Children Beneath Foil

2014, Associated Press [Ross Franklin]. Republished in the Tucson Sentinel Dec. 22, 2017.

BROWN FEET. THE FEET ARE ALWAYS BROWN. Four years ago, and now, they're brown.

Children lay face-down on green camping mats, but no packages of Jet-Puffed or Honey Maid or Hershey's, classic American childhood staples, are nowhere in sight. Present instead are large sheets of Reynolds wrap, silver and shiny like a housewife's wedding ring. A woman in an advert grins overenthusiastically holding a huge box of Reynolds wrap, her hands cupping either end of the box like she's describing how big her husband's dick is. 

I guarantee you a woman did not make that ad.

There's a webpage that's titled: WOMEN IN JOURNALISM NEWSPAPER MILESTONES. It's short. Thirteen women are listed between 1739 and 1976. The author of the article is named Bill. 

In a different advert, in another decade, a boy stands in a yellow rain coat holding Reynolds wrap next to his dog. The boy is pleased. Of course he's pleased: rain boots protect his feet and he splashes in puddles with his beloved dog. 

I call the woman "woman" and the boy "boy." Most of the people who read this will assume the invisible, default word in front of those words:

                             white.

We don't have to specify.

                            (white) women cook with Reynolds.
                            (white) boys hold it in the rain.

                            (brown) boys sleep under it, barefoot.

They're not those fancy space blankets, gold and insulating and shock-absorbing. It's food wrap, but wrapping children like Hansel and Gretel's gingerbread witch. I suppose it's the same story in a different world: kids just trying to find a home, got a little hungry, got trapped by vengeful adults who prey on young children. The white children pushed their predator into an oven for their safety.

I don't want to know what kind of "ovens" are coming to fruition in this World-War-II-parallel world. ​

2018, Associated Press. Republished on Snopes.com on July 17, 2018.

​Image sources: 
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/122217_bp_detainees/9th-circuit-bp-must-provide-blankets-detained-immigrants/ 
​https://www.snopes.com/ap/2018/07/17/immigrant-children-describe-hunger-cold-detention/