Regarding intent vs. impact, accountability, and intersecting identities

So… wow. i knew when i posted something in an “open letter” type format — especially with social networking — there would be ripples, but i had no idea shit was gonna blow up the way it did, for myself or the Mrs. folks (and i know a lot of readers are probably saying “well no shit!” right now, but this has been a learning experience for me on multiple levels).

i wanted to take an opportunity to clarify where i was coming from and address some of the common comments and concerns that i’ve heard, both in person and a great deal on facebook and other blogs. so much of this seems to be related to the gulf that can exist between the intention behind an action or statement, and the impact it has on an individual or community.

i would like to start by addressing what i see as some conflation happening in a couple different areas with regard to my initial writing. there seems to be an underlying assumption that by publicly sharing an experience at Mrs. where i perceived trans-misogyny to be operating, i was trying to bash or otherwise take down Mrs. or the folks who run it. my intentions were far from that — as i tried to make clear in my concluding paragraph — but i nonetheless want to offer my apologies if my language contributed to this perception. i’ll touch more on this later.

another misunderstanding i would like to speak to is the equivocation of me saying that i had an interaction with some individuals where i perceived trans-misogyny to be operating, with me outright calling those individuals trans-misogynists. as jay smooth so eloquently reminded us a few years back, the “this is what i heard you say” conversation is very different from the “this is what i think you are” conversation. the latter is never something i intended to have –or would even feel qualified having. i don’t know these individuals; only our interaction and my experience of it. and i know that no matter what your identity is, who your friends are, or what you consciously believe in, we are all steeped in dominant culture, and as such, are all still capable of — intentionally or not — supporting and perpetuating oppressive systems, even those that target us. that doesn’t mean we’re bad people; it means we’re humans living under multiple, often intersecting oppressions and we’re all working on our own shit, and we’re all bound to fuck up sometimes.

in that vein, i would like to speak to the issue of my being a white queer who labeled a song by a queer person of color misogynistic. (as i learned this weekend just prior to the meeting on saturday, the song that was played was “Ima Read” by Zebra Katz –i believe a remix of it. i have since read up on the lyrics and their intended meaning, the context from which the song emerged, and interviews with the artist.) of course, since we don’t exist in a vacuum — but rather a white supremacist state — i approached the DJ in a culture where white people regularly asymmetrically level charges of sexism against music produced by artists of color while giving white artists a relative pass.

i would like to own my cultural ignorance on the Katz piece, and to extend my apologies to the DJ with whom i had that racially loaded interaction. i can see how a DJ of color who is trying to promote the work of other queer PoC being approached by a white person who immediately labels the song misogynistic — ignorant of its context — and says it’s something they don’t want to hear in that space could be is fucked up, and i can understand that individual’s dismissive attitude more. i’m not saying that i also didn’t still feel silenced in a gendered way based on his response to me –just that it seems both of us were having some real shit come up on the basis of our varied identities, and both are valid and worth unpacking.

and i want to make it clear to the folks who have a different relationship to traditionally misogynistic language and the Katz song, that i hear you. in that linked post, the author states that while i characterized hearing that song as a low point in my night, as a queer person of color in an overwhelmingly white space, hearing that song was a high point for them — the first time they were able to feel safe. and that shit’s real. and while personally, i am still triggered by hearing the repeated use of female slurs (whether by a mainstream white female pop singer or a black queer rapper), much of the feedback i have received regarding Katz and nearly everything i can find online about Ima Read has been enormously positive, and clearly it has particular significance among many queers of color. and that is not something i want to fuck with: had i known the context of Ima Read like i do now — while it doesn’t necessarily change my relationship to the language — it absolutely changes the way i view its presence in queer spaces and how i respond –or rather, how i wouldn’t have responded to the folks playing it.         

On queer spaces and misogyny: when “safe” spaces aren’t

[UPDATED 4/18/12: please see the follow up post]

sometimes when i’m out dancing, surrounded by queers i love and queers i don’t know, appreciating how so many folks around me are as much of a gender-fucking mess as i am, i forget that a “safe” space is never a guarantee. it is an ideal. a code of conduct that we hope people adhere to. it is, at root, a goal–not a proclamation. not a guarantee. sometimes, i think we forget this.

“Shut up queen! shut up queen! shut up! queen queen queen queen queen!” i can still hear that last part. it does this kind of echo-loop in my head sometimes where the word runs together, like a CD skipping right before the “en” sound. “Quee-quee-quee-quee-quee–.” If i wasn’t so appalled i might be impressed by their ability to repeat the same word so goddamned fast.

i’ve had bits and pieces written on this since it happened around mid february, but haven’t gotten around to organizing them into something coherent until now. And since I realized it’s still something i’m thinking quite a bit about, and something which influences my relationship to portland’s queer scene, I should get it out.

it was my birthday celebration and a group of friends and i had decided to go to Mrs. together, a monthly queer dance party at mississippi studios. watching blow pony slip further and further into mainstream gaydom (straight onlookers in welcome tow) left me wanting for more explicitly trans and genderqueer friendly spaces. while i had never been personally, Mrs. was repeatedly billed to me as just that, and it sounded great.

and here’s the thing: for the most part, it really was. the theme was “let’s get physical,” so there was plenty of brightly colored spandex, hot pants, swimsuits, you name it –and it all looked pretty fabulous. plus the absurd workout videos from the last four decades they were projecting behind the stage didn’t hurt. i even saw this one hipster in full 80s workout gear (sweatband and all) walking around with a walkman and headphones. such commitment! sidebar: are all party themes automatically retro now? is that just like, default?

Anyway, for the most part, the music was really enjoyable too. i remember one song — a sign of things to come, though we didn’t know it yet — that came on which made my friends and i stop our bodies to talk. i don’t even remember what song it was anymore, but the point it brought up was why, at queer dance parties, do we consistently listen–and dance–to super misogynistic music?? is it somehow ironic? is it okay because ‘hey, we’re all in the know and feminist and stuff, so we can just enjoy it?’ what, exactly, makes it okay?

welcome to post racial america: on trayvon martin and legalized lynching

hi internet! its been awhile… i’ve been off in my own little world for a bit, but that damned senior project is long since up and now i need to write again. and theres certainly no dearth of massively fucked up shit happening right now….

by now, the story of trayvon martin is in the national spotlight. The 17 year old black kid was unarmed, carrying nothing but a bag of skittles and an iced tea, walking to his stepmother’s house in a suburban neighborhood of sanford, FL, when he was shot and killed. the shooter was a neighborhood watchmen named george zimmerman, a latino man nearly 100lbs larger than trayvon and armed with a handgun. zimmerman has a well documented history of racial profiling and is a frequent caller to the police — 46 times since jan 1, 2011 — often reporting young, black men. since of course being black and wearing a hoodie is a crime waiting to happen, zimmerman deemed trayvon a threat and decided to tail him. he even called the police to report trayvon for “looking suspicious,” (becuase he was “wearing a hoodie and walking slowly in the rain”). the dispatcher told zimmerman to wait in his car and leave martin alone. during the call, zimmerman reportedly muttered “they always get away,” and “fucking coons” – later changed to “fucking goons.” the details remain unclear and suspect, and eyewitness testimony has been changing/getting changed. what is clear is that at some point, zimmerman, disobeying the dispatcher’s orders, continued to follow trayvon on foot until he approached him and forced a confrontation. orginial eyewitness statements say they hear trayvon screaming for help, though the police insist it was actually zimmerman. the shooter claimed self-defense under florida’s “stand your ground law,” scary ass legislation which gives people the right to use lethal force to protect themselves outside of their home if they feel sufficiently threatened, even when the option to safely retreat is available. (that link has an excellent map for seeing which states have such laws in place). as of yet, zimmerman has yet to be charged with anything, police citing “lack of evidence.”

“Apparently an unarmed, dead Black teen is not evidence enough.  If this were 1912 and not 2012, we would call a Black man killed by a one-man firing squad with no just cause what it is: a lynching. These days, we search for euphemisms. Self-defense. That feels so inadequate…

What is this peculiar thing about whiteness that it makes criminals look like victims and victims look like criminals? Trayvon’s skin, not his actions, not his character, made him a criminal. Blackness always looks suspicious. Whiteness always looks safe…

In 1857, Justice Roger Taney infamously declared in the Dred Scott case that “a Black man had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.” In this post- most-racial moment, we must seriously re-evaluate this narrative of linear historical progress that we are beholden to. No, Black men don’t routinely find themselves hanging from trees. But that might be less an evidence of progress and more an evidence of white racial adaptation.”       -CFC  (emphasis mine)

the murder of trayvon martin has sparked national outrage. from stupid hoaxes to professional sport players showing solidarity, to marches planned accross the nation. even president obama briefly weighed in, stating “if i had a son, he’d look like trayvon.” of course, being obama he couldn’t say anything definitive or godforbid mention race directly (this is an election year after all), but by saying what he did about the looks of his own hypothetical son, the president implied he knew damn well this was a racist killing.

and how has the media responded? at first, it was surprisingly positive. major networks rallied around this tragedy, amplified community voices for zimmerman’s prosecution, and opened up a space for speaking about racial profiling and the different value society assigns to black and brown lives.

and then the racist right woke up, and found it had computers, and the campaign to smear trayvon as a truant-prone drug using aspiring thug that somehow deserved to be murdered was off and running. white supremacists hacked trayvons email and social networking identities as part of this effort, widely trumpeting that trayvon was suspended from school, caught with “marijuana residue” and once wrote “WTF” on a school wall (scandalous! its almost like he was in high school or something!). oh, and there was a facebook photo of the wrong trayvon martin circulating, in addition to one of the trayvon martin zimmerman murdered, showing him smiling into the camera with a gold grill in his mouth, presumably disseminated to make sure everyone at home knows just how threatening this “Gangsta” really was.

because all of that really matters. because even if trayvon was the drug addicted high school dropout gang member fill-in-your-favorite stereotype of deviant black youth the racist right would have you believe, it doesn’t even come close to justifying a cold blooded murder (what would??).

and this is about more than just trayvon — hes the face of this right now, and thats not accidental. martin, in his death anyway, is lucky enough to have an image that people are willing to rally behind. not everyone does, and they’re still getting killed. this is about more than racist killings, even, but about what it means to live in a society where some are deemed “normal” “insiders” and “safe,” while others are deemed just that – Other, foreign, different. and when different can so often mean threatening, and in 22 states, “threatening” can get you shot, this raises serious issues not only for black folks and PoC in general, but for trans and other gender nonconforming people as well.

for trayvon, oscar grant, sean bell, and the many other young black men –boys, many of them — executed by our white supremacist state or its self styled vigilantes like zimmerman, all it took was their skin color. (funny how we are so quick to ascribe adulthood to black folks; were a white 17 year old the victim of a horrific murder, the media would almost certainly refer to him as a “boy.”) their murders need only to be followed up by racist smear campaigns and blame-the-victim fox news segments, and the new narrative is all too perfect. Geraldo declares, “I think the hoodie was as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” for. fucking. serious. the victim-blaming language used here – as others have pointed out – is frighteningly reminiscent of the messages our culture sends to survivors of sexual assault — “YOU made the wrong clothing choices, YOU were in the wrong place. you were asking for it.” also Geraldo, not that any of your points are valid, but c’mon, at least get your facts straight. “wear hoodies only when its raining!” he says at the end of the clip. newsflash, mr. newsman — IT WAS FUCKING RAINING THE NIGHT TRAYVON WAS KILLED.

theres no good way to end talking about the racially motivated murder of a teenager. and i don’t know that there should be. but since i cant bring myself to actually embed fox’s nauseating clip here (its hyperlinked above), i’ll let this sum up geraldo/the right’s fucked up framing:

Make Yourself at Home

…But sometimes, home means silence. Home means hiding. Home means constantly being on edge. And so we’re careful.

 

It is nearly dark by the time we arrive. Through the fading winter light I can see the white, New England style house silhouetted against the trees. There are two SUVs parked on the lawn which doubles as a driveway – necessary vehicles to make it up the crumbling dirt road to the house. Claire stops her car next to them, and as the engine dies we simultaneously exhale. “Anything else I should know before we go in?” I ask. Claire has been prefacing each new round of introductions with brief sketches of the people I am about to meet – longtime friends-turned-family; fixtures in her life. Sometimes these sketches come off more as disclaimers.

She smiles. “Hmmmm… No. No, they’re great, you’ll be fine.” She kisses me on the cheek.

As we clunk up the wooden steps, a dog starts to bark, and I can see a blur of white and black fur as he paces in front of the glass door. “Just do the signal when you’re ready to leave,” she adds, scratching behind her right ear to demonstrate before opening the door without knocking. It leads into a small kitchen, where the family sits around a table playing cards. Their eyes, first falling on Claire, soon rest on me. Some of them stand up. I give a nervous smile and wait for the introduction.

“Everyone, this is my partner, Elliot.” I nod, giving a meek wave of my hand. Claire goes around the table, stating everyone’s name, but I have shaken too many hands over the past few days to remember many of them. The parents are called Glen and Karen. Their son, daughter, and her boyfriend are there too. Hugs are exchanged, and soon two extra chairs are produced and we all sit back around the table.