On discussions of sorts

There have been quite a few discussions in my life that have challenged me in some form or another to really think about what I believe about certain things, including animal rights, safe spaces, and immigration.

All three are very complicated issues and have people with very strong views one way or the other. Yes, I support animal rights, yes I support safe spaces, and yes I support immigration reform. The reasons for all of these are really very interrelated in my mind and having them randomly appear in my life in less than a week has made me think about them all together.

I think, for me at least, there's just a basic respect for life in general and equality. These basic beliefs extend to treating animals humanely, and equally. Not necessarily equal to us, because we are different, but across species. All humans should be treated equal, as should all dogs or pigs or cows or llamas or whatever. I don't understand why it's seen as ok for some animals to be given the star treatment while others are bred and led to the slaughter. It's one of the reasons I turned vegetarian 3 years ago.

Safe spaces have always been a difficult thing to discuss in my life, and I think a large part of that is because I'm mixed race. Though I do naturally feel more comfortable among people of color I've never felt entirely comfortable in any space where race is apparent. As a person who identifies as a person of color, majority white spaces make me feel slightly awkward and off guard, but majority non-white spaces make me feel slightly awkward because for people who don't know me I appear to be white. I do get defensive when people attack that space because it's really helped me as a person though I've always found it difficult to explain to some people. Life should not always be comfortable, but we should have places to go to be comfortable and relax so we can recoop and be ready for another day of uncomfortableness.

And last, immigration. I think our current immigration process is pretty screwy. It's so difficult to come to this country simply because you want to make a better life for yourself. You have to have some reason for coming, a job already, school, spouse, tourism, but wanting to make a better life doesn't count. And with the amount we charge for a visa, it's really only the priviledged who are able to come. There isn't really an avenue for the low income brackets to come and seek work with the exception of coming undocumented. And when a child was raised here undocumented we thank them by deporting them to a country they have never known.

I know there are other sides to each battle and I've heard all of them this week, it was just nice to get my thoughts out.

Here's to procrastination and senioritis.