The Criminal Within

I'm not much of a marcher, but I am a writer, and I'm with you. In honor of the protests going on across the country, please accept this as my offering.

I’m disturbed. I know many of you are too. My stomach gets tied in knots and my tear ducts well-up frequently. There are waves of nausea too, and all the while, I’m humbled by the limits of my knowing. I’m humbled that I don’t know the half of it. Humbled that I don’t know what this kind of terror is first hand.

And yet I’m relieved. I’m relieved at my (and our) disturbance. I’m glad this heart is open enough to feel broken. I exhale that Grief has arrived with her lava-like fire and weightiness, to hold some of this with me. I’m relieved I am accessible to Her, because I understand that disturbance in this moment is a sign of humanity, of sanity, of empathy, and a healthy inability to see the abductions of so-called “criminal immigrants” as anything other than a gross and cruel misunderstanding of reality.

From the late 1940s until 1987 when he died, American writer and civil rights advocate James Baldwin urged white Americans to examine “why they needed the n————— (n-word) in the first place.” He repeated over and over again, that he knew (and has always known) he is not an n————— (n-word), and justly reasoned that it was therefore up to those who called him that to discover why they needed the concept. Baldwin demanded the inner examination of white people: people who Ta-Nehisi Coates would later describe as those who “tragically believe they are white.” Inner examination, Baldwin explained, is a critical component to curbing outer violence. Throughout his adult life, he repeatedly reminded us, that the fate of the country depended on this soul searching. Justice requires it.

Just as justice requires an examination of why “white” people need and invented the “n—————;” so too, justice demands that we all explore the invention and apparent need for the “criminal immigrant.” Because, let’s understand: the “criminal immigrant” does not exist. It is a make-believe designed to address a subjective fear. And when this make-believe is collectively replicated, the result is violence in the “outer” world. Most people have an extremely limited understanding of this most basic aspect of psychological physics: that what unconsciously is not integrated within, is intolerable to the psyche and becomes projected outward as an “enemy.” Our internal splits and the deportation of our own shadowed qualities, in a very real way, result in families being ripped apart. That’s why Mahmoud Khalil cannot be present for his son Deen on Father’s Day and is instead sitting in a detention center, thousands of miles away, a concrete room with 70 other men with no promise of due process or physical freedom. It is because some significant group of us need and invented the “criminal immigrant.”

And make no mistake of this fiction. I’m enraged I even have to refer to objective facts on the matter. But, for those of you slow-to-the-punch, who refuse to introvert your purely extroverted ways of knowing reality, here you go: In a study of the past 150 years, Northwestern University economist and professor Elisa Jácome discovered that immigrants were significantly less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born Americans. In fact, as of 1960, the incarceration gap widened such that immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people. (https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/immigrants-are-significantly-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-the-us-born/).

The American Immigration Council also conducted thorough research on the topic, focusing on data from 1980 to present day. They too discovered that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S.-born Americans. This finding holds true at national, state, county, and neighborhood levels, for both violent and non-violent crime, for both legal and undocumented immigrants. Moreover, AIC’s data reveals that welcoming immigrant communities actually decreases instances of crime and strengthens public safety. In other words: as immigrant populations increased, the number of violent and nonviolent crimes went down. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/debunking-myth-immigrants-and-crime.

So again, I’m asking us: why do we need this invention of the “criminal immigrant”!?

I must — I simply must — as a person of good conscience ask myself this question: What parts of me do I deem “outside,” “illegal,” “other” and, moreover, how can I reclaim the projections so dangerously placed on the innocent-supposed-enemy “out there.” Because they’re not out there. Because this apparent “criminal immigrant” is being abducted when they’re showing up to work; when they’re exercising their first amendment rights; when they’re lawfully abiding by court orders and showing up for asylum hearings. Why do we need them to be “criminal” when they’re not?

I’m not going to answer this question for you. I’m doing the work and it is liberation to do it. Please do it with me. And if you need help, I have a long podcast on the psycho-spiritual mechanism of scapegoating and how to unravel the lethal trail of our projections.

There’s another thing I have been disturbed by. And that is the incessant extroversion and outward orientation of our culture, and the stubborn, implicit refusal to explore — or even consider — how the recesses of our own minds have something to do with violence. I’m pissed about that. I’m pissed that my sitting on the cushion and self-reflection and dreamwork and grieving is deemed as “not the real work.” It’s not the only tool in the toolkit, but it’s essential to the cessation of cycles of violence. I’m angry by our insistence on an extroverted-only system of justice, because it again makes us “angels” and others “demons,” and therefore — here we go again — around the wheel of our own innocence and the enemy being “over there.”

I’m also disturbed because I know we’re capable of liberation and the reclamation of our wholeness. And I’m sad because: a life of liberation is such a potent, meaningful, dignified, way to live and I see me and us turn away from it habitually. I will hold the most gruesome parts of me and grieve them and love them for YOU. For US. And for heavens sake: justice will be incomplete without your self-inquiry; without your reclamation of your projections and inventions; without your wholeness. May that sink in to the deepest levels of understanding.

There is no King out there. Only in here. And she has the ability to make room for everybody.