Prince Hall Grand Lodge building, home to the mutant rights newspaper The DivideSitting in her office, Lisa Trammel struggled to come up with an editorial for this week's Divide; she knew from the weekly staff meeting they had held earlier in the day that this week's edition would be a blockbuster, bombshell edition but as she sat in front of her word processor, she couldn't decide what to write.
It wasn't for lack of effort, though; across one wall of her corner office were framed pictures of every editorial she had written since becoming staff writer for the Divide but as she sat there at her desk, she couldn't decide what to write. Getting up from her desk, she walked over to her window and looked outside; in the distance, she could see distant storm clouds - large, fluffy white thunderclouds erupting rain from them - and yet the Atlantic Station district where the Divide's offices were located was as dry as the day was long. What should I write about? she mused, rolling thoughts through her mind. As she stood there, she could see - out in the main editorial hall, the 60" flatscreen playing C-Span and Lisa walked out into the editorial hall....."the ayes are 229, the nays are 201...the Mutant Registration and Classification Act is hereby passed and shall be forwarded onto the other chamber," came the voice of the House Speaker as he banged the gavel, its sound echoing through the 6th floor editorial offices.
While some cried, others cursed the screen, Lisa grabbed her black vest and headed out for a bit...both to collect her thoughts, settle her stomach and decide on what to write for an editorial....
75 minutes later.... Returning to the Divide offices, Lisa stormed into her editorial office and slammed the door shut, closing the blinds and sitting down at her desk, two foot long ham-and-turkey with tons of veggies and spices on oat wheat subs next to her on the adjacent desk. Sitting down, she turned on her word processor, a Brother WP-1150 typewriter and began typing....
America, At A Crossroads - by Lisa Trammel, staff writer at the Divide
I....am a mutant.
There, I said it. Just as our gay and lesbian fellow Americans used to make similarly declaratory statements to their fellow Americans, so too must we, the mutant community of America, do the same.
We are not, with all due respect to President Denver or to Stephen Miller, freaks of nature or disgusting creatures fit only to inhabit Hell....
We are teachers. We are cops. We are doctors and nurses and EMTs.....we several hundred thousand Americans of mutant descent, are just as worthy of the respect, dignity and equality as any other American.
That is why it is disconcerting to see our elected officials pass just today a bill which would require us to register with the United States government and with our respective state governments, something which Americans haven't had to do since the dark days of early 1942 when Japanese Americans had to register in the wake of Pearl Harbor....yet today, 229 of our fellow Americans said that that is precisely what our country should be once more.
Register our fellow Americans, classify them....and in the process, subject them to the same bigotry, racism and discrimination other groups of Americans have had to deal with over the years. It is wrong, it is disgusting and it must not stand.
Other than the powers and abilities we mutants possess, we are no less worthy of equal protection under the law as anyone else in America and no matter what the Stephen Millers' of the world may tell you, we are not leaving. We are not crawling back into our mutant closets....we are not going away. Never.
But there is something even more insidious.....something which is threatening to tear away at the very social construct which the United States is bound upon; let me explain in as clear a rational voice as possible.....
