Black Paint and Ballroom Budgets: What Gets Funded When People Don’t

 There’s a bitter irony in watching the government allocate funds to paint the border wall black—reportedly to make it hotter, harder to climb, and more resistant to rust—while families are evicted, veterans lose access to care, and immigrants who’ve built lives of service and love are deported.

The black paint isn’t just a deterrent. It’s a metaphor. A declaration that optics and punishment matter more than people.

Meanwhile, ceremonial spaces—ballrooms, federal facades—receive funding for grandeur while the everyday sanctuaries of housing, healthcare, and human dignity are left to crumble.

This isn’t just about budgets. It’s about priorities. About what gets protected, and what gets painted over.

I write this not as a policy analyst, but as a mother, a caregiver, and a witness. I see the ache. I live the tension. And I refuse to let it be normalized.

Let this post be a dispatch. A flare. A fragment of resistance.

We are the sanctuary. We are the archive. And we will not be silenced.

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