I Was Wrong About Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

**this is a cross-post from hivster by ian finkenbinder**

Getting Fired, Giving Some Interviews, Taking Action

Before Occupy and all its myriad (and at times catastrophic) effects on my life, I was a one-trick pony of sorts. My focus in activism was a narrow one, born from personal experience and thrust onto the national stage.

In 2004, after one tour in Iraq and staring another one in the face, I made a decision to come out of the closet. I marched into my Commanding Officer’s office and delivered a carefully prepared statement (already vetted by a lawyer) to his desk declaring: “I will return to serve in Iraq but I will do so as an openly gay soldier.” Surprise (not really)! Ian is gay.

Predictably, I did not return to Iraq. I got drummed under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and since my job was a mission-critical position (Arabic translator) it instantly became news.

After making the rounds in the Advocate, Instinct Magazine, Anderson Cooper and others, I got tired of refuting John McCain’s asinine comments about the dangers of perverts in the Armed Forces and retired from activism for a few years in order to do things like be 22, do massive amounts of drugs, and catch HIV. Let’s admit it. Talking to reporters is boring and the people who were excited to get my story in the public eye felt that the end-all and be-all of activism was press statements. Spending thousands on cocaine seemed a lot more fun.

Finally, in my late 20s, a certain troublemaker named Dan Choi popped up and I snapped out of my self-obsessed desire to destroy myself and realized that activism didn’t necessarily end at giving interviews to Wolf Blitzer. It could be about chaining yourself to things. It could be getting arrested! It could be exciting.

So then this happened:

On November 15th, 2010, I handcuffed myself with Dan Choi and 11 other friends to the White House fence in protest of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. A month later, it was repealed.

While that landmark legislation was the result of years of hard work on the part of legislators, advocates, and other pissed off people, I like to think that my participation in that protest brought enough focus on the issue that it was thrust into the limelight and acted on quickly. For a couple years, I have been proud of the fact that the direct action that put my face in Newsweek might have changed the country for the better.

Here’s the thing: I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it.                                                

the hunger games continued: leftovers edition

so i can’t tell if my title is punny or not, but the point is that i got more shit to say that didn’t seem to fit with the content of first post… so….take two:

cinna and katniss embrace before the games begin

Full disclosure: i devoured the books – read all three last summer (loved the first two, meh on the third), and i had super low expectations going to see the movie last week. but then i came out… surprisingly impressed. [**assumed familiarity with the story/spoiler alerts still stand**]

i wasn’t particularly impressed with the whitewashing of katniss and district 12, as i discussed earlier, though i was quite fond of some of the casting choices. Kravitz as cinna worked really well for me — as did Donald Southerland as the understated president snow — and i’m excited to see more interaction between them and katniss in the upcoming films. in fact, the acting was pretty solid all around. (well, peeta was a bit wooden but his character was consistently overshadowed by lawrence and Woody Harrelson, so it didn’t matter much.) in fact, harrelson’s haymitch ended up being another highlight. though he wasn’t as overtly cruel to katniss as he was in the book, their banter was still heated and engaging, and harrelson — even as a sexist, condescending alcoholic — remained entertaining and strangely likeable (much like the haymitch of the books).

harrelson’s surprisingly cunning drunk

as for my qualms with the movie visa vi the book, they are mostly relegated to the portrayal of district 12, hunger, and the day to day of living under military (police?) occupation. life in district 12, like most of the others, is fucking hard. you’re under constant electronic and human surveillance. a (sporadically working) electric fence keeps you in the district, and you are forbidden from entering the woods beyond the fence, especially for hunting. it even carries a potentially lethal sentence. and still katniss and gale must do this regularly, knowing it’s the only way to keep their families fed. and yet, none of this sense of pressure is communicated through the film. that sense of all encompassing oppression (especially within the walls of district 12) that was so present in the books was lost — unnecessarily, i think — in its translation to film.

additionally, for taking place in a society built around the idea of food scarcity (or at least, manufactured scarcity), there was very little in the film for us to actually see the need or the hunger of the citizens of district 12. no constant talk of where the next meal will come from, or how it will be payed for, or how to sell the illegally caught game at the Hob without alerting the peacekeepers. many of the people in 12 appeared dirty, but not particularly skinny or malnourished. and after their lifetime of hunger, when katniss and peeta finally arrive at the capitol, there is maybe one (brief) scene of them eating the lavish food put before them — not the exciting, wide-eyed feasts of lamb stew (where was that lamb stew?!) and the other delicacies that katniss and peeta wolf down greedily in the book. (a concise analysis of the major differences between the book and the film can be found here.)

one of the biggest alterations comes in what we see in the aftermath of rue’s death. katniss mourns the same way in print and film — wreathing rue in flowers, though in the book she knows there’s no chance in hell it will be nationally broadcast; it’s a personal gesture to rue and a personal “fuck you” to the gamemakers and snow. district 11 did, however, learn of rue and katniss’  partnership –friendship, even, and sent katniss a loaf of bread in the arena as thanks. later, we learn that rue’s death and katniss’ actions do lead to a revolt in D11, but we’re never shown it. in the film, the gamemakers actually do broadcast katniss adorning rue with flowers, and this immediately leads to a violent uprising in district 11, pitting the majority-black district citizens against the peacekeepers.

and here’s where i’m conflicted. i thought it was a well done, potentially even moving scene of the marginalized suddenly rising up against state oppression. on the other hand, it was the *only* riot scene in the film, and all i kept thinking was do we really need to further popularize images of black people rioting?? especially when it’s one of the only — and certainly the longest — scene where we even see more than a handful of black folks in the same shot. i can’t help but wonder how the longstanding white fear of black gatherings and collective anger affected the creation of this sequence…or the decision to show this district uprising rather than another (like 8, for instance, which i believe also rebels around the same time)… In and of itself i’m not sure this would have stood out, but given how few faces of color we see anywhere else in the film, i find it interesting to note which aspects of Collin’s fantasy world were whitewashed and which were allowed to retain their melanin.

anyway, the camera work had its own problems, though it at least kept things moving along at a brisk enough pace (sometimes too much so) and seemed to include more shots of blurred light and trees than the blair witch project. because this is what has to happen when you make a fucking family film about 24 children murdering each other on reality tv to keep an oppressed population docile. You get lots of screams and quick shots of forest and sky. IF you want that pg-13 rating, IF you want to get the whole family in for that slaughter-fest, then you can’t actually show the brutality of it, even if its in the books. even if the visibility of the brutality serves a significant thematic purpose, raising questions around culture-wide voyeurism, consumption, and sadism. well, i guess those things could stand to be lost in order to get that kid dollar, that family dollar. after all, as david edelstein says in vulture, “The murders onscreen are quick… The cutting is so fast that you can hardly see what’s happening, which has already won Ross praise for his restraint, his tastefulness. Tasteful child-killing!”

Tasteful child killing.

lets just sit with that for a minute, shall we? sit with it in the context of the social critique Collins provides through the hunger games. sit with it in the context of our world, of our media. of us watching this movie.

at base, the hunger games is a social critique of our voyeuristic, schadenfreude-driven, borderline sadistic culture, obsessed with “reality” tv, celebrity status, and sensationalistic news, steadily being desensitized to human tragedy through visual media. and now we can actually consume the visual representation of this written critique of our own love of voyeuristic violence –which is itself, by virtue of its source material and hollywoodization, violent and sensationalized. and we’re praising it for its portrayal of “tasteful child killing.” tasteful child killing – what kind of oxymoronic joke is that? with the movie, we are encouraged to visually consume this tasteful barbarity wrapped in a narrative ostensibly intended to indict what itself seeks to provide — visual entertainment through violence and human suffering.

there’s definitely some super meta, fucked up levels of irony operating here, but i can’t quite wrap my mind around them right now. goddamn, i’ll have to come back to this… postmodern irony-loving film students, have at it! oh, where’s abed when you need him…

“…But what does this have to do with today?” Discussing Race and Systemic Inequality [Part II]

**this is the second of a two-part final narrative account of the implementation of the identity unit. part I can be found here. this piece covers the playing of a card game i created as well as a simulation and discussion of white privilege.**

“…But what does this have to do with today?” Discussing Race and Systemic Inequality [Part II]

“We’re the rainbow team!” Marcus announces, two days into our section on racism and structural oppression. I have just split the class up into two table groups based on whether or not they are wearing the color red. We are about to play the card game I created to explore systemic discrimination. Previously, I had been calling the groups the “red team” and the “not-wearing red team.” I guess they don’t like being defined by what they are not.

Grinning, I deal in the teams from their respective decks (the red team is privileged with face cards), and then ask the two teams to each send half of their players to the other team’s table, so that everyone is mixed up. “But remember what team you’re on!”

With a sudden eruption of activity, the students begin playing, and the room fills with laughter and the gleeful or dismayed exclamations of fourteen twelve-year-olds. I can’t help but smile as I watch them play; it’s the most alive I’ve seen them outside of recess.

After about five minutes, I ask them to pause. “Okay, everyone count your cards – without looking at them! Who is winning?” Three out of the four students with vastly more cards than their peers are from the red group. “That’s interesting,” I say, “Why do you think most of them are from the red team?”

Faith immediately suggests that the red team was given better cards at the start of the game. “Maybe,” I reply simply, trying to hide my delight.

“Oh, well they also had that rule where they got a card if they couldn’t get back in! We don’t have that,” adds Marcus, looking supremely disappointed.

“You’re right. Ok, so when we start playing in a second, I am going to remove that rule,” I tell them, “Now everyone will have to knock to get back in; no one gets a card from me.”

I start to ask them to resume playing, but Marcus interrupts me. “No, that still won’t be fair,” he says firmly, “They already had that rule for a long time, now you have to give it to us.” I am thoroughly impressed. I had no idea students would be able to make that connection so quickly.

“Well, that’s not how the game works. The rules have to be the same for everyone now.” He continues to frown, but doesn’t protest any further. “But first, is there anyone from the red team who is currently out?” A brilliant and generally shy Indian boy named Ayjay raises his hand, along with Will and Danielle. “From the red team,” I repeat. Everyone but Ayjay lowers their hand, frowning. “Okay, here’s a card – it’s the last one you’ll get from me,” I tell him, dropping a face card onto the table and ignoring the various cries of “that’s not fair!”   

Lesson Plans Days 11 & 12: power structures, part II and the final writing piece

**The following post contains the final lesson plans I developed  for the identity unit. With the exception of the introductions, the plans typically appear as they were originally written, though nearly all of them were forced to change and adapt to student needs during implementation. The narrative account of the lessons’ implementation can be found here.**

Day Eleven: Power Structures, part II

Lesson Development: Building off of yesterday’s lesson on how historic forces have shaped current inequality and landscapes of opportunity in the US, today I wanted to explore how contemporary systemic discrimination and privilege operates. Specifically, I wanted to highlight the concept of white privilege in concrete, accessible ways. To do this, I created a list of white privileges that I thought sixth graders would be able to understand by drawing from and expanding upon the list of white privileges in Peggy McIntosh’s  essay, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Additionally, I felt it was important that students begin thinking about what they can do to change oppressive systems. I wanted them to understand how even speaking out against – and so calling attention to – racist, sexist, etc. comments or actions is essential in an era where people believe racism and sexism are largely things of the past.

 

• Review yesterdays card game:
• · What was it? Why did we play it? What were the two main things that made it unfair? What did that represent?

• How do racism and other forms of systemic discrimination operate today?
• Physically run through a scenario/skit to illustrate this: Ms. Pierre is working for a corporation that is hiring right now. Everyone in the class needs a job, so we all have to apply. That’s fifteen people all going for the same job! A lot of competition, it’s going to be hard to get that job… But what if Ms. Pierre imposes her prejudice on the job – she decides that someone with brown eyes just isn’t what she’s looking for. She doesn’t make that official – that would be illegal now – so she still lets everyone apply, she just doesn’t seriously consider anyone with brown eyes.
• · Now how many people are left competing for the same job?
• · Is it easier or harder for non-brown eyed people to get that job now?
• · Do the non-brown eyed people even notice?

• Even though official discrimination is illegal now, when many people in positions of power hold prejudice, it becomes part of a system.     

Lesson Plan Day 10: power structures, part I (or, you’d better pull up those bootstraps)

**The following post contains a potential stand-alone lesson plan I developed as part of the identity unit. It’s a relatively simple card game meant to simulate how systemic oppression operates. The plan appears how it was initially written, though like most of the lessons, the activity was forced to change and adapt to student needs during implementation. A narrative account of the lessons’ implementation is posted here.**

Day Ten: Power Structures, part I

Lesson Development: I created this lesson in an attempt to provide students with an accessible simulation of the real world effects that systemic discrimination – specifically racism – has on society. I wanted to create an easy to play game that would clearly illustrate the way privilege and discrimination make it easier and harder for certain groups to acquire and retain wealth, and to get students thinking about how efforts to redress inequality must take into account how the economic “playing field” is not, and has never been, level.

As readers can see in the structure of the card game below, I specifically designed it with the historic economic experience of African-Americans in mind. However, the parallels the game draws to legal discrimination, as well as the consolidation of wealth, allow the game to provide more general lessons on systemic inequality and privilege. There are also references to specific moments in the history of United States’ racial opportunity structure. Part Two of the game is meant to represent the post-Civil Rights era, where white supremacy is no longer inscribed in law, but de facto white economic privilege remains. At the same time, the second phase of the game also provides one more added “bump” for some players, intended to represent the way the GI Bill, which, only two decades prior to the Civil Rights Movement, provided many white soldiers returning from World War II with privileged access to jobs, education, and housing.

I chose to call the game Bootstraps, referencing the false idea that the socioeconomic structure in the US provides all people with equal economic opportunities, an idea invoked by the old expression, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”          

“…But what does this have to do with today?” Discussing Race and Systemic Inequality [Part I]

**this is the first of a two-part final narrative account of the implementation of the identity unit. part II appears here.**

“…But what does this have to do with today?” Discussing Race and Systemic Inequality [Part I]

“Why did they do that?” Will asks me on the afternoon of my first day at Miller’s Hill. I have just explained how scientists let four hundred black men go with untreated syphilis for nearly half a century in order to study the effects of the disease.

I hesitate, my eyes lingering on his otherwise blank “Tuskegee Experiment” note card. How do you explain the dehumanization of racism to an eleven year old? “Well, the scientists, who were white, thought that they could do whatever they wanted to black people.”

“But why?” He scrunches his brow, genuinely confused.

I continue, “Since white people were in power – and for the most part, they still are – they could do horrible things to black people without consequences. So sometimes, they used them for experiments.”

Will’s eyes suddenly widen. “That’s awful!”

“It is. And the experiment would have continued if the press hadn’t found out about it and made it public in the seventies. Of course by then, many of the subjects had already died from the disease, and the others were very sick.”

Will is suddenly solemn, his mouth opening and closing slightly as his eyes dart from me to the Wikipedia page. Outside of Slavery, it might be the first time he has heard of any state sanctioned atrocities his racial group has perpetrated.

One month later, Naomi and I sit with the class on the carpet for our race and racism lesson. “So, who can tell me the definition of racism?” I ask the class, soliciting the mainstream definition before expanding it into racial prejudice plus institutional power. Surprisingly, students accept this new definition with little contestation.

“So how do people have power in our society?” I continue, “What does that mean?”

“Like, having a lot of money?” offers Sara, a quiet, tall, and tremendously freckled white student.

“Right! Having money is one way people can be powerful in society. What else?” Students consider the question for a moment. When no responses are forthcoming, I direct their attention to the back wall, where we have hung the ads from the gender lesson, under the heading, “What do these images tell us about ourselves?”

“What about those ads and the messages they send? Do you think people who control the media are powerful?” The class offers a collective noise of agreement before we discuss other powerful people in society, like politicians, lawmakers, police, corporate leaders, and education administrators.

“And what race are most of people in these positions?”

Without hesitation – and almost in unison – the class responds, “White.”

Alexis suddenly perks up. “They’re all men, too!” I am increasingly awed by students’ perceptiveness and acceptance of concepts and information so contrary to mainstream messages.

“Being in power is about more than political positions or laws. As we just mentioned, it’s also about the media and who we see.” Naomi tells them, “For example, think about Disney movies. What race are the main characters usually?”

Several students murmur, “White,” Before Jaden, exclaims, “But what about Mulan or Pocahontas? They’re not white!” A few students nod their heads in support.

“That’s true, there are definitely exceptions to the rule,” I say. “But generally, if you can count all the exceptions on one hand, it’s actually proving the rule.” Jaden gawks, and then leads the class in counting off Disney princesses of color one by one.    

Lesson Plans Days 7-9: introducing race and racism and writing about racial identity

**The following section contains the lesson plans I developed for days 7-9 of the identity unit. With the exception of the introductions, the plans typically appear as they were originally written, though nearly all of them were forced to change and adapt to student needs during implementation. The narrative accounts of the lessons’ implementation can be found here and here.**

Day Seven: Thinking About Race

Lesson Development: My main goal in this lesson was to introduce students to the definition of racism as racial prejudice plus power, a definition contrary to the mainstream definition of racism simply as racial prejudice. I felt it was essential the students have some context for systemic racism, so I also included a brief history on the creation of white supremacy. Additionally, I wanted to use the lesson as an opportunity to analyze some of our own racial prejudices and stereotypes. To get the conversation on stereotyping started, I employed another essay from Starting with I called My Lebanese Passport, by a Lebanese teenager who gets racially profiled at the airport. Lastly, I wanted to use the lesson to explore some false or problematic notions of race/ism the students had expressed during previous lessons, such as the belief that white people are all mixed race, or that racist jokes are OK as long as no one they offend is present. It is important to note that this is entirely too much to tackle in one day; after failing to get through the lesson in a single day, I split it across two.

• Define Race: Race refers to our physical characteristics, especially skin tone, which is regulated by a chemical in our skin called melanin. Physical characteristics of racial groups are the only things genetic about race. Everything else we associate with specific races is learned behavior or a stereotype.

• What does mixed race mean? “Even though a lot of white people have heritage in different countries, it doesn’t mean that they are mixed race. For example, I have Irish, Italian, and French heritage but I’m still just called white.” Racial groups are based on skin color and geographical origin, not necessarily national origin.

• What does “white” mean? What does “people of color” mean?

• What are the different races?

• Define prejudice: Literally, pre-judgment, especially of a person or group.

• Define racism as prejudice plus systemic power. This means people of color can have racial prejudice, but not be racist. This is likely to confuse students at first – they will likely want examples of how white people are in power and how people of color are disadvantaged.

• How do people have power in our society? Who does what? Take answers from the class, important things to discuss include:
• · Running companies
  
• · Voting/holding public office
• · Media control (refer to the ads from day 3 if necessary)
• · Wealth
• · Legal system – police, courts, lawmakers
• · Schools – Whom do we learn about? Who asses students, and how? Naomi suggests discussing NCLB and the achievement gap, as this may resonate.

• “Was it always this way?” How did racism start? In the late 1600s, ruling whites owning both slaves and European indentured servants (people who had debt, wanted passage to a colony, etc – they usually worked in three to seven year contracts to earn their freedom) feared organized revolt. So they divided the two groups by giving their European servants privileges (esp. jobs as slave overseers themselves) African slaves did not have. This made poor Europeans feel that they were more important and better than African slaves. At the same time, Europeans needed justification for keeping Africans in perpetual, race-based slavery, so they made up stories and rumors that said people with darker skin are less than human. The combination of the special privileges given to poor Europeans and a general denigration of all things of color encouraged poor European colonists to see themselves as having more in common with their wealthy European owners and less as an oppressed social class having more in common with African slaves (and therefore, less likely to partner with African slaves to overthrow wealthy Europeans). The idea that whites were superior to other colors also conveniently served as justification for the genocide of the indigenous [define] and the theft of their land (this also fit well with previous justifications of Indigenous peoples being “savage heathens”). “White” replaced terms like “Christian” and “Englishman” to separate European immigrants from Africans and Indigenous peoples as well as other people of color. (Though it is important to note, some later Europeans immigrant groups – notably the Irish and Italians, and more recently, the Jews – were not considered white when they arrived in the US. These groups had to give up parts of their cultural heritage that marked them as foreign before being allowed the privileges of whiteness. Of course, these groups were only able to do so because they had the physical characteristics already associated with whiteness.)  

intermission

so i’ve been off the blog for a bit now after posting rather obsessively following its launch. i’ve been out of town visiting friends and sweethearts (as well as the wonderful world of food poisoning, yummm) and so have been somewhat severed from the interwebz (which in all honesty was probably a good thing). though after noticing i had already broken my once-a-week minimum post quota (apparently i don’t really write w/o external motivation or deadlines so now i’m forcing myself into them), today i decided to throw up another short memoir piece from my senior project and also talk about how glad i am that i keep forgetting its christmas time.

seriously. i’m really glad.

i haven’t been in a mall, seen relatively few santa hats (let alone fully costumed santas) around, and have managed to avoid most of the xmas jingles that incessantly permeate every commercial space and typically make me wanna rip off rudolph’s nose and use it as a bike light. but i digress…

what it is about this year that has so generously allowed me to forget all this force-fed merriment? maybe it’s the long-standing under- and unemployment of myself and immediate family (and our subsequent inability to participate in the annual capitalist frenzy). or maybe it’s all the distraction of the GOP nomination circus (i’m looking at you, newt), or the obama admin’s heinous backsliding on plan b (umm WTF?), the funny/frightening “until abortion ends” campaign, or maybe it’s just an ironic xmas miracle.

in any case, i’m glad i haven’t been dwelling on it, ’cause as i was recently reminded by jay smooth, “happy holidays” aren’t fucking mandatory.

so instead of discussing this good, bad, or totally mediocre time of year much more, i’ll mark my return to the interwebz with this apt cartoon (click to go to the source and enlarge):

queerswithcats.wordpress.com