chasing pavements

I’ve come to a very clear realization in the past few days: I am terrible at interpersonal relationships. I think I get it, but I don’t. I think I am doing the right thing, but I’m not. People confound me. I certainly don’t believe things are in black and white, but I have a clear sense of my motivations, and I try to be transparent about my intent, and act accordingly. Either I am also wrong about myself, or my sometimes painful self awareness obscures knowledge of others. This, L would say, is my 4ness manifesting.
—
so much depends
upon

a wooden rolling
pin

glazed with pale
butter

beside the white
apron.

Sun, Salt, and the Sea

I have been practicing my floating. As a non-swimmer, the feeling of my body weightless and at the whim of the water is unsettling. I am much more comfortable in control, my feet firmly planted on the basin. I began experimenting in the kiddie pool of our resort in Punta Cana, when we visited in February. A mere two feet deep, I could easily find solid ground again when it became too scary. Drowning is my earliest memory; my mother taking swimming lessons at the Y with her daughter, her hands under my belly. I am before years but I recall the emptiness when she withdrew her support, my small shape sinking into the blue of the pool. I went under twice since then, once at my Aunt’s pool when I played too close to the edge, and fell in. No one heard the splash but my cousin, who came to my aid as I bobbed uselessly. Again a couple years later coming down a slide at a beach in Michigan. I had studied the other riders carefully, watched as they came off the slide, fell into the water, and buoyed up seconds later. When I went down, I didn’t come up, and they sent a lifeguard when it became clear I wouldn’t find the way back on my own.

In the Dead Sea, floating is easy. Lot’s Wife, that unnamed rebel, carries me, her body turned to such salt that it kills all the water’s inhabitants, cakes the rocks with her essence. The Dead Sea is riotous when we visit. The waves crashing against the rocks, which despite years of sanding, remain sharp under my feet. I lay in the water, moving my limbs in ways I can’t against gravity, and feel the same discomfort, nestled as it always is on my lower back. The water splashes into my eyes and I make my way clumsily back to the shore, eyes closed, blinded. A lifeguard comes to my aid with fresh water, pouring it over my face, demanding I open the eyes, wash out the burn. It’s like a baptism and I see anew; he pulls me up out of the water with one arm, hauls me back safely to the dock. I go in again later, careful to keep my head up. The Sea is luxurious, slippery over my skin. I feel wounds healing, my scars tickle. I paint myself twice with the mud from the water’s depths, letting it cake dry on my skin before heading back to the water to rinse.

The resort attached to this hunk of beach is beautiful. We tried a different place first, but their beach was closed, so we move on to the Movenpick, a Swedish import. In Amman, the shore is bought up by mostly foreign corporations that turn their chunk of land into a rich haven: upscale, expensive dining; top notch liquor; brown bodies in uniforms, fulfilling needy guests’ every whim. I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy the space, but I hate that my experience is filtered through this. Despite their best efforts, though, the sea remains as is. I am glad I haven’t gone back to the shore in Palestine, for I know that the size of the Sea is shrinking rapidly there, drained for use. The resort is a series of infinity pools leading up to the waterfront, and we watch the sun set. From afar, the Sea is as any other, but we know better. We have felt her secrets on our skin, tasted her brine, slathered in her silt.

From the Dead Sea we visit Hammamat Ma’in, or the Baths of Ma’in. They are not baths, really, but a series of hot springs cascading over the mountains. The waterfalls are fiery, and like the Sea, said to have high mineral contents, with healing properties. I had wanted to come here for those reasons, because my body still aches from my surgery. The first day at the resort, we try to visit the biggest, most beautiful of the Falls. It remains the property of Jordan, and is thus public access. When we arrive, there are no women in the water. They sit on the sidelines, many of them in full hijab, while the men run around in shorts and speedos, enjoying the hot, cascading water. My mother is upset; if we go in, we will be gakwed at, made uncomfortable. We could, and I say to hell with what they think, but even I know how unpleasant the experience will become.

We go next to the “family” fall, where a brood of women, also in full hijab sit on the sidelines still. There are only women here, and this cascade is pitiful in comparison to the last one. My mother is disgusted, still, and won’t even try the water. She returns to the hotel while Rachel and I stay, strip to our suits. The women are gaping at us. They are speaking Arabic, shocked at our attire, our desire to enter the water. I smile sweetly, say “Marhaba”, so they know I understand. We try to go into the water, but it’s scaldingly hot, and we can’t bear it. Still our presence has enervated the women, and a couple join our feeble attempts. I can tell they are amused by our presence, a spectacle. When Rachel and I decide to leave, they suggest we come back. Since I am not above being petty when they are so clearly mocking us, I tell them to enjoy the water, the heat.

We return to the hotel, and try to coax my Mother out of the room. She is going on about the disparity, how backwards she finds the behavior at the falls. Not much of a feminist, my mother’s stance surprises me: what bothers her most is how cruel this is to the women, how unfair. I am impartial on their behalf since I am more than accustomed to being stared at and judged by complete strangers at this point in my trip, but it’s a new feeling for her. We take to the resort’s Spa, which also has segregated waterfalls, also disparaging sizes. We flout the rules and hang out at the men’s, but I can tell she’s still unhappy. This fall is nowhere near the size, beauty or comfort of the main one. We end the day in the pool, where I try floating again. My ears submerged, my face just above, eyes closed, willing my body up, up.

The next day, my parents wake early, visit the main fall before it opens to the public, and my mother returns blissful, radiant. She says we have to go back again, at night when it closes to the public, or in the morning the next day. I promise her we will, though I am over the whole thing. With my departure date so close, I am childishly longing for home. I just want to go back to my life, my things, my time. Still, there is whole two more days to be spent in Jordan, and one more at the resort. We spend the day at the pool, where I continue to float cautiously, no more than a few inches from the wall. Rachel and I compete to see how long we can hold our breath without pinching our noses, and I try opening my eyes under water. It’s blurry, familiar, oddly soothing. Like most adolescents, my niece is bored easily, so the day of lounging has her frustrated, but I am content with our laziness. Later, we watch the football game in the lounge, become depressed about Brazil. We try the main fall again, but because it’s Friday, the public hours are later, and we return, thwarted again, to our rooms. I promise my mother I will wake early, go in the morning. I can tell she wants this for me, doesn’t want me to leave disappointed, because she hopes these small gifts will pull me back, like waves, more often.

Meanwhile, I drift in the water, unfettered by my usual neuroses. Weightless and light, just this once.

Boom Goes the Dynamite

When my cousin Rula comes to visit Palestine from Amman, she convinces me to attempt to cross the mahsoom, or checkpoint again, without a visa or tasareeh in order to visit Jerusalem. That first time, we attempted entry from the Beit Lehem point. This time, Rula and I go up to Beit Lehem, and take a bus that will take us to a mahsoom in Beit Jala, a neighboring city. This checkpoint is called Mahsoom al Nafuck (insert joke here). Nafuck apparently means bridge, and so there is. The bus costs 6 shekels, and pulls aside at the far left lane of the mahsoom. As the bus pulls off, my stomach is pulled in a hundred directions–into itself in anxiety, into my throat like bile, into my knees like shock. We disembark, and stand behind a guardrail in queue while a soldier searches the bus. Meanwhile, a second soldier gestures us forward and asks for our identification and paperwork. There is only one person ahead of me, an adolescent boy with a blue howwiyyah (ours are green). The soldier keeps the boy’s howwiyyah but indicates he should return to the bus.

When I hand the soldier my passport, she speaks to me in English, asks me where I’m from. I tell her Michigan, and she repeats the word, curiously, like a novelty. She looks at my picture, back at me. Without checking for a visa she hands me the passport, and tells me to have a nice day. I re-board the bus, in disbelief. Behind me, the soldier looks over Rula’s paperwork and passport. She has Jordanian citizenship, and was granted a visa in order to attend the consecration of another Shomali cousin, William, into Catholic bishop-hood (bishopness? bishopity?). The soldier sends Rula back to the bus, but keeps her passport. Rula sits next to me while the rest of the passengers are screened, each presenting a blue howwiyyah, each returning to the bus without it. A third soldier takes the stack of IDs and Rula’s passport to look them over. When he sees the Jordanian emblem, he calls Rula off the bus, and informs her that she cannot enter, even though she has a visa. He claims that this mahsoom is only for people with blue howwiyyat, ie, Arab Israelis. The guard who let me onto the bus gestures me off, and we are both sent away.

The thing is, Mahsoom al Nafuck is not only for Arab Israelis; people pass through on visas daily. The bus driver, with whom we had consulted regarding my visa-less passport, was sure Rula would pass through without fuss, and if anyone was sent back, it’d be me. Instead, for reasons unbeknown to me Rula was turned around, and I, the only passenger who was sent back to the bus with her identification, was asked to leave after being cleared. I can only assume that they saw us sitting with one another, and assumed guilt by association.

The Nafuck, unlike Mahsoom Beit Lehem, allows individual cars to pass, so there aren’t any taxis waiting around for passengers. It also does not function as a bus stop. So Rula and I walk back to the road the bus came in on, approximately half a mile from the checkpoint. We wait there for a taxi. Several white ones pass before we realize that white taxis will not stop; they are Israeli companies, with the yellow Israeli tags. My mood, which is already dangerously morbid, drops a bit more, and I match my internal fuming with external. Lighting the cigarette my hands shake, and I barely manage it. I’m so angry, so frazzled, I don’t even realize I’ve dropped the pack until a yellow taxi stops, and we ride a few minutes. By then it’s too late to retrieve them.

The other passengers in the cab are both men, and they are douches. They laugh with condescension when we get in, and I’m at a loss as to the hilarity: is it because we are Mahsoom rejects? Is it because I was smoking in public? Is it because we are two women, on the side of the road, at a loss? I can’t find it funny, though maybe, sometime later, I will. The cab takes us to my other priestly cousin’s church, where we get a ride from my Uncle George. Rula elects to go to Mahsoom Beit Lehem, but I am furious, and can’t bear to be turned around again. I curse in multiple languages, with multiple registers. My mobility is at the whim of another person on both a macro and microscopic level.  I hate relying on other people for transporation. I hate feeling caged in. I hate feeling like a second class citizen. Because I’m Arab in Israel. Because I’m a girl in Palestine.

When I get home, I retell the story, over and over again, to my family and random other people who want to know what happened. I wish I could stop. I wish they wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t make me repeat it.Each time I do, my gestures become bigger, my voice louder, my emotions…I can’t. Everything spills over, and I sob on my bed in my room, the room I had as a girl, in which I had doubtless cried a million times. I can’t catch my breath, my mascara bleeds into my eyes, so I cry harder, and my body shakes shakes shakes. Even here,  so little control. I ask myself how people live like this, how they survive this dehumanization daily. I am angry that I know what it feels like, angry that I know why people put up with it. Angry at myself for forgetting, angry at myself for forcefully remembering. I think, if I lived here, I might die. And then I am angry that I am too weak to stay and fight, and angry that I dare judge or question the people who do.

I gather myself to go out onto the veranda and have another cigarette. The rhythmic inhale, exhale calms me down for a moment, but midway in I am crying again. Quietly now, my quivering confined to my face, my shoulders shuddering randomly. I think, what now? What next?

Mourning and Melancholy

It’s been my experience that Palestinians (at least, Sawahrah, people from Beit Sahour) take weddings and funerals very seriously. Wedding preparations go on for months. There can be up to 6 different wedding-related celebrations per one couple. In short, my people throw down. Unfortunately, there are no weddings during my visit. Instead, much worse, there is a funeral.  My Ammo Anise (precise relationship is confusing) was 86 years old. He married 3 times, fathered 13 children. His body crossed the jisr midday, and was buried in a family plot in the evening. He was shorter than my grandfather, but with the same wily eyes I associate with the Shomali clan.

Since receiving the news of his passing, the family has been caught up in the obligations of the dead. Like weddings, funerals are events unto themselves, with elaborate stages of mourning. Before the burial, mourners spend all day at the deceased’s home, women in one space and men in the other. Though now this tradition is observed because homes are seldom large enough to house all the grievers at once, I think it originated because of some standard gender assumptions: namely, that women’s grief would be huge and crazy, while men, more reserved, would be uncomfortable with these displays of emotion.

During this vigil, mourners bring nonperishable goods to the family’s home, and the family (extended, at this point) serves coffee, tea, cacao with milk, and a soft sweet bread to the visitors. I’ve been to two of these vigils, both held in my parent’s home here in Palestine. For both of these, the women mourned indoors, and the men set up chairs under the dahlias in our front yard. First, for my grandfather, Seedo Farid when I was 10. Seedo Farid was a tall, graceful man who built houses and farmed olive and fackoose fields (cucumber’s more chill cousin). I can’t say I know much about his personality; I only spent time with him thrice before my family moved to Palestine, and by then his health had deteriorated significantly alongside his mental acuity. I remember he favored my cousins, because they lived here. I remember he called me “Kendu” instead of “Mejdu.” I remember trying to catch his lanky frame once, when he attempted to walk from his bed to the Veranda without aid, and was betrayed by those limbs. I couldn’t stop him from falling, but I was tall enough to hold his torso up after he dropped to his knees, my arms under his until someone came to help.

My father came from America from the funeral, and though I knew I needed to be sad, I was ecstatic for my father’s arrival. We had just moved home, and I missed him fiercely. I’ve always been sweet on him, I guess. My father cried as he walked the dirt road from the taxi to my Uncle’s house; he wept openly in the arms of his brothers, my mother. As it has done ever since that day, my father’s tears undid me. He’s gentle, sentimental perhaps to a fault. Selfishly, I want him to be less so, because I can’t bear how distraught he becomes, because I can’t bear how often I’ve been responsible for that sadness.

We sat through a second vigil for my Ammo Fouad, my father’s oldest brother, when I was 13.  For the second, my sister Lemma and I worked kitchen duty, washing Turkish coffee cups only to see them sent out again within minutes. In the corner of the room sat bags of rice, coffee, and sugar. On top of them sat Tony, my sister’s then boyfriend, ignoring the gender separation. He was there, ostensibly, to help and he did, by lightening the mood, mockingly washing out coffee cups with a flick of his thumb.

The vigil persists until the viewing, and picks up again after the burial, for three more days. This third day, il thalith, engenders a church service. You are surrounded, in some cases, for a week, as nearly every person in the city comes to express their grief. On the seventh day, il saba3, a memorial is held. When my granfather and uncle died, we held both these separately. Now, for Ammo Anise, they are being condensed into a day. Both out of a lax of custom, and because of his advanced age and full life. There is one final memorial service, al arbi3een, 40 days after the death. I found out recently that you can decrease the number of days until this service, and therefore break the family’s public mourning period. You simply subtract the number of children the person has had from 40. So for Ammo Anise, the 40 becomes 27. I had a full on laughing fit when I heard about this. It’s so bizarre.

Even if the events are over, the mourning period demands a certain deference. When Ammo Fouad died, we didn’t turn on the TV or radio for 40 days. We didn’t go to celebrations of any sort: weddings, birthdays, baptisms, for a year. At Christmas we didn’t decorate. Mostly, these extreme measures are ignored today. But when someone dies young, you’ll find the traditions resurrected. When Ammo died, we were all so bereft we did it willingly. Well, as willingly as a young girl can when she is informed her birthday party is off.

Ammo Fouad’s death shocked us. We all wept. Hugely, to befit the size of his character, his heart. He was a UN representative who worked in the Congo at the time of his death. He was loud and vulgar, but charmingly so. He knew just how far to push a joke, a person. He smoked Rothman’s, at least a pack a day. Drank whiskey on the rocks hours before his death. My aunt says he knew it was coming and insisted he go out doing what he loved. Every death in my life since then has been shadowed by Ammo Fouad’s. Each new death rekindling an older grief.

Here and now, in the wake of so many lost loved ones, my father’s sadness cloaks the house again. He will not observe the mourning traditions as he did for his brother, but he will carry the added heaviness daily. And for him, we’ll carry it as well. Here and now, in the land my father wishes to buried, we all step a little more softly.

Purple, Passport, and Other “P” Words

Per the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s request, I head to Beit Lehem to apply for my Palestinian passport on Tuesday. Since arriving here, I have been repeatedly told that I need to *do* something about my cleavage. Of course, my wardrobe consists entirely of stretchy low cut tank tops, and those do very little in terms of disguising the ladies. That morning, I slap on a second tank top over the first in my signature color (purple, you know), apply eyeshadow and mascara liberally, and brave the city.

We head first to an office decorated with collages of Yasser Arafat, Sadam Hussein, and Gamal Abdel Nasser. The choices seem odd to me, but then, I’m not familiar enough with the history to make sense of it. This office, or maktaba is a one stop official paperwork shop. One woman takes our passport photos, another types out our paperwork on an actual typewriter, and a man stamps the papers before placing them in a plastic sleeve. We pay up, 235 shekels per application, and take our documents next door to the Agency.

The passport office is on the second floor, and I take my howwiyyah and application to a cherubic middle aged man with a cigarette clamped between his teeth. People smoke everywhere here. He looks over my ID and tells me I cannot apply for a passport until I renew my ID, which was created in 1999. While this is certainly reasonable, I am now so wary of “people behind desks” that I feel like maybe I’m being treated poorly. He sends me back to the maktaba to get a renewal form.The folks at the maktaba are sympathetic, and the woman typing up forms rolls her eyes at their request, while the man with the stamps claims that it’s routine; all IDs must be from at least 2000. They print another set of pictures for the ID, and complete a new round of paperwork for an additionaly 65 shekels. I take it to the first floor of the Agency, where once again, the irreverence for lines makes negotiating the space difficult. My brother in law is with me, and we push at the other applicants before locating someone he knows on the inside. We are given a wait time of 30 minutes. Tariq takes Rachel to address some other paperwork, and I stay on in the crowded square room for my name to be called.

In general, I try not to pay attention when I’m being ogled, but the number of eyes watching me today feels overwhelming, and today I am surly enough to simply stare back. I glare generously at a woman speaking to her husband about our quick ascendancy to the head of the line. I return the extended scrutiny of a 12 or 13 old year boy. He is wearing a purple and white striped shirt, slim and fashionably faded blue jeans. His hair is shaved short at the nape of his neck but grows thicker at the crown, and is styled forward, each black strand shining blacker as product holds it steady. He is painfully thin, his upper back curved slightly forward, his arms held out an inch or two from his sides. When he walks there is a tight energy in his step, a slight bounce in his heel as though he could begin to run at any moment. Even so young, he’s already learned how to take up space. It’s so Arab of him I can’t help but smile. I know that walk, that posture. It is every Palestinian boy I’ve known, and at least two that I’ve loved. I know it’s supposed to project strength, but this kid is so small, so sweet you can’t help but know it for what it really is: vulnerability, insecurity. Earlier I saw a 20-something boy deviate between that posture’s softness and hardness within seconds: gently as he greeted an old schoolmate, hugging him with both arms, genuine delight on his face, and smugly as he lit his cigarette and teased the same mate.

This Arab masculinity, I can’t place my fingers on it exactly. Everywhere I go men look you directly in the eye, assess you openly. When we are driving around, they saunter into the street in front of the car, locking eyes with the driver as if in challenge. There is so much open and obvious aggression and assertiveness; I’m tempted to link to our political situation–that it’s an angst misdirected, but I can’t be sure. I know that there is something about the bravado I find simultaneously charming and obnoxious, sexy and stomach turning. It feels Orientalist of me, but what the fuck. I want to watch them as they watch me.

The cherub from the passport agency sees me sitting, and asks why I haven’t returned for my passport yet. I explain the wait, and he goes inside to check on my paperwork. Chest hair is curling out of his black shirt that I didn’t notice before, and he sings to himself as he goes about his business. He has decided, it seems, to take me under his wing. Is there something about Mejdu in Palestine that demands care? People are always trying to do things for me here, take care of me. It’s odd, given how differently I feel about myself and my personality when I’m at home in Michigan. He rushes along my howwiyyah and we go up to the second floor where the process is now surprisingly easy. I fill out a few lines in English, give a left thumbprint in purple, and sign my name in blue. The passport will be ready on Sunday.

The Road to Hell…

is paved with baked goods. That’s why it’s so easy to go to there.

I have been terribly neglectful of ye ol’ blog. I’m sorry to the three people who maybe read this. One of my new year’s intentions was to blog weekly. I’m going to try harder. The problem, of course, is that there are blondies to be baked, and Freaks and Geeks to be watched.  And sweet essays to be read. It’s all very distracting. But here we are, and I would love nothing more than to share with your the most recent classroom hooplah now that we’ve started the Winter semester.

Day 1 of Race, Gender and Sexuality: I ask my students to introduce themselves, giving their name, class standing, major, and an interesting or funny fact or anecdote about themselves. And one of my new students, who I hadn’t known for more than 20 minutes, decided to tell me and his classmates that his interesting story involved getting a charlie horse in his leg during sex. And I quote “I was getting it like, ‘uh…uhhhh’ and all of a sudden ‘ow!’, my leg was killing me.” Really? REALLY? Two things: 1. You are not sixteen, you do not need to affirm your masculinity by stating that you have recently had sex. 2. That’s the most interesting thing about you? I fear, D, that you are boring. BORING.

Day 2 of Race, Gender, and Sexuality: We are discussing Sex and Gender, namely the faultiness of a two-sex system. I ask “What flaws or problems does the two sex system have? Or, what could pose a threat or question to the two sex system.”  Charlie Horse, from the previous blurb raises his hand and offers this juicy scenario:

Him: “What about Siamese twins?”

Me: “What about them?”

“One could be male and one could be female?”

“Actually, that’s impossible, but even if it were, isn’t that just still two sexes?”

Another student: “Well, like ,what if they shared a brain? or hormones or chromosomes or soemthing? What then?”

Me: and also ::head shaking:: and furthermore ::face-palming::

Oy vey. It’s going to be so so so interesting this semester.

Silly rabbit

Today in my class we watched a documentary called Killing Us Softly 3, featuring Jean Kilbourne and directed by Sut Jhally. In this documentary, Kilbourne argues the advertising’s and media’s potryal of women is harmful to not just women, but also men. She claims that advertising objectifies, silences, devalues, infantilizes, and hypersexualizes women. As a result of these processes, women are subject to violence, discrimination, and disempowerment. That violence can be physical as in the case of battering, or emotional, as in the lack of self esteem or the development of eating disorders.

After watching it, I ask students whether or not they continue to see similar ads and messages in the media today, and if so, what kind of affects these ads have. While most students recognize the obvious correlation between gender socialization, the devaluing of women and femininity, and the problems both create, a few students will obstinately claim that they, personally, are exempt from the message. That “society” can say these things, but it doesn’t have to mean one must take it seriously or let it change how one behaves of feels. They are exempt from over 3000 images a day telling them what women should be and how they should be treated. That indeed, each person has a choice to allow these advertisements to affect them, to choose to believe, buy into, or perpetuate the messges and ensuing violence.

Silly me. All this time I didn’t have to feel bad about about being chubby? All this time, I’ve been waking up and deciding to hate about my stomach, or my chin. All this time I didn’t need to care that my face was broken out or that my hair looked stupid. How ridiculous I’ve been. How utterly weak.

Let me say this. I do think we have agency. We can choose what we watch, with whom we assosciate socially. We might even be able to filter out half of the negative messages we recieve that tell us we are not pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough. That we are not enough, and contraditorily, we are too much. That would leave us with 1500 messages from one source alone, not to mention the various other influences on our psyche. What person is able to control every aspect of how they feel? If telling myself I was beautiful were enough, there wouldn’t be a billion dollar weight loss industry. There wouldn’t be countless self help books and psychotherapy. There wouldn’t be eating disorders or catty “OMG Look what she’s wearing” conversations. It is not enough to make a personal choice, though that might be a good place to start.

We live in a society that devalues women. And though we might be good feminist ladies and gentlemen, we cannot choose how people respond to us and percieve us in the world. It is not enough for me to say “As a woman, I am choosing not to accept passivity and submission” because those values are expected and desired from me not just in personal relationships, but professional ones as well. I might be “immune” to the negativity, but we live in a great big world, and somewhere, someone out there believes and stands by the ugliness of the beauty myth, of victim blaming. That someone might be in your classroom who admittedly took the class to “meet chicks”. If, as a viewer and a member of a class that talks about equity and social justice, a person cannot see how his or her choices affects the world outside them, and how the larger “society” affects thier personal life, then feminism is in a scary place.

And I’ll add, that when posed with the question of “What if this documentary were about negative portrayals of racial minorities?” a person repsonds, “well, that’s different.” then we are dealing with sexism plain and simple. It is impossible to suggest that you can choose to disregard messages about violence against women and have no choice but to take seriously the violence advertising inflicts on men and women of color.  In that moment, all that’s really being said is that sexism is OK, but racism is not.

I’m going to make a radical claim. Neither is OK. Heterosexism, ableism, classism, sexism, racism, and all the other ISMs disguised by names like “family values” and “rugged individualism” are not OK. We are not OK and this is no utopia. This world is dangerous and unforgiving. It is scary and difficult and exhausting. If you choose to pretend otherwise, then I can only say you are choosing, openly and without regret, to pit yourself against freedom and equity. You are choosing to perpetuate hierarchy and discrimination, probably because you benefit from it in some way, or because you don’t want to recognize that we are all repsonsible for the world in which we currently reside.

We are all repsonsible. You and me and them and that person over there, checking MySpace. We all have to rethink gender, sex, race, class, sexuality, and ability. We all have to reckon with our inner demons and at the same time, reckon with those demons outside of us who would deny us jobs and healthcare, abuse our sisters, beat our “sissy” boys, or insult our heritage. I’m ready and willing to have these discussions, call a person out when s/he tells a racist joke, or refuse to partronize establisments that support violence (American Apparell, America’s Next Top Model, and McDonald’s: I’m looking at you). This is not a game or a joke to me. It is not a differnce of opinion, a to-ma-to, to-mah-to situation. This is serious. This is survival. So stop playing and take an honest look at the world and your place in it. Own your privilege and your sexism and your racism. Grow up. Even General Mills knows that tricks are for kids.

what grief is

Someday, you will be teaching Race, Gender and Sexuality during the Spring semester. You will spend two weeks talking about the social construction of gender, and more importantly, the social construction of sex. You talk about how biology is flawed, how a two-sex system is a myth, how bodies themselves are never so simple as male or female. You will try to convince your students, at least if they won’t agree, to at least think: think about the possibilities–think about what it would mean to deconstruct this system, to be free of it. 

You will move on in your discussion to talk about sexuality, race. You will draw parallels between the constructions in these “truths.” You will explain that while “God said so” might work for your pastor, it is not a well-reasoned argument in the classroom. You will talk about discrimination, privilege, inequality, hate crimes. You will make jokes with your students about Kanye West, the “gay” agenda, abstinence only education. 

Then, two days away from the end of a class you feel is going really well, a class in which you have tackled serious issues, and have succeeded, at least sometimes, in helping students discover a new perspective and reconsider what they knew to be true, you will casually mention Thomas Beatie, a pregnant transgender man. 

You are unprepared for the repsonse, the sheer hostility such a figure provokes. You are caught so off guard that your breath is literally knocked out of your lungs, and you can feel, if someone says one more hateful thing, you might scream, or worse, cry. You rally as best you can, trying to remind students what you’ve been doing for the past six weeks. You remind them to question their knee jerk reactions, probe as to why they feel as they do. What are they afraid of? What is motivating them? What are they trying to protect? You try your very best to be level–to avoid “going off” or responding out of sheer pain and rage, because you know that such a repsponse is immediately discredited. You remind them they cannot possibly understand what it means to be Beatie–that his life has very likely not been fun and fancy free. That he probably didn’t just wake up one morning and decide he didn’t like boobs or periods and decided to take care of that. That he didn’t later decide he wanted to go back to “being a woman” by having a kid. That he doesn’t just get to have whatever he wants, whenever, how he wants it: as though being a transman and carrying a child is for kicks, just to show he can do it, or worse, just to piss you off. You can’t know, you tell them. 

When I got home, I wanted to call you. I wanted to say:

Today, today I fought for us. I fought for you. I do this all the time, but today I felt you with me. Today those tears unshed were yours. Today the control I exerted was for you, for me, for what we had, and what I hope we can have again. I don’t mean this to say I was fighting for our relationship, because that is over. I mean to say I was fighting for a world where people like you and I could be in love and have a life and just fucking be. 

And when this happens, when this day happens, and I come home, and I cannot call you, I realize this fight, this fight that I have fought a 1,000 times and will fight a 1,000, 000 more–I am losing this fight, as I lost the one for our relationship. In this, as in myself and us, I have failed.