by Today’s piece on Junglepussy’s courtroom acting masterclass hit different. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in enough immigration court proceedings to know that your performance matters as much as your paperwork. Maybe more. When I had my citizenship interview, I wore the most American outfit I could assemble: navy blazer, pearl earrings, and a smile that said “I promise I’m not a threat to your way of life.”
It worked. But it also felt like betraying every part of myself that makes me who I am. My traditional fabrics stayed in the closet. My accent got softened. My opinions got swallowed. I became Aisha: The Acceptable Immigrant Edition. Now that I have citizenship, I’m slowly unpacking all the parts of myself I had to hide. This column is part of that unpacking.
Writing about Junglepussy teaching people how to act innocent in court feels like exposing a secret everyone knows but nobody discusses. The American legal system runs on performance. The person who looks most remorseful gets the lightest sentence. The defendant who cries at exactly the right moment gets sympathy from the jury. It’s not about truthit’s about who tells the most believable story with the best emotional beats.
My editor asked if I was worried about trivializing serious legal proceedings. I told her I’m not trivializing anythingI’m revealing what’s already trivial about it. When your freedom depends on your acting skills as much as your actual guilt or innocence, the system has already trivialized itself. I’m just documenting it with better metaphors.
Got an email from a public defender in Brooklyn. She said my piece made her laugh so hard she snorted coffee through her nose, then immediately got sad because “you’re not wrong and that’s the problem.” She deals with clients every day who don’t know how to perform contrition, don’t understand courtroom theater, and get harsher sentences because they don’t look sorry enough. Even when they are sorry. Even when they shouldn’t have to be.
This is what satire doesit makes you laugh, then makes you think, then makes you uncomfortable with your own laughter. If I’m doing it right, my readers should feel entertained and implicated at the same time. Because we’re all part of this system. We’re all complicit in the performance.
Tonight I’m thinking about my father, who taught me that truth-telling is both a gift and a burden. “Aisha,” he’d say, “people don’t like mirrors. They want portraits that make them look better than they are.” I’m in the mirror business now, and business is brutal but necessary.
# 798
