So the ZRC has been looking to move its headquarters (and our living space) for some time, and today we think we found the right abode. It includes tons of room to expand our operations, in a sleepy tree-lined residential neighborhood.

It got me to thinking, though. The forms just to apply for renting a house require so many forms of identification, and I’m not sure any of them are accessible for Zombies. It’s an issue that’s brought up, for what it’s worth, in the novel Breathers (which the ZRC had to give a negative review in that the fictional Zombies, while humanized and fully realized individuals, set a terrible example for Human-Zombie coexistance). When you die, society gives you a death certificate and negates your legal existance, your personhood. Which would be fine, obviously, in the event that you do not subsequently rise as a Zombie. A corpse has no need for Mastercard, let alone a driver’s license.

But for the friendly neighborhood Zombie looking to rent the house next door, where could they get ID? Granted, your birth certificate is still on file, but I’m pretty sure they flag them somehow to match the death certificate. Social Security Numbers are apparently retired upon death in an elaborate system which can pose serious problems for a living person accidentally marked as dead; presumably Zombies would face similar difficulties. Given that Social Security numbers can be tied in with many other aspects of one’s life, as the Wikipedia article notes, it is difficult to maintain credit or even file one’s taxes when ‘deceased’. Without valid ID, credit cards or social security numbers, renting a place to stay, or even gaining employment, would prove difficult. Combined with the social stigma Zombies already face, this could render most living spaces out of Zombie reach, severely curtailing the sort of social integration necessary for true progress in Living-Undead relations.

I wonder what steps would be required to get the Social Security Administration to amend their Death files with a new ‘Zombie’ category. Once such a category exists, whether properly marked as ‘dead’ or not, individuals could petition to have their status switched to Zombie and get a new number (since the old one becomes public information upon death). Everybody wins; a safety net is put in place for those incorrectly flagged as dead, and Zombies share in the improved administration of social policy.

Perhaps I should write our Congresswoman.

Tags: Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.