The plane takes off in London Heathrow and i recognise a familiar anger slowly raising its ugly head. By the time we land in San Francisco i’m both steaming and amazed at how this place (the U.S. in general? California? or tiny Santa Cruz and all it stands for?) is able to trigger off this anger in me. All these weeks, almost two months of travelling, through multi-layered and nuanced physical and affective landscapes, through a spectre of different shades of connection and different types of relationships one can have to a particular space. And then BANG, sheer anger.<\/p>\n
This time – it strikes me as well – there is no alienation of “stepping into the other side of the television screen”, that might have mediated the anger. No, this international airport already feels familiar. And so i get upset when customs officials do their surveillance job with much friendliness and a smile. “You have a beautiful handwriting,” says the guy who checks my forms and papers. “You have very beautiful eyes. Grey and green and blue, it probably depends on the light?” says the guy who takes digital fingerprints and a picture of me. The friendly faces of this surveillance make me want to scream… But all i say is: “Would that be information you need to let me in the country?” He looks a bit embarrased, turns very concentrated to the screen in front of him. I feel like asking why all of this is necessary, they already have my fingerprints and multiple pictures, digital and non-digital, of me. But i bite my tongue. The game of friendliness is strictly regulated, as big notices remind the aliens & non-residents at all times: Insulting or threatening a customs officer is an offense.<\/p>\n
Camille’s words in Athens ring through my head, and it seems a good idea to take them (more) seriously. That such anger of the “alien” is important to articulate, that it points to things that people who are more settled in a place don’t see or feel anymore. And she talked about all the things that made her angry and upset in her first months in the UK. The blatent signs and marks of a deeply classist society that repulsed her, and the fact that it didn’t seem to upset other people so much – something which is perhaps even more repulsive. And i think of all the friends who are very angry about things in Belgium and Flanders and Europe, and how that anger is precious to me. An anger that i can and do share but often it comes from a different source, i.e. when it requires the labour of learning to see the mechanisms and privileges that i have been brought up with, and have learned to take for granted. So i’m determined to articulate better the ways in which this Santa Cruz feels so wrong.<\/p>\n
But for the moment of arrival it’s good to be saved from my anger, and that is precisely what Natascha and Kelly do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The plane takes off in London Heathrow and i recognise a familiar anger slowly raising its ugly head. By the time we land in San Francisco i’m both steaming and amazed at how this place (the U.S. in general? California? or tiny Santa Cruz and all it stands for?) is able to trigger off this … Continue reading “not an angry girl”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}