2009 and 2010 have been my years of roaming the tech circles of this city and avid tech blogging. I have done so as a non person. Tech felt safer than politics.
I have roamed. I have done so as a window shopper. I have not had the option to participate. It's called being in an immigration mess. For the rest it might have been the Great Recession, for me it was the Great Immigration Humiliation.
I was done raising 100K for my IC startup - that was the stated goal - months before the 2008 primaries were over, but I decided to be with Barack just a few more months. The primary was the only real contest. November was a no contest, it was so obvious to me. I had been his first full time volunteer in the city. I was in before he announced he was in.
But my political enemies came after me. The day the primaries ended, I disappeared. They had me disappear. The establishment picked that precise day lest I missed the message.
One day early in 2009, in March perhaps, maybe April, I went to see someone at Columbus Circle. We had met online, we had met, and we were going to meet again. I had two dollars in my pocket. That is all the money I had. I did not have any money back home. I did not have a bank account, let alone money in a bank account. I did not have a credit card. And I could not have walked back home. I would not have known the way. I did not have a phone. I did not have a metro card.
I remember thinking, if I lost those two dollars, I could not get back home.
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