On the Doctor's recommendation...
Jan. 20th, 2005 08:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It was mentioned to me that Monday is the memorial of what the news likes to call the "Columbia Mutant Massacre". I'm learning that some people here were actually there, and from what I'm hearing, actually involved.
When it happened, I was in the third hospital in three days, getting passed around from trauma center to trauma center when my blood work came back as x-gene positive. Hospitals kept saying that they didn't have the necessary precautions to treat a mutant trauma victim.
They didn't let me have TV until a week or so after, and by that time the news stations wouldn't show the footage of what happened except in little three-second edited-for-prime-time sound bites. But there was the guy talking on Crossfire, I can't remember his name although I could probably look it up. The "Friends of Humanity" guy. Saying that this was a sign of things to come. Advocating camps, roundups, registration only being the beginning. Couching everything in terms of public safety.
I'd only been a mutant for a week as far as I knew, and I was already part of a public menace. Through physical therapy and all the subsequent visits to specialists and stuff, I kept getting looked as a mutant first, and as a patient second. So when they let me have a computer again, I got in touch with some people on the mutant rights websites and started learning as much as I could. By the way, there's a lot of good literature out there if anyone's interested.
What I'm saying is that I wasn't there at Columbia, and I can't pretend to empathize with what anyone here went through because of it - but outside of here in the rest of the world, it was kind of a watershed event for the mutant rights community. Most of the websites have a "Remember Columbia" banner of some sort, still.
I'm told there's a club for mutant rights that some of you belong to that does little fundraisers and benefits and stuff like that. If you're interested in getting a bit more active and political than a mutant bake sale, I think I could get on board with that.
I guess we've all got to find our causes.
When it happened, I was in the third hospital in three days, getting passed around from trauma center to trauma center when my blood work came back as x-gene positive. Hospitals kept saying that they didn't have the necessary precautions to treat a mutant trauma victim.
They didn't let me have TV until a week or so after, and by that time the news stations wouldn't show the footage of what happened except in little three-second edited-for-prime-time sound bites. But there was the guy talking on Crossfire, I can't remember his name although I could probably look it up. The "Friends of Humanity" guy. Saying that this was a sign of things to come. Advocating camps, roundups, registration only being the beginning. Couching everything in terms of public safety.
I'd only been a mutant for a week as far as I knew, and I was already part of a public menace. Through physical therapy and all the subsequent visits to specialists and stuff, I kept getting looked as a mutant first, and as a patient second. So when they let me have a computer again, I got in touch with some people on the mutant rights websites and started learning as much as I could. By the way, there's a lot of good literature out there if anyone's interested.
What I'm saying is that I wasn't there at Columbia, and I can't pretend to empathize with what anyone here went through because of it - but outside of here in the rest of the world, it was kind of a watershed event for the mutant rights community. Most of the websites have a "Remember Columbia" banner of some sort, still.
I'm told there's a club for mutant rights that some of you belong to that does little fundraisers and benefits and stuff like that. If you're interested in getting a bit more active and political than a mutant bake sale, I think I could get on board with that.
I guess we've all got to find our causes.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 09:02 am (UTC)Moral of the story? People suck.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:45 am (UTC)It's why I want to see what Amanda has to say to them. It'll be important.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:56 am (UTC)Ha, no pressure to Amanda, right?
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Date: 2005-01-20 02:38 pm (UTC)What I'm going to say... I hope it sounds all right. Strange says it's a good speech, but there's bits I can't talk about, given the whole connection with certain people and the fact no-one's going to believe me if I tell them the people who attacked Columbia were from a former government black ops program designed to turn mutants into weapons. Hopefully missing that part isn't going to matter, even tho' it's a perfect example of where talks of camps and registration and the like end up.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:17 am (UTC)I didn't know. I just...I don't know.
I don't want to beleive things are like this. but they are. and I hate it.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 11:36 am (UTC)it's amazing what being in control of your powers can do to a relationship. and losing control.
but you know, if he couldn't handle this, then he wouldn't've been able to handle anythign else either.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 02:45 pm (UTC)Brighton's in the minority, I know, but it just goes to show that all thise shite isn't inevitable. People can be decent and tolerant, if they're taught to be.
Of course, then you have the bother boys in London who used to roll homeless mutant kids for shits and giggles, and the police used to just look the other way. And the foster families who used to freak out at the first sign I wasn't a normal kid. *shrugs* Works both ways.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 02:54 pm (UTC)the problem is that people don't know better and it's easy to fear what you don't understand. I was thinking about it. Shel knew I was a mutant, but he didn't hate me until he feared me. but I remember, the fear came first. I was so nutty at the time (as compared to now) that I barely registered it.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-20 03:11 pm (UTC)