tears. Tired of this sh*t. What if instead of power plays, men decided to protect women? All women. May we all think of that the next time we see a woman stabbed, burned or pushed onto the train tracks or crying and running to seek safety from a group of abusive men.
This stops, when good men decide they will rise up to be men.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 