outspoken outlier

first blog entry on this site. i have flirted with the idea of blogging ever since friendster was around (remember friendster, everyone?) – kept a blog there for a while, but then friendster kind of died…and then life got in the way. but here i am again.

i’m writing for so many reasons:

• it’s good practice, since i hope to soon be immersed in writing my memoir
• i’m now navigating the academy as a grad student, and have been told that my perspective as a queer woman of color with a background in youth organizing/social justice education and an intended career in public policy/the academy might be interesting for folks to hear
• i’ve recently realized i am a “cultural translator” (a phrase i heard from cheryl dorsey when she spoke at my school last month) who believes the flow of knowledge is multi-directional, and who is committed to sharing information on all sorts of interesting topics with the world and hearing others’ ideas on topics i care about
• i’m going through saturn return, and though i’m not a die-hard believer in astrology, i know i am definitely at a reflective place in life and wanted an outlet to share random musings about the journey so far.

i don’t have much experience with widgets or html or anything else fancy.  i’m really a pen and paper kind of gal(i once gave a palm pilot back to my employer because i preferred my traditional leather-bound filofax planner).  but who knows what may evolve on this site as i learn my way around web 2.0 (whatever that means).

today, i am thinking a ton about love and what it means to me.  i am an atheist, but i suppose love would be the closest thing i have to a religion.  much of my thinking about love has been shaped by bell hooks‘ work “all about love” – though it is definitely a heter0centric work, the idea of love as a verb and not a noun, as a commitment and not just a feeling, was very profound for me when i first picked this book up four years ago.

i grew up with a mother who wanted to be loving but didn’t love herself, and a father who was incredibly abusive to all of us.  it’s funny that i should start this blog today, of all days – my parents got married exactly 32 years ago today.  thankfully, i haven’t had contact with my father since 1994 (following my prosecution of him and his subjection to a restraining order, giving my mother the space to finally leave him after 16 years of marriage…), but i have spent the better part of the past 15 years unraveling the legacy of so much violence in my life, trying to understand how it happened so that i don’t replicate it in my own adulthood, and trying to replace it with self-love and love for others.

what i have learned repeatedly over that time is that love is a practice, a discipline, a commitment.  it is also the foundation of all social justice work in this world.  given this, it is also impossible to work for social justice, or even to love other people, if you don’t love yourself.  don’t just take my word for it – so many of my s/heroes have come to this conclusion long before i was even born.   for instance, che guevara in “man and socialism in cuba” (1965):

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.  It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality…We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.”

how are we supposed to love humanity if we cannot honor and love the humanity within our own selves?

one of the ways i try to connect the practice of love to working for social justice is by bringing the interests and voices of the most marginalized people in our world (those whose interests are either ignored by or even subjugated by institutions of governance and power) into my classrooms – since i’m studying public policy, i’m going to school with a bunch of people who will soon be policymakers, executive directors, CEO’s, politicians, etc.  if my classmates all learn to listen to and take into account the voices of marginalized peoples, then perhaps the dynamics of power and privilege in our society can slowly begin to shift and change.  i realize that change that’s truly rooted in social justice will always require organizing at the grassroots level, but i also believe it helps to have allies on “the inside.”

one of the constituencies i am most concerned about are queer youth.  i have had the privilege of working with, learning with and from, teaching, and organizing many queer youth during my ten or so years as an educator in new york city.  often, i was the only queer adult of color that any of these young people had ever gotten to know personally.  many of them struggled to love and accept themselves, battling feelings of internalized homophobia in an effort to avoid becoming yet another queer youth who committed suicide.  those that managed self-love were often met with homophobia from their parents, classmates, teachers.   some were even kicked out of their homes when they came out to our were outed to their parents (one ended up living with me for a while).  all of those who were genderqueer (for a definition, see page 32 of that useful GLSEN educator’s toolkit) had to watch their backs at almost all times – walking down the hallways, traveling to and from school, and certainly in their personal lives.  anyone who knows the stories of sakia gunn, gwen araujo, brandon teena, and too many others knows that queer, genderqueer and transgendered people are murdered every day just for being who they are.

which brings me back to the theme of love.  the desire to live in a world in which it is 100% safe and ok to be exactly who you are in terms of your gender identity and sexual orientation is obviously deeply personal for me. as a queer femme woman, i often find myself loving and in love with other women, genderqueer bois and transmen.  and therefore, i often find myself looking over my shoulder right alongside them, whenever we hold hands or kiss in public.  as much as i love myself and love my loved ones, i find myself looking at each person we pass by on the street, wondering – “how much do you love yourself? are you struggling with self-hatred so much that you have turned that hatred outwards, allowing it to manifest as homophobia and/or transphobia? will today be the day that someone, maybe you, attacks me and/or my partner because of such hatred?”

i think about all of these things when i come across videos like this one.   it’s so beautiful and moving to me to watch seven-year-old jazz, a child who is lucky enough to have an adult who unconditionally loves her in her life, and who has been nurtured and encouraged to love herself.  i still fear for her safety, for my own safety, for the safety of all of my queer and genderqueer loved ones.  but i know that through simple messages like hers, maybe more people can be encouraged to love each other, and most of all to love themselves.  because if you really love your self, truly, fully – then i don’t think it’s possible to really hate or to commit an act of violence against another person.