Four words that are
Not for all
Cast a pall
Build a wall
Straight and tall
Where only one side is right.
Four words that
Conjure an era
Make nostalgia dearer
Allay misplaced fear
Make it clear
There is only one way to be right.
These same four words
Erase black authority
Deny brown integrity
Evade gender autonomy
Remove migrant empathy
Define only one kind of right.
Four words,
one man,
300 million dreams,
An unending struggle to be “right”
That in the end will leave us all
Alone and afraid in a dark and starless night.
I keep hearing the story, mostly from my non-POC friends, about family members or people they are close to who voted for the incoming administration. These friends are all struggling to navigate feeling as if the world has been swept from under them, while having to face the people who did the sweeping on Facebook, on weekends home, and over the coming holidays. They are asking tough questions: when do you argue; when do you sit silent at the table or “just not talk about politics because…well…family”; when do your actions or inactions enable the violence that is steadily marching back into the norm of life in the US? Christina Sharpe wrestles with this question in her article for THE NEW INQUIRY titled “Lose Your Kin”…check it out!
When I consider this situation, I can’t help but think about the many people I know who were thrown out of their “families” because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I think of families divided and ripped apart by war or extremism. These are people who have had no choice. They had to pick a side, just to survive. And they chose “family” that will always unabashedly have their back. We are taught in our Western democratic world that life should not be about choosing sides but about compromise. But the current “compromise” trades on the basic ability to survive for too many of us. It is not just that we are being asked to wait for another election cycle, we are being told to watch our communities get torn apart; we are being told that our lives matter even less than when we have been shot in the street; we are being handed an aggressively paternalistic message that says inequality is entirely justified by skin color and chromosomes. As a result, for those of us in the crosshairs, family cannot first be about blood. It must be about who we see in the mirror standing next to us. Liberals are woefully unprepared for the painful decisions that are needed to make the “beloved community” we so loftily talk about. “We did this to ourselves” is a tepid, inadequate and inaccurate response in light of the fact that so many seem to know someone they may call brother, or father or spouse who did this and did it proudly. We must be more.
There can be no easy answer to the question “what is family” but we must ask this question boldly and with a new sense of urgency. How has the desire to justify and make excuses for “kin” fed the growth of fear and hatred on the other side of family walls of denial?
Your family sits in the other room.
They have been there for a very long time.
It used to be easier to see them
…for them to see you.
There used to be an open space
where your room ended and theirs began.
It contained the support
that held the house together.
There you saw pictures and mementos
of the many lives before yours
that added up to who you are
…your birthright, your heritage.
Then someone thought
“French doors would be nice”
still letting light in from either side
but something to keep the sound out,
some privacy
while you learned to dance to music they didn’t enjoy.
Then you woke up one day
to the glass painted over
(did they do that…or did you do it in your sleep?)
You could still hear,
but couldn’t see them any more.
The doors still swung both ways
occasionally
until over time the hinges grew rusty
in one direction from lack of use
and the door was no longer safe to open.
The door was as good as a wall.
That’s when the lock came
…and the lost key.
Then you forgot altogether there was a door
let alone that it had ever been open
behind the shelves and the couch.
Occasionally, you heard them
your “family”, in the other room
claiming more mementos and taking pictures
of all that had come after you
…the noises of life.
They heard your sounds as well.
What a peculiar price to pay
when no one seems to care enough
or have the courage or the lack of pride
to shift the furniture and find the key
or just pack up all the memories and finally move away?
Thank you Linda Harvey of the conservative Christian organization Mission America for giving me the fire to write this. You and I do not live in the same world…and I’m glad.
Dear Linda Harvey,
Yes, indeed, I have decided to come out to myself as straight. I find women sexually desirable and beautiful and powerful. I totally and completely want women in my life as partners and companions. I think that the union between a man and a woman is Divinely inspired and should be upheld as a God given right. But quite miraculously, I am a big enough human in my heart and an enlightened enough person to realize that just because I have strong feelings for women, it doesn’t negate the fact that my feelings for men are stronger. I also think that the union between two men or two women, regardless of their gender identity is a God given right as creatures with a conscious and free will (also given to us by God.) This is what separates us from animals (because I know you want to go there and compare my sexuality to bestiality…which is a manifestation of your sick mind and not mine.) This is also why we call it “sexual PREFERENCE” and not “sexual DICTATE.” God gave us two things in this question: sexual expression and free will. Even if God did give us the Bible, and I won’t challenge those people who live by The Word, God also gave the Bible hundreds of authors and interpretations; clearly even God is not not willing to make the wild spectrum of our feelings and emotions simply black and white. Gay and straight aren’t a binary. The only ones who decided that human sexuality was built on strict opposites were physicians in the 19th century who were driven by colonial politics and society and a healthy dose of fear. Linda, if you want to live in a world that is black and white; a world where you are willing to ignore that yellow and red and pink and purple exist…that is your choice. But I resent anyone who would tell me that the sky is blue and corn is yellow just as much as I would resent anyone telling me that male/ female, gay/ straight etc. are strict and unmalleable opposites. So yes, indeed Linda Harvey, I am fully willing to come out to myself as straight…but only about 8.5% straight; the other 91.5% is 100% gay male queer.
Adam Dyer
To my Readers: What’s you’re percentage? There is no scientific test for this. This is a question for your heart and only you can tell for sure. You might not ever want to act on it and it doesn’t define who you are but if you ever looked at someone of the same sex and found them attractive, I’d say give yourself 2% and celebrate…because you’re probably 100% normal…whatever that is.
Yesterday, President Obama did something unprecedented. He completely personalized an issue that he didn’t have to. Until yesterday, He was treading the road of Washington D.C. professional, political navigator…insider. But yesterday he made a surprise statement about the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. For at least a portion of those 18 minutes, he was no longer the President of the United States, but the president of black men in America. A risky stance when it’s open season on black men. But this was an important step and a step that only he could take. Black men have never had a president say “I am unapologetically one of you.” Conservative pundits are critical of him for identifying, for reminding us that 35 years ago it could have been him who was shot by a local vigilante; for reminding us that he has had people lock car doors when he walks by, women clutch their purses when they see him…just as I and millions of black men have had happen to them as well. But where were the criticisms when George W. Bush put in place tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (largely white men) or when he made any number of statements about ‘conservative’ values (abortion, gay rights, affirmative action) that only spoke to a specific demographic of white Christians again, largely men? Yesterday, black men in America finally had their moment. Deal with it.
Yesterday, there was also a wonderful program on KQED, Forum with Dave Iverson, Assessing Racial Equality and Justice in 2013 America. His guests, Angela Glover Blackwell (PolicyLink), Eva Paterson (Equal Justice Society), and Peniel Joseph (Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Tufts University) brought about a rich conversation that highlighted both the passion and the data behind how we actually see race today in America. The conversation between the panelists was extremely well balanced and full of great moments, including one where Angela Glover Blackwell said in response to a listener who said they were tired of the conversation about race, “I’m tired of having to come back to the same issues again, and again…but until I see progress, I’m not going to stop.” You can listen to the conversation and view the comments here.
I’m using the word perspective today and pointing out these news items because I think it is crucial in this conversation, and as we start conversations about race that we maintain perspective. That we realize that our personal perspective is always skewed in the direction of our personal experience. If you have never been called a nigger in the street, you can’t understand what that feels like or what that does to your personal sense of safety. That is the only word in the American English language that carries with it an immediate association with specifically white oppression, violence and privilege. It is a word that no matter how much one may thing that blacks have ‘reclaimed’ it, will never be able to be anything other than a word of pure “otherization.” It creates a barrier with its history. In my comments on the KQED program, I reminded people who were complaining about the focus on “black/white” in the current conversation about race that our American perceptions of race are based almost entirely on the historical relationship between black and white. You cannot have a conversation about oppression and bigotry against Asians or Latinos or Native Americans in America without talking about blacks. Just look at the fact that the three groups I just referenced are identified by location or language; yet blacks are identified primarily by a color. It is the total anonymizing and obliteration of a history and the complete packaging in the context of oppression that s contained in the word nigger and that is why this conversation must continue. One can claim, Scoth-Irish ancestry, French, Chinese, Spanish, Mayan ancestry, but blacks in America can claim only a vast continent…Africa. We can’t point to tribes or recognized ethnic groups within the African diaspora, it was erased when our humanity was erased. When we simply became bodies that were part of the machine of America.
Although I believe that sexuality and gender oppression is the worst global issue, I believe that the lack of understanding between black and white is America’s worst issue by far. But that is my perspective and the perspective of every other person who has lived with the fear and cultural restriction that goes with our history. My perspective would, I’m sure be very different if I woke up every morning and never had to think about justifying my education or worrying about publicly expressing my solidarity with other black men for fear of being seen as a threat. But I will never know that for sure. All I can do is have compassion for your perspective and ask you to have compassion for mine.
Add your photos to my ‘un-mugged’ project on facebook or tumblr #adamdyersays
Sam Rohrer, president of the Pennsylvania Pastors’ Network, stated that he was “stunned at [the decisions on DOMA and Prop 8] today to take a 360-degree turn away from the biblical definition of marriage.…we must continue to work to keep marriages and families intact, the way God intended them, and pray for a continued revival of the values upon which this country was founded,” said Rohrer.1
When I was 15 years old I created a 2 and a half foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe. It was quite an engineering feat: there she was in all of her youthful voluptuousness striding forward supported on nothing more than two strappy sandal, stiletto high heels. I determined that once dried and kilned, she would balance perfectly. Her curves, her expression her pose evoked a totally different era for womanhood…both good and bad. Tragically, she exploded in the kiln due to unseen air pockets throughout. That’s what I think of as I watch Paula Deen’s demise and it is also what I think of when I watch some of the conservative Christian reaction to the demise of DOMA and Prop 8.
Poor Paula. She doesn’t understand why people get upset when she uses the word ‘nigger’ when she is angry or threatened or why having it as a part of her personal vocabulary is seen as…uh, questionable. But then this shouldn’t be surprising coming from a woman who was fully willing to recreate a “Gone With the Wind” era South, complete with black slave help, for someone’s wedding2.
But remember, Paula Deen has always been this way; we’re just finding out about it. We still lapped up every dollop of butter she served and bought every book and laughed with her when she was brained by a ham. So what’s so different now. Well, now we know.
So what do Paula Deen and Conservative Christians against Marriage Equality have in common? A lot more than meets the swollen ham eye. Although statements like Sam Roher’s and pretty much anything Michelle Bachmann has ever said, are just plain offensive, they point to a deeper more restrictive concept of religion than the one they are touting as being solely for married heterosexual couples and couples in waiting (aka their offspring) in much the same way that Paula Deen’s claim that ‘nigger’ is a fun expression is a sign of a deeper set of flaws. These limited religious factions have decided that there is only one God, and only one interpretation of God not to mention deciding for everyone that there IS a God. Last time I checked, most Atheists didn’t quite run that way, Hindus are creeped out by that kind of limitation in the concept of existence, Pagans question “just one?”,and well, us Unitarian Universalists don’t accept anything that hasn’t been decided by committee.
Before MB makes a statement like:
Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted….For thousands of years of recorded human history, no society has defended the legal standard of marriage as anything other than between man and woman. Only since 2000 have we seen a redefinition of this foundational unit of society in various nations.3
If you didn’t navigate away and look at Reb Jeff’s article on marriage (from 2012 but effective nonetheless) he basically says that the Bible just doesn’t lay it out that clearly. He also brings up American law that only in the last 100 years gave married women ANY rights at all to their own property…largely because they were property themselves.
And Lord knows Michelle might be pretty confused by some of the “ins and outs” of Kosher sex…particularly where it says that the woman may not withhold sex or it is grounds for divorce.4
If the conservative Christians are not willing to accept even the twisted and conflicting language of their own Bible, do we really believe that they are going to take the time to truly accept Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, Confucianists, Zoroastrians, Shinto or any tribal religions? The framework that Roher, Bachmann et al are using is to declare Protestant Christianity the official national religion of the United States. I will not argue that Protestant Christianity is what the dominant population who founded this country practiced. But that same dominant population also practiced and perpetuated slavery, genocide, dowry rituals, marital rape, incest (first cousin marriage is still legal in 20 US states5) blood letting, and more recently pre-frontal lobotomies, thalidomide, ‘hygenic’ circumcision, silicone breast implants and anti-miscegenation. Not a great track record.
In the world of Bachmann, church is on Sunday, sex is in missionary position (appropriately named), marriage equals babies, people are either white or something else and God is God. The terrifying part is that there are an awful lot of people in America who think this same way on some level, just like Paula Deen ignorantly accepts ‘nigger’ as a form of endearment (and she is definitely no rapper.) The repulsion to same sex marriage is just the tip of the iceberg here. This is a group of people that does not want to see beyond their limited view and gay marriage is the current whipping boy. After 9/11 Muslims got their wrath (and still carry it.) Next year, there will be a new ‘other’ for them to be afraid of. Prior to 1967, it was interracial marriage and before that integration in general and throughout our history any kind of immigrants. These are all assaults on diversity and our rights to seek independent truth.
I return to my ill fated Marilyn statue, beautiful in some ways though she was, she could never have survived…and that is a good thing; let her rest in peace with all the conflict of talent, honest womanhood and male objectification and victimization she has come to represent. Similarly, we need to see the limited thinkers who invoke the US founding fathers to foist their beliefs on the rest of us just for what they are: perilously constructed statues of dead icons, waiting to self destruct in the kiln of modern justice.
“Should we create a covenant?” These are familiar words to Unitarian Universalists. I’ve found that in UU circles covenants are as common as coffee and dounts. Bless our bleeding, left leaning hearts, it seems that UUs more than any group are always determined to be in “right relationship” with one another, and we frequently begin any kind of process or group exercise with a “covenant.” Although I admire this eagerness to have level playing fields and understand how this can be a useful tool for helping groups stay on point, the specific use of the word “covenant” is a bit of a hot button to me. As I delve deeper into understanding faith traditions and magnify that understanding in the lens of our modern world, I caution us all not to miss the point of true covenant or how the assumptions built into social covenants can actually harm us.
The covenants that most people are familiar with are those from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament. The covenants entered into between God and Noah, God and Abraham, the Mosaic covenant, the covenant beween Jonathan and David and the Covenant of Christ are those which inform much of our modern interpretation of the word in Judeo-Christian culture. I do not have the scholarly or linguistic heft to venture into a sufficiently deep explanation here of each of these examples, but suffice it to say that these are solemn agreements with God that assume two important absolutes: a) that one believes in God; b) that one believes in a God that believes in them. Again, this is a much longer conversation…
I believe, however, it is useful to explore how in modern relationships, we take for granted a certain culture of covenant that has its own built in assumptions. One of the basic definitions of a covenant is as an agreement. It is first and foremost an agreement that two parties will fulfill certain obligations to one another. One could call a covenant a “contract” of sorts. One key difference however, is that a covenant is entered into between people or entities, or groups who know one another and hold a common goal or purpose, whereas a contract is generally between people who only have that agreement as their primary means of relationship. A covenant serves to bind or enhance an already existing relationship.
The Biblical agreements that I mentioned before are definitely not just contracts. Often involving blood commitment, God (for those who believe and/or follow Abrahamic scripture) surely “knows” mankind. God “knows” Noah, Abraham and Moses. David and Jonathan “know” one another intimately and because of that intimacy, enter into their covenant. The Covenant of God made through Christ, giving his Son for the forgiveness of man’s sin is one made based entirely on God’s omniscience, Jesus’ knowledge of his predestined mission and the acknowledgement man is willing to make in recognizing Christ as savior. There is a lot of “knowing” going on here.
In today’s environment of deep political and social divide, it could be argued that we are in need of a covenant. We are in need of an agreement that obliges us to protect one another and serve a common good. Of course, we already have many agreements that are intended to do this, from the US Constitution to the Kyoto Protocol to NAFTA…and certainly the Judeo-Christian covenants I point to should serve the purpose of making our world safe and nurturing. We put on a good show in treating these agreements like covenants. We see entire governments shaping the course of history based on some of these agreements. We watch people protest for their rights based on their spiritual covenants. But in a world that stumbles along on fractured social relationships…fractured by inequities and ignorance and fear and broad assumptions…even these solemn agreements with God become merely contracts that are too easily broken.
We all know what assumptions make….
The conservative LGBTQI hating Christian assumes that the world should want to function in their paradigm of truth. The rich American capitalist assumes that everyone wants success in the way they see it. Likewise, some of the the best ultra liberal Unitarian Universalists assume that the most damaging force to people of color is white privilege. These are just examples. The point is that “right relationship” cannot happen until you are actually IN relationship with the other party. How well do you know me? How well do I know you? How deeply do our communities of trust actually engage one another in today’s world? Are we willing to sublimate our personal desires, agendas, guilt, etc. to acknowledge the world as it is seen through the eyes of others long enough to offer them the respect and love that would allow us to enter into a true covenant of human dignity? A covenant is not a contract, so much as it is a commitment. It is a commitment to be not just in right relationship, but to be in genuine relationship with one another.
Pardon the mixed cliches here…love your neighbor, but do not suffer fools. If your neighbor is not willing to genuinely know you, and you are not willing to genuinely know your neighbor, you never stand the chance of embracing the true covenant of peace.
