Is just such a shock from being in China. Just got harassed and essentially threatened for being a socialist. They searched my bags and commented on my China flag and my little red books and my copy of Blackshirts and Reds. Fucking police state. The security in China is strict, but they don’t give a fuck about your thoughts, whereas this guy was very aggressive about “consequences” for being a socialist.
wtf the immigration officer was saying all of this when you got back to the US?
Commies can't immigrate to America. Seriously
I have no idea how much this is enforced though, since I used to know several Vietnamese people who were communist party members who were also American citizens or permanent residents. One ran a donut shop.
Also one of my comrades in a local org is a communist from Guatemala who was affiliated with leftist groups in central America, he still ended up in the US.
I'm not saying there's restrictions for communists, I just also believe the American state is lazy, inefficient, and probably prioritizes racism over past political affiliation when it comes to deciding who gets in.
Its enforced when black people start doing it
yeah I added an edit, immigration in America is guided by white supremacy first and foremost
oh no big need, wasnt a correction mostly just a thought.
Also can't be on the ballot in many states even if one were to get the ridiculous amount of funds needed to run for office
American officials at the airport will grill you on whether you're affiliated with any communist party, they never stopped the McCarthyism.
This has made me realize I really need to up my commie game then because border agents have never said a peep to me. I'm affiliated with 2 anarchist orgs, 1 Marxist-Leninist party, and 1 homeless support network. I thought my name would be on a file by now wtf. Fucking Immigration feds are calling me a liberal.
Border control has never stopped me when I've come back to the US from abroad, and I've left the US twice this year already. I had a bag with the Disco Elysium commie symbol (the stars and antlers) but that's probably too subtle. I'm also very visibly non-binary
Ugh do I need to tattoo a sickle and hammer on my face
American survielance really is a paper tiger, they dont have the time or resources to actually monitor 90% of the shit they want you to think they can.
Almost all of the data they collect ends up on a server in Utah, which is very convenient if you become a "person of interest" and they want to build a file on you, but if you're still a face in the crowd they basically don't know anything.
When I was a teen and traveling I would always, always get picked for extra search. I wore all black, had long hair, and black fingernails. TSA is just going off vibes.
So you're saying I need to seem more commie and more punk? I'm already both of those things but I gotta try harder it seems.
Maybe your vibe is too hinged and you need to move in a more visibly unhinged direction
Man if you can get away without being harassed, I say stick to whatever you’re doing. I have been secondary searched every time I go through TSA since I was a 14 year old kid, and it gets really fucking old. Not to mention the constant profiling by police on the streets. I’ll never forget going clothing shopping with my father at Kohls, walking out and seeing a cop crawling through the parking lot, telling my dad, “stay close when I pull out, this cop is going to pull me over” and being right. If he hadn’t been there to say, “why the fuck are you harassing my son?” I would have gone to jail on suspicion of murder that day because I am brown and had long hair and apparently someone else did too.
It might. It however needs to be actually accessed. If they don't think it necessary, then they likely won't bother.
I'm not American, so I'm just going off of what I've heard from others. So maybe it isn't as prevalent as I thought. I just assumed based on what I've heard from American comrades that being questioned at airports about communism is just a normal thing they do, but I'm going off of secondhand accounts.
That very much depends on how they profile you then. I've been around US international airports quite a bit and I've never been asked about it even when applying for TSA PreCheck
I think they searched me because I had a whole bag just for gifts I brought back. It wasn’t until I got to the secondary search area that this happened, when they popped open my bag, saw the Chinese flag, the mao books, etc haha
This at least fills me with some hope. They're scared. They're jumping at books and flags now.
They never stopped