The Politics of Control
In her regular column for the Byline Times print edition, Bonnie Greer looks into America's divided heart
From time to time, I gaze at my expired American passport, fully aware that I really should do something about it.
There is still a pandemic backlog of maybe six months at the passport office and I know very well that, if I have to go to the US, I cannot enter on my British passport. If I did that or, should I say, tried to do that, I’d be pulled aside by the FBI and maybe worse.
What would I say? What could I say to my compatriots? How could I explain that I had been so outrageous as not to renew my precious birthright, that I had done absolutely nothing at all about it?
It is mostly my British friends who tell me that I must do this, hurry to do it. American expat friends, however, are divided. Well, one is – I only have one expat friend. I did not move to London to know Americans. And that becomes a problem as I try to understand my native land and what exactly is going on there.
