Fortunate and Cursed

There’s a strange duality to being adopted that I’ve carried my whole life never quite knowing how to hold it. I am both fortunate and cursed, and that those two things have never stopped being true at the same time.

The fortunate part is obvious, or at least it seemed to be what everyone looking in saw. I was in a stable home with two parents who wanted me, who chose me, who fed me, clothed me, who raised me, and tried to keep me safe. I grew up with six siblings, never alone, always part of something bigger than myself, and always being told that I was loved. I had opportunities. I had structure. I had a family that, for all its complications loved me the only way that they knew how. I never doubted that.

But the curse was quieter, harder to name. It was the questions that lived underneath everything. It is the, It is what it is part.

Adopted kids, typically go one of two ways:

• People pleasers desperate to earn the love they fear they don’t deserve, going along to get along.

• Rebels pushing against everything, testing every limit, almost daring the people round them to prove what they already believe, that they’re unlovable, and that they’ll be abandoned again.

While I sometime did go along to get along, I was the rebel. I pushed. I tested. I acted out in ways that probably confirmed for my parents that something was wrong with me, not understanding that I was just waiting for the other show to drop, to finally know what I was sure was coming was coming.

And in our house, there were strict rules and acting out had consequences.

My parents believed in not sparing the rod. Corporal punishment was just how things worked. It was called accountability. It was said that my dad was harder on the boys, me and my brother, than he was on the girls, my five sisters. But there was physical discipline, more verbal correction, more attention of the worst kind, usually from my dad, and, and I grew up feeling that my father didn’t like me and that I received more than my equal share of punishment. I remember my sister once begging me, almost whispering, just stop arguing back, and it would be over sooner. She was right, but I had a temper and I couldn’t. Something in me wouldn’t let me back down even when backing down would have saved me pain.

When I was young, I was scared of my parents, specifically of making them angry. When they got angry, sometimes, often, they were acting out of their own anger, not from some measured place of discipline. Still, when I was a kid, I felt that I was the cause of everything that made them angry. I brought out the worst in them. I frustrated them. I pushed their buttons, and then I got what was coming. It was a pattern neither of us knew how to break.

There was no manual or internet. They were raising me, the way they were raised. The way they knew. That’s not what “not raising a sissy” meant in their world. You didn’t pout, whine, complain, or cry unless you really wanted a reason to cry. You took your licks and learned, and sometimes that meant learning the hard way.

Looking back now with decades between me and that time, I can also see a lot of things I couldn’t see then. My dad was busy. He was stressed. He worked constantly, and when he wasn’t working, he was always busy doing other things. When he came through the door at the end of the work day, I felt like the fun stopped and I tried to avoid him, because he was usually in a bad mood, and with me, it felt like my dad was constantly finding dissatisfaction, and barking commands at me like, sit up straight, stop dragging your feet when you walk. Now that I’ve been a parent and felt some of those same pressures, I understand differently. He never had the time for me that he had for my older siblings, the ones who had come before the chaos of providing for seven children, before exhaustion set in. I don’t say that to blame him. I say it because it was true, and because understanding it has helped me make peace with it.

Once, when I was older, and I was still thinking about it often: I asked my Mom something I wanted to ask after being a parent myself for a while: I said, Did you ever wonder what was going on with me? Did you ever ask yourself why is this small child acting out so much? Or did you just rush to nip it in the bud, to control, to discipline, to punish? She didn’t have an immediate answer. Maybe there isn’t one.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand as a parent myself: we all want the best for our children, but we don’t always know what that is. My parents wanted their religion for me, not to punish me and not for any nefarious reasons, but rather because they genuinely believed it was the path to salvation and meaning. They, like many parents before them, had an ideal version of my life mapped out. They believed that they were treating me the same as their other kids because in their minds, they were. They wanted me to have a great life. They put a focus on our family. While none of these aspirations are ill intended, at the time, I felt like they wanted me to have a great life as long as it fell within the parameters they’d defined. Anything outside the parameters looked like failure, looked like rebellion, looked like something to be fixed and corrected.

And honestly? Most of the time, I wasn’t some courageous, noble truth-seeker. I was just impulsive. Reckless. Careless. I made choices that frustrated and scared them, and I didn’t always know why I was making them, or was afraid to tell them. I just knew I couldn’t stop getting into trouble.

Here’s the other truth, the one I need to say clearly:

A lot of the conflict, pain, as well as harmony that I experienced, was just normal family stuff. Adopted or not, families fight. Parents mess up. Kids rebel. There’s nothing unique about any of that. The foundation I was raised on: emphasis on character, ethics, striving toward high ideals were also both fortunate and a curse. The structure, the community, the belief that you can be better tomorrow than you are today? Those things stuck with me, motivated me, and kept me moving forward even when the doctrine itself fell away.

And later, something shifted in all of us. My parents changed . I don’t mean that lightly. I was angry for many years about the way that I was raised, for being a big disappointment, and how I felt I was made to feel about myself. After all the years of not understanding each other, we found our way to something better. We learned to love each other without conditions. They also really appreciated the father that I became. We learned to appreciate each other for who we are, not who we’d wanted each other to be. I was able to be for them at the end of their lives and we found common ground in ways that I never expected. My siblings, all six, are people who I genuinely enjoy, love, and am proud to call my family.

So yes, I felt a little cursed. I lacked confidence and a courage. I carried wounds that took decades to understand, I felt I was letting a lot of people down, and wondered what was wrong with me. I grew up feeling like the outsider. When that Sesame Street song, said, one of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong, I knew that was me. And as I got older, I felt like I was a problem to be managed rather than a person to be known. I spent many years unfucking myself from religious guilt, being afraid, and for failing to live up to family patterns that didn’t fit.

But I was also fortunate. I was chosen. I was raised by people who for all of their flaws, showed up ever day and tried. We cursed and cried sometimes, but we laughed and loved each other too. They never gave up on me even when I did. I was given a foundation. was it complicated, imperfect, sometimes painful. Yes, but I was also able to build on it, push against it, and eventually make it my foundation. At the end of my parent’s lives, I got to know them as people, not just as authorities, not just as parents. I got to love them freely, and be loved back. Not everyone gets that. Not every adopted kid gets that much.

So I’m saying this at the outset of this story: I am both fortunate and cursed. These two things have never stopped being true at the same time. And maybe it’s not a contradiction.

Maybe it’s just what it means to be human: to hold the bad and the good together. To love the people who hurt you, to forgive and be forgiven, to finally understand that the family you were given, with all of it’s flaws, is still your family.

*************************************************************************

“For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.

– Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

This Be The Verse

By Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

- - -

I grew up feeling like something was missing. Like I was standing outside a house looking in at a family I loved but didn’t quite belong to.

My family didn't make me feel this way on purpose. They were good people. They loved me. But I was the only adopted child in a family of seven, and that difference sat in my bones long before I could find the words to talk about it.

Here's what I've come to understand about that feeling: a newborn separated from their birth mother isn't a blank slate who feels nothing.

Babies recognize their mother's scent at birth. They've memorized her heartbeat, her respiration, the rhythm of her breathing. Bonding begins before birth. So when separation happens, the baby knows something is wrong. Maybe they feel that separation. Someone is missing.

I've wondered about the moment I was born. Did they take me away immediately? Did we make eye contact, my birth mother and I? Did she hold me? Only one of us would remember that snapshot, but both of us carried it.

Think of it this way: if a baby's parents died in a terrible car crash, and that baby was raised by relatives, at some point they would be told—when you were a baby, you experienced loss and separation. you would be encourage and allowed to grieve your loss. They'd encouraged you to ask questions, and learn about your parents. That examination of loss, that permission to mourn, is considered normal. Necessary, even.

It doesn’t work that way for most adoptees. That's not how it worked for me.

I learned I was adopted before I understood what the word meant. I was six, sitting in a neighbor's kitchen in California, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Mrs. Hoteling asked if I knew I was adopted. I said yes. Then she asked something no one had asked before: "Do you know what that means?"

I didn't. Not really.

She explained: "Adopted means you didn't come out of your mother's tummy. You came out of another woman's tummy. She was your real mommy, and she gave you to this family."

Her words puzzled me. I knew I was different from my siblings because they weren't adopted. But I had never understood what that difference actually was. My mom wasn't my mom? I had a different mom than all my siblings? There was also the realization that I had two moms and she was out there somewhere.

That night, I asked my mom about the woman who gave birth to me. She knelt by my bed and told me that my first mother did a brave thing, giving me up so I could have a better life. She said I would always be their child, that she would always be my real mommy. She told me it was okay for me to have feelings and questions.

And I did have feelings. And so many questions. The simple answers I was given shaped the perception that I created of her: she was young, beautiful, but something was missing.

From that day on, I thought about her constantly. Not every minute, but always somewhere in the background. Walking to school. Lying in bed at night. Sitting in class. What did she look like? Did she think about me? Did she ever wonder where I was and who I became? She was a ghost I carried everywhere.

What I didn't have words for then was what lived underneath those thoughts: the quiet, unshakable belief that I must be unlovable. If my first mother could give me away, if she chose not to keep me, then something must be wrong with me. That logic sat in my mind like a splinter. I didn’t realize it was there until I bumped up against it years later and felt the sting.

And you can't talk about it. You can't tell the parents who raised you, who chose you, who saved you, and who love you, I think I'm unlovable because my real mother gave me away.

Because that feels like an insult. Like you're saying their love wasn't enough. Like you're ungrateful. So you swallow it. You keep the conflicted feelings inside, where they grow roots.

If we want the office of the President of the United States to be respected again, we must remember that the office is bigger than any one occupant — and act accordingly.

But respect is not submission or turning our eyes away from what is happening in real time. And it is not silence in the face of abuse. If we care about the office, then we should be honest about what respect actually is and what it isn’t.

• Respect is not fear.

• Respect is not intimidation.

• Respect is not forced loyalty.

• Respect is not pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. And everything is not fine or normal.

Respect is earned through conduct and maintained through integrity. It is strengthened through restraint, accountability, and service to something larger than yourself.

Years ago, I used to meet my buddy Dave at the tennis courts on Saturday mornings. One morning my alarm didn’t go off. I called him immediately, apologizing, asking if he was still there. He told me something had happened.

Dave was holding the court while he waited. After about twenty minutes, some regulars started complaining. One of them, Bob, told him he couldn’t hold the court all morning. Dave gave up the court. But he was embarrassed about how Bob spoke to him and he felt “disrespected.”

Dave was 6’7”. Bob was much smaller. Dave filled an empty tennis ball can with water at the fountain, walked back to the court, and poured the water over Bob’s head. “I taught him some respect,” he told me. I asked: Did he swear at you? Call you a name? Threaten you? No. He just told you the court couldn’t be held forever? Dave, that’s not respect!

And it wasn’t. What Dave demanded wasn’t respect. It was deference. What he used wasn’t leadership. It was intimidation.

To his credit, Dave apologized the next weekend and Bob accepted it. To me, that was respect: admitting and apologizing for a mistake. Things went back to normal. The courts didn’t descend into chaos. No one had to assert dominance. Mutual respect was restored by accountability.

Throughout my life, I’ve witnessed this confusion some people have between control and respect. They raise their voice. They humiliate. They retaliate. They claim the moral high ground because they were teaching someone respect.

When a president insists that the world “respects” us because he is loud, punitive, or feared, is that respect or is it the same logic Dave used on the tennis court?

The office of the presidency deserves respect. But the way to restore respect to the office isn’t to excuse behavior that degrades it. The way to restore respect to the office is to insist on character worthy of it.

True respect flows from steadiness, humility, discipline, and fidelity to democratic norms. When those norms are absent, defending the office, in my opinion, requires removing the person who daily diminishes it.

Respect isn’t blind allegiance to power. Respect is alignment with principle and character.

Again, and it bears repeating, If we want the office of the President of the United States to be respected again, we must remember that the office is bigger than any one occupant — and act accordingly.

No Pal, you voted for a candidate, not for the dismantling of constitutional rights, lawlessness, or state-sponsored terror. You see, Democracy isn’t a suicide pact where a single election excuses everything to follow.

Last night, another Substacker, Rob replied to one of my posts to apparently blame President Obama for what ICE is doing under Trump. He countered a post where I asked our reps to demand oversight into kidnapping babies and children and the detention camps where they starve and freeze detainees. He said, that under Obama who created all of the immigration laws, people complained about human beings in cages, and he asked me, “where were you then?” Insinuating that I never cared until now.

It’s these moments where I always wish that critical reasoning was a requirement in every high school curriculum. Imagine how much easier we could cross these divides if everyone knew how to argue well and using logic. Anyhow, my frustration of how to even respond to Rob inspired me to educate him and others who use these types of arguments. I counted and described seven fallacies in his argument below.

Sometimes before I reply to someone like that, I look at their posts. What themes is he restacking? I found messages to support ICE, posts saying protesters are all paid agitators, domestic terrorists, and “Thank You President Trump. Great job hurting people! Keep up the good work! This is what I voted for.

OK, now I see who I am talking to.

Whataboutism

In a previous post, I talked about the first rule of logic: don’t argue with an idiot. Still, I want to talk about the whataboutism part, Rob’s argument that “a previous president did something similar” collapses under scrutiny. Context, scale, intent, and safeguards matter.

Yes—under Obama, immigration enforcement existed. And in my opinion at the time, there were unacceptable conditions in detention centers. Yes, I voted for him.

Under every President in my lifetime, there have been abuses. There also have been elections where you feel like you’re forced to vote for the “lesser evil”. It doesn’t matter if I voted for a president or not. If I have an opinion, I exercise my right to complain, I called my representatives, supported reform, and I demand for oversight. And I partipate in electing new representatives to get accountability sometimes.

Accountability does not magically turn on or off depending on who I voted for. Demanding transparency from our government is not an act of domestic terrorism no matter what the Trump administration tells you. It’s act of Americanism.

What is happening now is categorically different:

• Enforcement is being weaponized as political punishment against cities and communities that did not vote for this president.

• Masked, unaccountable forces operate without transparency or meaningful oversight, openly told that they have impunity for their actions. Victims are slandered and blamed before their bodies are cold.

• Violence is not an unintended failure—it is targeted, provoked, escalated, normalized, and lied about afterward.

• Detention is deliberately cruel, not merely negligent—used as a deterrent through suffering.

This is not “border policy.” This is authoritarian governance.

Invoking Obama is a deflection and not a defense. Rob’s argument requires pretends that all uses of a law are morally equivalent regardless of how, why, and to what end they’re used. That’s not an argument, it’s an excuse. I reject the idea that we “voted for” hatred, brutality, or the erosion of basic rights. And I reject the demand to stay silent or look away because pointing out fascism is inconvenient or politically uncomfortable for some people.

Holding our leaders accountable—especially the ones we supported—is what democratic responsibility actually looks like. Anything less is loyalty to power, not principles.

Critical reasoning 101, part two — the seven fallacies of Rob’s argument

1. Whataboutism (Tu Quoque Fallacy) Deflecting criticism by accusing the critic (or someone they support) of similar behavior, instead of addressing the current claim. “Obama did it too” does not answer whether what is happening now is wrong. This is a tu quoque (whataboutism) fallacy. The morality or legality of current actions is not negated by past wrongdoing. Past abuses do not justify present abuses.

2. False Equivalence Treating two things as morally or factually identical when they differ in scale, intent, methods, or consequences. Standard enforcement with legal oversight does not equal masked forces, political targeting, and deliberate cruelty. Equating all immigration enforcement regardless of method, oversight, or intent is a false equivalence.

3. Context Collapse / Ignoring Relevant Differences (used in moral philosophy and legal reasoning) Stripping actions of context so they appear interchangeable. Intent, safeguards, transparency, and accountability matter in ethical evaluation. Ethical evaluation requires context; removing it invalidates the comparison.

4. Collective Guilt Fallacy Assigning responsibility to an entire group (voters, citizens) for all actions taken by someone they voted for. Voting for a candidate has never meant endorsing their every future action. Voting does not constitute blanket consent for all subsequent actions.

5. Appeal to Authority (Misused) Claiming an action is justified solely because an authority figure ordered or endorsed it. “People voted for him, therefore he can do this” is not a legal or moral argument. Democratic authority is bounded by constitutional and human-rights limits.

6. Moral Relativism by Partisanship (not a formal fallacy name, but widely used in ethics): Changing moral standards depending on who is in power. Moral standards that shift based on political loyalty are not standards at all.

7. Ends-Justify-the-Means Fallacy Justifying unethical actions because the outcome is desired. Cruelty as “deterrence” assumes suffering is acceptable if it discourages migration. Desired policy outcomes do not morally justify unlawful or cruel methods.

Deflecting criticism by saying “a previous president did something similar” is textbook whataboutism and a false equivalence. Ethical judgment depends on context—scale, intent, methods, and oversight matter. Voting for a candidate is not blanket consent for lawlessness, and democracy does not suspend constitutional limits after an election. Past wrongdoing does not excuse present abuses.

Avoid the trap: logic does change irrational minds

When I studied critical reasoning in college, on the first day, my professor outlined a fundamental principle at the outset: Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience".

In critical reasoning, this means having the ability to recognize that logical, evidence-based arguments are ineffective against someone whose position is rooted in emotion, bias, or cognitive distortion. Pro tip: Identify the Motivation: Understand that the person you are trying to set straight may be arguing out of boredom, to project their own emotions onto you, or to validate their ego. 

The saying, there are two sides to every story is a cliche, and often misapplied

Moral Absolutes Exist

Why is two sides to every story a cliche? Because moral absolutes exist. Acts like murder, rape, or genocide, are morally unambiguous from a victim's perspective. To say there are "two sides" in a case of murder suggests the victim's "side" of not wanting to be murdered is somehow morally equivalent to the perpetrator's "side" of wanting to kill them. It's not. One side is a fundamental right to life; the other is a violation of that right.

False Equivalence

Two sides often accidentally promotes false equivalence. Listening to "both sides" of a story where one side is "I was oppressed" and the other is "I was right to oppress them" treats both positions as equally valid starting points. They are not.

In cases of abuse or clear wrongdoing, demanding to hear "the other side" before believing a victim can be a tool of dismissal and re-traumatization. It prioritizes the comfort of neutrality over the truth of harm.

Sometimes one "side" is based on objective reality (evidence, forensics, video), and the other is based on lies, delusion, or propaganda. Treating them as two legitimate "perspectives" betrays the truth.

If you didn’t know, now you do

So when you hear someone throw out a blanket statement that "there are always two sides to every story”, remember, you don’t have to accept this intellectually lazy and morally dangerous idea (especially when if applies to clear-cut evil. One more pro tip: a public figure lies intentionally when narrating their side of the story, it’s a good indicator that they will lie again and again. It’s OK to not even consider that “side of the story” anymore.

I remember a time in my teens when I really fucked myself up bad. Everyone was upset and concerned, she sat down wrote me a six page letter that simultaneously called me out, told me how my actions hurt her, told me I was loved even if I didn’t think so, that she specifically loved me, told me it wasn’t all on me, begged me to do better, and to be be better, have more patience with our imperfect parents, and she built me back up. Her tear stains were on the letter. It was one of two really important personal letters that I’ve received in my life that really mattered and made me think…

Maybe, most importantly, she wasn’t afraid to tell my parents to back off sometimes or try a different parenting approach because, back in the day, I had a unique ability to bring out the very worst crazy in both of my parents. And my parents listened to Linda. We connected on books, movie, and humor. She had the most amazing beautiful laugh. Linda was a wonderful pianist and an award-winning music teacher. She encouraged my love of reading and my desire to be a musical.

She actually conquered cancer, or we thought she had. For a year, she was clean. We collectively breathed a sigh of relief that the cancer was gone so it was devastating (I am still devastated) when they found it had returned and spread to her pancreas. That’s when life for all of seemed to speed up and become urgent, all hands on deck, and conversations time running out, gotta make every moment count… panic. Despair.

It became overwhelming - all of the support and people in her orbit — I wanted to go to her immediately, to see her and be there for her, whatever she needed, but there were hundreds of people that felt exactly the same way as me. I called her from California often and one of my sisters Carolene promised me she would let me know when to come and visit.

I was on my way out the door heading on an east coast business trip when I got that call. She wasn’t doing well. On my way to the airport, I started figuring out how to reroute my trip and go see Linda. Work gave me a week off. One of my brother-in-laws picked me up at the airport and shared some difficult news. We were supposed to go to Linda’s house, but there had been another emergency and now we were heading to the University hospital where she was. When we got there, we found out that Linda was now being transferred to the Huntsman Cancer Institute for two weeks.

Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise: despite the large network of family and friends, my timing was, for once, was perfect. At that point, everyone had exhausted their PTO days supporting Linda. She did not like the way that the cancer drugs made her feel and she did not like to be alone so we made sure someone was always with her. After she was admitted to the Huntsman, I had the privilege of staying by her side at the Huntsman for the entire week.

When I first came through the door, there was a lot of nurse activity in the room and I was immediately trying to get out of the way. She didn’t know that I was coming to see her and so the surprise and the smile in the midst of that chaos and all of the pain she was dealing with… I had told myself no tears and that I would be strong for my big sister and not get too emotional, but like Mike Tyson used to say, “everyone has a great plan until they get punched in the face.”

Watching someone you love experience unimaginable pain like Linda did is like a barrage of punches to the face, and gut… although she had all star team of caregivers, Linda was experiencing difficult pain thresholds, and she could not seem to get warm enough. And whatever we could do for her, it just wasn’t enough. It’s truly a feeling of helplessness. She’d had a pain pump inserted, and she started watching the clock a hour before she could push the button. She struggled to eat. Conversation was minimal. Feeding her ice chips and getting her warm sheets comforted her, but with the drugs and not eating, she mostly slept when she wasn’t awake and in pain. I held her hand as she got a spinal tap and I will never forget the immense pain she endured. When I was helping the nurse to move her, she passed out in our arms. I was so scared that we would lose our hold on her and let her fall to the ground. We didn’t let her hit the ground, but I had to run out of the room and collect myself.

One of my high school friends was a doctor at a different hospital nearby and I left the Huntsman for a few hours and met him for dinner. When I got back to the hospital, something, or a few things had changed. They changed Linda’s medication and while she was still in pain, she had energy and felt really good. Honestly, thinking back on that last night together at the Huntsman, she was wired. And that allowed for a last magical night. We stayed up all night and played music, books, movies… talked about normal stuff, not about cancer, or that she was dying, and we laughed so much! Another change was her appetite. She was hungry and asked if I could go find something. I immediately jumped up and quoting a favorite movie we had just been talking about, I said, “As you wish Princess Buttercup.” When I got back to the room, we put the movie Princess Bride on and laughed and laughed. If you ever need a movie to help facilitate one of the most memorable and special (and most difficult) times of your life, you can’t go wrong with Princess Bride or a message like true love conquers all. A few weeks later my beautiful sister passed away.

I’ve never seen that movie since without thinking about Linda. This week to hear the horrific news of Rob Reiner, his wife, and their family was super heartbreaking for many many people. They were great people who didn’t need to tell others that they were great. They led by example and by being open, and by being vulnerable, inspiring and helping others. If I ever had the good fortune to be able to meet Rob Reiner, I would have felt incredibly lucky to tell him thank you for both the movie (all of his movies) and his continued message of unity and love conquering all. Thank you Rob Reiner!

Fred Trump’s lifelong racial hatred was no secret, he was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally in Queens, New York, in 1927. Contemporary newspaper articles from the time reported that the seven men arrested were wearing KKK robes.

Thirty years later, Fred Trump would be Guthrie’s landlord. What did Woody think observing and dealing with Fred?

Guthrie discovered and was angered by Trump's discriminatory housing policies. So much so that he wrote about his contempt for his landlord in the song "Old Man Trump," detailing Trump's alleged role in stirring up racial hate. Here are the lyrics:

Old Man Trump, Woody Guthrie

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts When he drawed that color line

Here at his Beach Haven family project Beach Haven ain't my home! No, I just can't pay this rent! My money's down the drain, And my soul is badly bent!

Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower Where no black folks come to roam, No, no, Old Man Trump! Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

I'm calling out my welcome to you and your man both Welcoming you here to Beach Haven To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place To have your kids raised up in.    

Beach Haven ain't my home! No, I just can't pay this rent! My money's down the drain, And my soul is badly bent!

Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower Where no black folks come to roam, No, no, Old Man Trump! Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

LOGLINE

When federal immigration enforcement operates behind masks and closed doors, a normal guy armed with a cell phone takes to the streets with a camera to document what a government agency doesn’t want Americans to see—and discovers whether transparency can survive in a nation fracturing along lines of fear and power.

SYNOPSIS

AMERICAN GESTAPO is an urgent, ground-level investigation into Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations at a moment when half the country has been labeled enemies by their own president. This isn’t a series about policy debates—it’s about what happens when enforcement happens in shadows, when agents hide their faces, and when detention centers become black boxes.

The series follows a filmmaker who refuses to accept helplessness as the nation splinters into “us” versus “them.” Told he and millions like him are “terrorists” by the administration, watching rhetoric escalate into violence, he makes a choice: instead of succumbing to anxiety and despair, he’ll bear witness. If ICE won’t show Americans what they’re doing to human beings, he will.

Through systematic documentation of public ICE operations, interviews with detainees, families, legal advocates, and whistleblowers, the series builds an evidential record of an agency operating with unprecedented lack of oversight. Each episode examines a different facet: the disappeared, the masks, the violence, the children, the legal boundaries being crossed, and the Americans who are told not to look.

This is investigative journalism as an act of civic resistance—not partisan, but insistent that power must answer to the public eye.

THE FILMMAKER’S PERSPECTIVE

A Note from the Director

I never intended to be part of this story. But when your president tells you that you—and millions like you—are the enemy, when he stirs hatred against half the nation and calls for violence, you face a choice.

I could spend my days consumed by anxiety, watching democracy erode in real-time, feeling helpless as those in power operate without accountability. Or I could do something.

I’m not a hero. I’m an American who believes that when government agents wear masks to hide their identities, when people disappear into detention centers, when violence is deployed against women and children behind closed doors—someone needs to watch. Someone needs to record. Someone needs to ask: Why won’t they let us see?

This series is my answer to helplessness. If they won’t show us what they’re doing in our name, I will. Not with rhetoric, but with a camera. Not with rage, but with evidence. Not for attention, but for accountability.

The spotlight belongs on them—on the agents who hide their faces, on the agency that resists oversight, on the system that has been weaponized. I’m simply the witness, the filmmaker who refused to look away.

Because in a nation where empathy is dying and cruelty is policy, bearing witness becomes resistance.

SERIES STRUCTURE

Six Episodes, 45-60 minutes each

Episode 1: “The Masks”

Opens with the central question: Why do federal agents hide their faces? Documents ICE operations in public spaces where agents refuse identification. Establishes the legal framework for documentation and introduces the filmmaker’s journey from concerned citizen to active witness. Features constitutional scholars on the erosion of transparency.

Episode 2: “The Disappeared”

Follows families searching for loved ones who vanished into ICE custody. Maps the black box of detention through FOIA requests, leaked documents, and testimony from former detainees. Examines the deliberate opacity of the system and what happens when due process becomes optional.

Episode 3: “Maximum Violence”

Documents force deployments against vulnerable populations. Features medical experts examining injury reports, lawyers presenting pattern-of-abuse cases, and firsthand accounts of disproportionate violence. Asks: When did cruelty become strategy?

Episode 4: “The Children”

Opening sequence: Surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts of ICE agents entering schools—places that were once considered sanctuaries for all children, regardless of immigration status. Teachers describe the terror on children’s faces. School administrators explain how they’re now forced to choose between protecting their students and complying with federal agents.

The New Tactic: ICE operations at schools aren’t just about enforcement—they’re about leverage. Documents cases where children are detained, held, or used as bait to draw out parents. Interviews with child psychologists about the long-term trauma of being taken from school by armed agents, of watching classmates disappear, of never feeling safe again.

Unnecessary Force Against Minors: Footage and testimony documenting violence used during child apprehensions. Medical reports of injuries sustained by minors during ICE operations. Experts question: What level of force is justified when detaining a child? Former ICE agents speak anonymously about directives that prioritize speed and intimidation over the welfare of minors.

The Case of the Brazilian Boy: The centerpiece of the episode.

A 13-year-old Brazilian boy, a U.S. citizen, detained by ICE. His mother told nothing about where he is. Not which facility. Not which state. Not whether he’s safe. Just: “We can’t tell you.”

The episode follows his mother’s desperate search:

• Legal advocates filing emergency writs

• Calls to dozens of detention facilities met with denials or silence

• The constitutional implications of a government agency refusing to disclose the location of a detained child to his parent

• Child welfare experts examining what happens to a 13-year-old held in detention, alone, not knowing when or if he’ll see his family again

We document the timeline: How many days before his mother gets answers? How many calls? How many lawyers? The episode counts each day on screen. Day 1: No information. Day 2: No information. Day 3: Still searching.

Broader Pattern: This isn’t an isolated case. The episode documents multiple instances of:

• Children taken from schools and parents given no information

• Minors held incommunicado for extended periods

• U.S. citizen children caught in enforcement actions

• The psychological warfare of making parents helpless

The Hostage Strategy: Interviews with immigration attorneys who describe cases where ICE has explicitly used children as leverage—take the child, wait for the parents to turn themselves in. Former law enforcement officials compare these tactics to hostage-taking. Constitutional scholars address whether this violates domestic and international law.

Education Disrupted: The ripple effects in school communities. Teachers who’ve watched attendance drop because parents are too afraid to send children to school. Principals who’ve implemented “ICE alert” protocols. Students who’ve stopped concentrating because they’re afraid they’ll be next. The destruction of education as a safe space for all children.

Closing: The Brazilian mother finally gets an answer about her son’s location. [If applicable to real case: How long it took, what condition he was in, what legal intervention finally worked.] But the episode ends with a question: How many other parents are still searching? How many other children are in the system, their locations undisclosed, their welfare unknown?

A final statistic appears on screen: The number of minors currently in ICE custody whose parents have been denied information about their location.

Then: “This episode is dedicated to every child who should be in school right now.”

Episode 5: “Known Racists, Unknown Crimes”

Investigates the documented presence of white supremacists and extremists within ICE ranks. Uses public records, whistleblower testimony, and pattern analysis to examine who is enforcing the law and what happens when bias becomes operational.

Episode 6: “American Gestapo”

The finale asks whether the comparison in the title is justified. Historical experts on authoritarian policing, constitutional scholars on democratic norms, and a comprehensive look at whether this agency has exceeded its authority so fundamentally that reform is impossible. Ends with the filmmaker’s final testimony: What he witnessed, what it cost, and why Americans must decide if this is who we are.

PRODUCTION METHODOLOGY

Journalistic Standards

• Every claim verified by multiple independent sources

• Legal review of all footage and assertions

• Clear distinction between documented fact and allegation

• Attribution protocols for sensitive information

• Protection of vulnerable sources

Documentation Strategy

• Systematic filming of ICE operations in public spaces

• FOIA requests filed continuously throughout production

• Partnership with legal organizations for access to court records

• Encrypted submission portal for whistleblowers

• Archive of official statements vs. documented reality

Safety Protocols

• First Amendment legal team on retainer

• Security training for crew

• Digital security for sources and footage

• Contingency planning for legal challenges

• Insurance and liability coverage

Ethical Framework

• No endangered subjects without informed consent

• Faces blurred when safety requires it

• Impact on ongoing legal cases considered

• Emotional support resources provided to interview subjects

• Commitment to truth over ideology

Special Protocols for Episode 4

• Child psychologists consulted on ethical representation of minor subjects

• No identification of children without guardian consent and legal review

• Trauma-informed interviewing techniques for parents and witnesses

• Coordination with child welfare advocates

• Resources provided to families for ongoing support

WHY THIS SERIES MATTERS NOW

We are living through a moment when:

• A sitting president labels half the country as enemies

• Federal agents operate with masked faces and no oversight

• People disappear into detention with minimal legal recourse

• Violence against vulnerable populations is normalized

• Children are being taken from schools and used as leverage

• Parents are denied basic information about their detained children’s location

• Transparency is treated as a threat to security

History judges not just those who commit abuses, but those who looked away.

AMERICAN GESTAPO refuses to look away. It creates an evidential record for the present and future. It holds power accountable through the most democratic tool available: bearing witness.

This is not entertainment. This is journalism as civic duty. This is one filmmaker’s refusal to accept that we have lost the right to know what is done in our name.

Subscribe now