Defiant Through Care: A Tribute to My Mom

This post was originally published on In Our Words.

my best friend, my momma, and me. ❤

Growing up, I was surrounded by strong and inspiring women and mothers. My Nana, my mom’s stepmom, was a divorcee with two daughters, who raised them mostly on her own before marrying my Gramps. She is also a cancer survivor who lost her arm during treatment, but continues to bike, swim, and drive. Ammie, my mom’s mom, was also a divorcee who raised my mom and uncle, taught fitness classes and, after re-marrying, seemed to emulate a perfect balance of feminine party hostess, and brainy, independent lady (she and my grandfather never merged their bank accounts, for example).

And then there’s my mom. My amazing, extraordinary, awe-inspiring momma. After a drunk driver hit my father in 1989, my mom was forced to join the ranks with other working-class single parents. She wasn’t employed at the time, and the trauma inspired by my father’s tragic car accident, coupled with horrible family feuds between his side of the family and ours, led her to months of alcohol abuse. In a bout of courage I am forever inspired by, my mom—a diagnosed alcoholic—quit drinking. Today, she’s almost 22 years sober.

She found work at nearby business’ cafeteria where she worked for several years. Eventually, she ended up getting a job in the office part of the company, working in the print shop. Like most jobs for non-college educated women, the hourly pay was not enough to live on, especially with a child. So, when I was nine years old, she took up a second job delivering newspapers in the early morning before her “real” job. Everyday she would wake up between 3:30-4am, go to the depot to assemble papers, then drive through neighboring towns, tossing some, but, for the old folks, getting out of her car to deliver the papers neatly on people’s door steps.

My entire family hoped she’d find a way to quit the paper route. Once I started working more in college, and stopped relying on her to help with rent money, I thought she might finally have enough money to work only at her office job. She was always so close to stopping, feeling almost financially secure enough to let it go.

In a devastating and cruel twist of fate, she lost her office job in the fall of 2010. The paper route became her sole income. Even when she found work as a home health-aide—something that was exciting given her decision to go to school and become certified in some sort of nursing profession—she was still unable to stop the paper route. For those of you who don’t know, being a home health care worker is one of the worst jobs you could possibly have. My mom gets no benefits, no guaranteed hours, no compensation for the gas money she uses to get to and from client’s homes, and not a penny above minimum wage. She had a steady two clients, meaning she worked 40 hours as an aide, and over an additional 20 hours doing the paper route (7 days a week). Even with this, she was not making enough money to afford to live on her own, and continued to live with my grandparents, where she’d been staying temporarily right before losing her office job.

This past September, my grandfather was diagnosed with throat cancer. Around the same time, my grandmother had several falls and was showing signs of memory loss, and increased physical instability. Even if my mom had the money to move out, it was clear she was needed at their home to help care for them. In the months following, my mom’s days were non-stop work: paper route, client #1, client #2, home to do my grandfather’s feedings (he was eating through a tube), and to provide general physical, mental, and emotional support for him and my grandmother.  I don’t think my mom has slept for more than four or five hours straight in almost 20 years.

Two weeks ago, my grandfather passed away. The sadness of our loss is mitigated only by the peace we all have in knowing he is no longer suffering from the pain he experienced in his final weeks. This past weekend, I was back in Cleveland for the funeral, and got to see first-hand the way my mom functions as the backbone of our family. My mom, on top of her two jobs, managed to take care of a bulk of the funeral arrangements, and, more importantly, took care of my grandmother during one of the hardest experiences of her life.

To watch and experience the role-reversal of care-taking between mother and child is difficult, poignant, and nearly indescribable. My grandmother has always been fiercely independent, and physically capable. At first, I felt sad to see her lean on my mom—literally and figuratively—so necessarily. But that moment of sympathy for the loss of my grandmother’s former illustrations of strength was quickly replaced with an understanding that this too was an illustration of strength. My grandmother was strong enough and brave enough to say she needed my mom.

In a similar way, my mom has simultaneously had to take on more responsibility than ever, and also ask for help. Or at least allow help and care to come to her. Before my mom got her office job we were legitimately poor, but after a few years of her working we were able to afford a bit more. During my college years, my mom was always able to afford a plane ticket (or at least a bus ticket) to visit me in Chicago. After losing her job, the only way mom’s been able to visit me is if my partner and I buy her a ticket, and now, every time I’m home for a visit, I have to make sure she doesn’t try to treat us to meals out. The tables have turned, but each of these shifts has done nothing but demonstrate our resilience as mothers and daughters, caretakers and care-recipients.

And make no mistake, both giving and receiving care are equally complicated tasks. Joan Tronto notes,

Care work is devalued; care is also devalued conceptually through a connection with privacy, with emotion, and with the needy. Since our society treats public accomplishment, rationality, and autonomy as worthy qualities, care is devalued insofar as it embodies their opposites. (p. 117)

In this way, my mom displays acts of defiance on a daily basis. Intentional or not, she perseveres through the embodiment of a role that, in her professional job, is often degrading and thankless, and in her private life is understood as weak.

It is not a surprise that my mom is capable of doing this. She has always been immeasurably selfless and generous. And her heart is enormous. More than that, she does all of this without a word of complaint. Through it all, she continues to smile and sing on a daily basis. Her sense of humor is as corny as ever, and she is the proud owner of Justin Beiber toothbrush (it sings as you brush!). She is unique, and funny, and brave, and gets joy from the simple things, like walking her dog, or hearing her favorite song on the radio.

On Mother’s Day and everyday, I am thankful for her. I am proud of her, and proud for her. On Mother’s Day and everyday: I am one lucky daughter.

CeCe Update

I’ve written about CeCe McDonald on here before, so for now I just want to provide an update for those who are interested in helping support her during the trial.

-Trial begins April 30th, but official call for court support starts May 1st.

-If you don’t live near Minneapolis, you can support CeCe in numerous other ways. Visit this link to learn more: http://freececemcdonald.tumblr.com/post/22018071120/ceces-trial-starts-monday-april-30th-at-9am

Please consider doing something to stand against a racist, cissexist, classist system. Say no to a system that targets the most marginalized and oppressed populations for imprisonment. Say no to a system that seeks to deny citizenship to disenfranchised groups as a way to maintain power. Say no to a society that makes villains of victims, and heroes of oppressors.

And, to close, some relevant words from Angela Davis:

“Well, prisons create the assumption that those who are a threat to our safety and security are behind bars, but in actuality, the techniques of violence, the techniques of terror that are most dangerous, are the ones used within the system itself. And I would say that it’s not simply a question of racist repression. It’s also a question of gender repression. It’s also a question of repression of sexualities. You know, one of the — as I’ve been pointing out, one of the most interesting developments within the anti-prison movement looks at the way in which the prison itself serves as a gendering apparatus, looks at the violence inflicted on people who do not identify as male or female in the conventional sense, who identify as transgender or as gender-nonconforming, the violence that is inflicted on people who do not subscribe to compulsory heterosexuality, violence against lesbians, violence against gay men, so that you might say that the prison is this institution that is grounded, in so many ways, in violence.

And the violence of slavery, which we assume was abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment and afterwards, is very much at work within US prison institutions.”

(from an interview on Democracy Now)

Voter ID is a Queer Issue

This article was originally posted on the In Our Words blog.

It is currently mandatory in 31 states to show a form of identification before voting at the polls. Of the fifteen states that require photo identification, only seven will allow the voter to prove their identity through another list of criteria. That means that in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin, you are unable to vote without a photo ID, and more states are trying to get similar legislation passed before the 2012 presidential election. [1]

Proponents for strict voter ID laws argue that this rule will prevent “election fraud,” an ominous-sounding phenomenon that has little to no evidence of actually being a problem. What is more likely, particularly after taking into account that most voter ID advocates are conservatives, is that rich, white men in power want to take all measures to maintain that power. And one of the easiest ways to maintain power is to deny citizenship to marginalized members of society who tend to vote for more liberal candidates.

If there was any doubt that fear of “election fraud” was actually code for fear of “brown people,” consider this disturbing image used in the Minnesota efforts to pass voter ID.

According to the head of the Minnesota Majority, the main group backing the amendment in Minnesota, these images are meant to represent “dead voters [ghosts/zombies] and fictitious identities [superhero]” and “[t]he prison-striped figure refers to the problem of felons voting…and the mariachi character represents illegal immigrants.” [2] In the same breath, he wondered how people could possibly say that the amendment had racist implications.

Of course, this amendment is undeniably racist and harkens back to the days of Jim Crow when blacks were barred from voting. In response to the recent influx of voter ID legislation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) announced that it would seek support to fight it from the United Nations Human Rights Council. [3]

That Voter ID is a matter of human rights is certain. The denial of full citizenship to members of the minoritized public sphere happens in subtle and insidious ways that works to suppress the voice of those who are most victimized by the maintenance of the status quo.

And the denial of full citizenship is something with which queers are entirely familiar. While the mainstream LGBT movement begs to be included in the public sphere through a marriage license, it does so without interrogating the ways that the very system works to deny other minorities access to full personhood through other, more violent means of exclusion. The mass incarceration of black men and the war on “illegal” [brown] immigrants erase entire populations from our so-called “democracy,” and, in doing so, enables the continuation of systemic racism. Acknowledging similar relationships to oppression is important, but it is equally important to acknowledge that some of those prisoners and immigrants are queer themselves.

In addition, this act could also potentially harm the transgender population. If voters are required to present an ID that matches their appearance, those transfolk who no longer present as they did on their licenses may be denied access to the polls.

This is a queer issue not just because it’s a matter of solidarity—it’s a matter of survival.

I have to admit it’s a bit odd for me to be this fired up about voting. It was not so long ago that I identified as a full-fledged anarchist, and every November would remind people that “our dreams won’t fit inside their ballot boxes,” and that, as Emma Goldman noted, “If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.”

But it’s Emma’s words that actually make this seem so necessary. They are making it illegal. This law structurally denies voting-rights to a population that is proving to be a threat to the hegemonic order.  Conservatives wouldn’t be pushing for it so hard, if they weren’t afraid. And although a vote is not a revolution, it is, if nothing else, a strategic move for power.

In Freedom With Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State (2011), Chandan Reddy argues that we think about the exclusions of particular racial and sexual subjectivities as “not about rights, equality, or identity” but rather “it is about the speech of bodily groups that are the material foundations of the US nation-state” (p. 218). This is the difference between having a voice and having access to legible speech. The former can be ignored, but the latter must be recognized. The Voter ID Act is a tool that functions to continue a cycle of racist, classist, heterosexist exclusion, and queers should be some of the loudest voices that demand it be stopped.

Not the ENDA the Struggle

(This piece, originally published on In Our Words, reflects some main arguments made in my dissertation).

 It is currently legal in 29 US states to fire someone because they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual; in 34 states, it is legal to fire someone based on gender identity. [i] Because of this, there has been a push by LGBT rights groups to get ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, passed under federal law. ENDA would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, although the latter is only a recent inclusion. Although prominent LGBT leaders like former Senator Barney Frank and the HRC have supported proposing an ENDA bill that would remove gender identity and expression from the list in order to make it easier to pass, the current ENDA now includes gender identity. Neither version of ENDA, however, has ever been signed, and the current bill is sitting idle in the 111^th congress.

Freedom at Work, an organization “committed to banning workplace harassment and career discrimination against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender Americans through public education, policy analysis, and legal work,” is currently leading the fight to get President Obama to sign an inclusive ENDA Executive Order. [ii] Their efforts have re-energized the struggle for LGBT workplace rights, and have made it their goal to succeed in getting an inclusive ENDA passed in the new 2013 Congress.

I too support the signing of a fully-inclusive ENDA, but I fear that framing ENDA as the solution to ending workplace discrimination is both deceptive and dangerous. At the same time that Freedom at Work, the mainstream gay press, and a slew of dedicated gay and allied advocates promote ENDA as the most pressing issues for LGBT workers, insidious anti-union legislation like “Right to Work” [iii] is being passed without a stir from most of the LGBT community. And attacks on unions, in my opinion, are far worse for LGBT workers than a continued stall of ENDA.

Relying on federal law to protect marginalized people is historically ineffective without the complement of organized struggle. For example, not only did the Civil Rights movement enable the end of Jim Crow laws, but it also empowered black Americans to fight against the discrimination that would inevitably continue, even after it was legally prohibited. Similarly, while ENDA may provide someone legal ground to file a charge against an employer, the ability to find the strength to file a charge would be enormously more difficult without the help of an organized body of workers and a contract.

As a PhD candidate whose dissertation is focused on the importance of a strong LGBT/organized labor relationship, I could give countless examples of workers who say the union has been more help to them than anti-discrimination laws. In an interview I did with a transgender boycott coordinator from UNITE HERE in Chicago, he explained that although Illinois has a state-wide policy prohibiting employment discrimination of LGBT-identified people, he has more than one friend that has been fired for transitioning. “Very few laws that get passed really change a whole lot if you don’t fight to enforce them [at work],” he said, and then pointed to the union as the best platform from which to have that fight.

Several other queer scholars and activists have been publically skeptical about the value of putting energy towards passing ENDA. In Out at Work: Building a Gay/Labor Alliance (2001), Patrick McCreery offers the example of a gay middle school teacher who was fired after someone revealed that he used to be an actor in gay pornography. The school was able to fire him, not because he was gay, but because he had “deviant” sexual practices, something ENDA would never protect. He continues, “ENDA clearly seeks not to subvert heteronormative culture but rather to assimilate gay workers into it. As written, ENDA attempts to categorize and organize sexuality, not to acknowledge its fluidity or instability.” Riki Anne Wilchins (2001), an activist and executive director of GenderPAC [iv], makes similar arguments, suggesting that ENDA would be unlikely to give any protection to the gender non-conforming, even if it was explicitly written in the bill.

Unions, unlike federal law, provide the opportunity for self-determination and power. In a union, an LGBT worker is able to set the standards for a safe environment in a contract, and instead of having to take a boss to court as an individual, they can go through the union to fight against contract violation. If they get push back, the union is there to rally on their behalf.

Of course, not all unions are sensitive or supportive of LGBT-related issues, but in my years of research on this topic, I’ve read overwhelming numbers of stories about queer unionized workers—from waitresses, to auto workers, to nurses—that have found support from straight co-workers when they faced discrimination on the job. A transgender grocery store worker who was made uncomfortable using the bathroom at work during his transition explained that he was able to rally the support of his co-workers to get gender discrimination prohibited in their contract through a combination of “union pride” and “putting a human face on the issue.” [v] In addition, organizations like Pride at Work [vi], a contingent of the AFL-CIO, have had great success in their mission to make unions safer spaces for queer workers, illustrated by things like major union’s public support of gay-marriage, and the existence of at least two lesbian presidents of international unions (Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU; and Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT).

Focusing only on ENDA as the key to protecting LGBT workers correspondingly increases the lack of awareness about the detrimental Right to Work legislation, as well as numerous anti-collective bargaining bills that are becoming more and more common throughout the country. Again, I’m not arguing that ENDA isn’t necessary, important, and long overdue, but I am arguing that it is likely not the best answer for LGBT workers who need protection from discrimination on the job…Unions are. And to dismiss these pervasive attacks on organized labor as a non-queer issue is to risk the livelihoods of working and middle class queers across the nation.

 

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[i] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/15/1043446/-Putting-a-face-to-LGBT-employment%C2%A0discrimination?via=blog_1

[ii] http://www.freedomtowork.org/

[iii] A “right-to-work” law is a statute that prohibits union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees’ membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws exist in twenty-three U.S. states, mostly in the southern and western United States. Such laws are allowed under the 1947 federal Taft–Hartley Act. (Wikipedia.org)

[iv] GenderPAC is a national nonprofit organization devoted to pursuing gender, affectional, and racial equality.

[v] From The Trouble Maker’s Handbook.

[vi] http://www.prideatwork.org/

The Tragedy of Albert Nobbs

My response to the film “Albert Nobbs,” was originally posted on the In Our Words blog. You can read my article below, but I recommend visiting IOW for more queer perspectives on social, cultural, and political issues!

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Spoiler alert: My reflection on this film includes a discussion of the whole film, beginning to end, and so if you plan to see it and want to be surprised, stop reading.

The film “Albert Nobbs” tells the story of Albert (Glenn Close), a woman who lives her life as a man in 19^th century Ireland. Albert works as a waiter in a hotel and lives unassumingly with the other wait-staff, including Helen, a feisty, somewhat “boy crazy” blonde (played by Mia Wosikowska). Behind the safety of his bedroom door, we see Albert bind his breasts and obsessively count his coins, which he stores under a loose floorboard. Albert seems content with his life, but Close’s dreamy gaze into the distance tells us he wants more.

Enter Hubert Paige (Janet McTeer), a hot butch painter that makes all the women of the film weak at the knees. He’s hired to paint some of the rooms of the house and is told to stay overnight in Albert’s room so he can finish the next day. In a series of unfortunate events, Hubert discovers that Albert is a woman. Later the next day, to ease Albert’s worried mind, Hubert reveals that he too is a woman living as a man.  [1] In fact, Albert learns, Hubert is even married to a woman.

Hubert becomes a sort of pre-internet It Gets Better project for Albert. Albert is suddenly not alone. He has a role model. A role model that proves that he could live a “normal” life, which, for Albert means: 1) getting married to a woman, and 2) owning his own tobacco shop. Feeling immediately and urgently inspired, Albert asks the young Helen to “walk out” with him. At first she says no, since she’s already started sleeping with a new hotel hire, Joe Mackins. However, Joe wants to go to America and thinks Albert has a “whiff of money about him”—so he encourages Helen to go on dates with Albert in order to get gifts, and eventually money. Helen agrees, and although she seems distressed by this manipulation, she continues.

The unfolding of this plot is slow and awkward at best, weird and uninteresting at worst. However, the unremarkable quality of the film-making is less offensive to me than the framing of the gender non-conforming protagonists. You see, the reason Albert and Hubert are living their lives as men comes from a similar experience—their “root,” if you will, is that they were both abused by men. Hubert, as a woman, was married to a man who physically beat him, and Albert was gang raped. Of course. If Hollywood isn’t telling us that the only reason queers are queer is because they were “born this way,” it’s because of a brutal tragedy.

It’s also never entirely clear if Albert is actually attracted to women. Hubert and his wife are playful and flirtatious, but Albert’s dates with Helen are excruciatingly awkward. Albert’s entire approach to dating—and to his future—is portrayed as being dim and out-of-touch. I’m guessing the filmmakers were hoping this would encourage the audience to see Albert and “sweet and innocent,” but I was mostly annoyed that he was making such stupid decisions.

This ambiguous sexuality is highlighted when, after Hubert’s wife dies of typhoid, Albert proposes that he and Hubert live together and open up his fantasy tobacco shop. Albert suggests he could take the place of Hubert’s late wife. Hubert is horrified that Albert doesn’t realize that his wife can’t be “replaced,” and in response, he takes Albert to his wife’s closet and shows him her dresses. In the next scene, Albert and Hubert walk to the sea, adorned in the dresses from her closet. Both look uncomfortable, but when Albert arrives on the beach, he runs wild and ecstatic, arms waving, dress blowing, smile across his face. He seems free, until he trips on his dress and tumbles to the sand.

This is supposed to be a metaphor for something, I’m sure, but for what exactly, I’m not so sure. Is Albert happier as a woman? Or did the fall indicate that he’s not? When they get back to Hubert’s house and change into men’s clothes, Hubert reminds Albert that “you don’t have to be anything but who you are.”

I think this was supposed to be a really powerful, poignant moment in the film, but it was lost beneath Albert’s almost inhuman personality, and the dress metaphor-fail in the scene prior.

As I sat in the theater, sharing confused glances with my fellow queer media studies colleague, I thought maybe my puzzlement was a testament to the film’s ability to handle the complexity of gender non-conforming lives, especially over a hundred years ago. Perhaps the incoherence of these characters was actually really brilliant, and I was just doing the very un-queer move of trying to make sense of something that wasn’t supposed to be made sense of.

That moment of forgiveness lasted about five minutes—because the end the film brought with it the tired trope of queer death. Like the queers of Hollywood Oscar-nominated hits that came before, Albert dies a tragic death, joining the likes of Hilary Swank, Heath Ledger, Tom Hanks and Sean Penn. Nothing like a dead queer to teach us all a lesson about humanity, right? And what better way to honor that exploited figure than to award a straight actor for playing it so well!

In her book The Promise of Happiness (2010), Sara Ahmed reminds us that early depictions of queer life in media (starting originally with pulp lit), was only permitted “on the condition that it does not have a happy ending, as such an ending would ‘make homosexuality attractive’” (p.88). Since the first lesbian pulp novel in 1952, it appears little has changed. Ahmed runs through a long list of queer tragedies, from classic novels like The Well of Loneliness to lesbian teen romances like Lost and Delirious. Although Ahmed rejects that “happy” queer stories are necessarily any better (as a “happy” queer film is often a tale of assimilation, and one that erases the reality of hardship), she does insist that a queer form of happiness would require struggle, and that struggle requires aspiration. “We could remember that the Latin root of the word aspiration means ‘to breathe’,” she writes, “I think the struggle for a bearable life is the struggle for queers to have a space to breathe” (p.120).  Killing queer figures does exactly the opposite.

There was one moment of the film that actually passed all my queer/critical tests. During a scene at a party at the hotel, one of the hotel owners approaches Albert and asks him why he’s not in fancy dress. “I’m a waiter, sir,” Albert states. “And I’m a doctor,” the doctor replies, “We’re both disguised as ourselves.”

Astute point, Doctor. Judith Butler would be proud that you’re pointing out that we’re all in disguise, performing our selves and our gender, trans or not. I only wish that I had decided, on that night, to be disguised as a femme who saved $9 by not seeing Albert Nobbs. [2]

 

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[1] No surprises here, folks. As a reviewer on NPR noted, Hubert looks a lot like Rachel Maddow. Agreed. A 19^th century house-painting, smoking Rachel Maddow. Swoon.

[2] Actually, that’s not true. I’m glad I saw it. As a sucker for the Oscars, I’m always excited to see the nominated films, and as a critical media studies grad student, I’m always glad to see films if for no other reason than to critique them. : )

Responding to Homophobia: How 30 Rock Failed on the Tracy Morgan Controversy

New IOW blog post about the 30 Rock episode that addresses Tracy Morgan’s homophobic standup routine.

 

You can read it here!: http://inourwordsblog.com/2012/01/31/responding-to-homophobia-how-30-rock-failed-on-the-tracy-morgan-controversy/

The Incarceration of CeCe McDonald: A Threat to Justice Everywhere

This was posted on the IOW blog on Monday, on MLK Day. I am going to post it in full on here because I think it’s very important that as many people as possible be informed about CeCe’s case.

On a cold night in December, a crowd of people filled a Minneapolis church with purpose and reflection. We were, all of us shoulder to shoulder in the crowded pews, moved to join this space in defense of justice, in defense of CeCe McDonald. After a spaghetti dinner, speakers—including CeCe’s lawyer, poet Andrea Jenkins, and activist/academic, Rose Brewer—galvanized us powerfully with their words, reminding us that CeCe’s case is one about white supremacy and heteropatriarchy verses the oppressed–with the odds, as usual, in favor of the former.

CeCe McDonald is an African-American transwoman who is described as “a wise, out-spoken, and welcoming person, with a cheerful disposition and a history of handling prejudice with amazing grace.” On June 5^th, her life was forever altered. On the night in question, CeCe and two of her friends were walking to a local grocery store to get food. They passed a group of three white people—two women and one man—who began verbally harassing them, calling her and her friends “‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ and suggested that CeCe was ‘dressed as a woman’ in order to ‘rape’ Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers.”

One of the white women, the first to engage in physical violence, slashed CeCe’s cheek with a beer bottle. A fight ensued with several people joining in. During the chaotic altercation, Schmitz was fatally stabbed. His death is now being blamed on CeCe, who was first held in jail in solitary confinement, later transferred to a psychiatric ward, released briefly on bail, then returned to prison. It took two months for the prison to provide medical treatment to CeCe’s cheek wound, which, at that point, had grown into a “painful, golf-ball size lump.” CeCe has been officially charged with second-degree murder and will be charged in court on April 30, 2012.

I want to be shocked by this, but I am not. Horrified, yes, but not shocked. I want to wonder with sincerity how the fact that this altercation began — because of racism and transphobia could be ignored by the police and the courts — but I don’t. I don’t wonder because I realized, perhaps not so long ago, that we live in a white supremacist, heteropatriarchal world, and that whether the news tells us or not, things like this happen every single day. According to studies done by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “Low-income trans people are exposed to arrest, police harassment, incarceration and violence far more than the average person.” [2]

For example, in a study from the late 90s:

• 83% of FTMs and 85% of MTFs report verbal abuse because of their gender identity or gender presentation
• 30% of FTMs and 37% of MTF report experiencing physical violence
• 46% of FTMs and 57% report employment discrimination [3]

As a white, cisgender ally, I often feel paralyzed with the weight of complicity in this reality. Even as I go through life as an anti-racist activist with an anti-racist consciousness, I am complicit because I use privilege on a daily basis without knowing it. And that privilege is what maintains white supremacy, and what enacts this cycle of violence.

But the last thing this world needs is a bunch of white people, rendered useless by their privilege. I learned a hard lesson about white-guilt in college when a Puerto Rican Independentista professor of mine — who would later become my role-model and mentor — basically told me she didn’t have time to console me for feeling bad about gentrifying a Latino neighborhood in Chicago. White guilt is not only counter-productive, but it also centers the white individual over the racist system, and energy that could be used for participating in struggle and resistance, is used instead on personal self-flagellation.

So what can we do as allies? What can we do to defend CeCe specifically, and fight this broken racist, transphobic system, more generally? For CeCe’s case, I urge you to please consider hosting a fundraiser, writing her a letter in jail, and/or hosting an event to discuss the case and continue education about white supremacy. More information on how to get involved can be found on the Support CeCe McDonald website.

And as for the larger struggle, I don’t have all the answers, but after years of learning from resistors that came before me, I have some ideas. I think it’s important that we never let our ostensible insignificance stop us from working for change. To do this, we must acknowledge that while we as individuals may be insignificant, that if we organize together for change, we can build power and a movement that ends these gross injustices. We must remember the ways that oppression is connected, and that even our privilege cannot save us from being violenced by the system, albeit in ways unique to others. We must remain outraged enough to fight.

And on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, we must remember: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Why I Miss Chicago: Tales from the “L” train

The January day was unusually warm, and the sun shone brightly as I hurried to the Diversey train stop. I smiled to myself, enjoying this fast-paced march, a strut that has been dormant since my move to the much smaller, must slower-paced Minneapolis. But in Chicago, everyone walks like the sidewalk is a race track. Some might say this is the opposite of how we should go through life, that it means we’re not taking time to enjoy things. On the contrary, I think it’s characteristic of people with a sense of urgency towards life. The sidewalk doesn’t need to be gazed upon, it seeps into us through the soles of our shoes; the buildings don’t need to be noticed, we feel them, like a protective lover, holding us close; the cars don’t need to be observed, we hear them reverberate musically through the street. And our next stop feels important. And our next stop feels exciting. So we want to get there—sooner than later.

The wooden planks and rustic tracks make the L platform appear to be, in any light, an ideal backdrop for an epic romance. It is certain that every train station in Chicago has been the home to the beginnings and endings of great love stories.

And once you’re inside the silver boxcar, the real magic of the city begins. Unlike Minneapolis where you ride the bus with people from your neighborhood (which, for me, means I ride the bus with white college student hipsters), in Chicago, you ride with everyone from all over the city. That’s not to say that Chicago isn’t segregated–it is—but the train runs from the far north to the far south, so our transit ride is a multi-neighborhood experience. I prefer this, because eavesdropping is far more interesting. (There are only so many times I can stand to hear the same conversation about grad school en route to class).

Today I had the pleasure of sharing my train ride with two elderly folks, I’m guessing no younger than 75. The first, a white man, with a little old man hat, white hair peeking out on either side, and glasses. He was adorned in all tan: tan Members Only jacket, tan slacks (he most certainly called them ‘slacks’), and the aforementioned hat, also tan. His traveling companion was striking. Lovely salt and pepper hair piled atop her head in big, whipped cream-like curls. She wore all black: black coat, black pants, and big bold black sunglasses. Her lips, however, were stained with a vibrant magenta.

My ears were engaged in the middle of what appeared to be the sharing of a “list of likes.” The gentleman was naming entrees, and the woman interrupted, “You want to get into food that you like? Well, I like ice cream. Pecan ice cream, and…oh my! Rocky Road! You know, with the nuts, and the caramel…I suppose I’ve always been drawn to the ice cream with nuts.”

“Maybe we’ll have to get some ice cream today,” the man smiled, which made the woman blush.

“Is that what we’re doing?” she asked. He shrugged, still smiling.

A stop before mine, the man stood up. He looked at the woman to follow.

“This one? What’s here?”

“We’ll get off here because it’s one I’ve never done.”

“That’s fun!” the woman sounded excited, and they disappeared outside the doors.

[end scene].

“I found the safest place to keep all our tenderness, keep all those bad ideas, keep all our hope. It’s here in the smallest bones, the feet and the inner ear. It’s such an enormous thing to walk and to listen.“

Chicago, you complete me.

A Reponse to Hillary Clinton: Universal LGBT Rights or Homonationalism?

My latest In Our Words blog post addresses the recent announcement from the Obama administration that foreign aid would be withheld from countries that had repressive laws against homosexuality. Read more about my conflicted response:

http://inourwordsblog.com/2011/12/15/universal-lgbt-rights-or-homonationalism/

On Veganism and Sexuality

More new work on In Our Words blog. See my new piece that was written after the editor of IOW asked for someone on the staff to reflect on why it seems like so many queer folks are also vegan. Here’s what I concluded…..

http://inourwordsblog.com/2011/12/07/no-actually-i-dont-like-fish-veganism-queers/