This is exactly what I wanted to say...

Oh, my, thank you, feministing! Jaclyn Friedman is awesome.

This post is also here as a shout out to my friend, ToSomeoneLikeMinded. You wanted some activism, and while I didn't think I wanted it to, I'm starting to realize I need it. I want it. It is my desire to end oppression. To create equality. To make a difference.

More, More, More (I Can't Let It Go) and Spotlight on Clarkson

My friend Jesse, who actually attended to Human Rights Campaign gala in New Orleans (and whose Facebook statuses for four days were all about the gala), did not tell me that Patricia Clarkson spoke about gay rights that night. I mean, I figured that would be the topic of anyone’s talk, but I didn’t know Clarkson would be the one speaking.

I love that she included references to Williams and New Orleans in her speech. I was really excited about with my English background and all. And I know I have been harping on these topics lately, but they keep finding their way into my life. So, great quotes from the speech:

“All the violets--gay Americans, lesbian Americans, Bi-sexual Americans, transgender Americans, people of color, and the people of this city forgotten by Washington in hurricane Katrina--we are all are starting to break through the mountain of straight, white, male lawmakers in Washington.” - Oh, the might saxifrage. If only should would have used that image as well. It appears that the violets need to break through the stone as well.
“This is the age of Obama. And the people who oppose these causes need to realize that. But there is someone else who needs to realize that this is the Age of Obama. Obama. It is time, Mr. President. Do not fall behind others on these issues. My God, Dick Cheney announced that he is in favor of gay marriage. And on that very day, the National Weather Service reported hell froze over. So Mr. President, please catch up. Or you are in danger of being considered "just to the right" of a man who is "just to the left" of Vlad-the-Impaler.” - My sentiments exactly. Why is Obama so backed up on this issue? Why doesn’t he address it in his policy and discourse?

[Just as a side note, a new Tony Kushner play is about to be staged, and CNN has this great interview with him, in which he states, But [gay marriage] is really not a federal issue for the executive branch. What President Obama can do is get rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." That's a promise from his campaign, and he should honor that promise. Seventy or 80 percent of Americans actually support the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and having openly gay and lesbian soldiers serving in the military. So it's not -- it seems to me -- even that risky. So I'm assuming that'll happen soon. ...”]

Here’s a video of Clarkson’s speech, if you would like to see/hear more:


Here’s a link to the full-text via Huff Post.


And yet again, I return to the issue that is still troubling me about Obama. Why won’t he come out and openly support gay rights? I just wonder if all his talk was jus that. A way to win a demographic.

Echoes and Reflections

I am halfway through Byatt’s new book, The Children’s Book, and I love it. I stayed up late last night to get through some more chapters. Now, I want to stop reading it to delay the pleasure of having more of it left to read. So, to sort of fulfill that desire and to start thinking more critically about her new book – which I am finding an interesting sort of departure from her other material – I was stroke by this strand of the novel that corresponded to this movie I have recently been obsessed with, Reds. Also, how this one character Charles/Karl talks about the poor makes me think about my own relationship to the visible homeless, poor, and destitute of the streets. (Which is just so uncanny and weird. It is like all of these things in life start to echo one another. Being accosted byesperate, homeless woman and discussing it with friends. Watching Reds. Reading about socialism and current politics and how this is echoed in the Up Series. Talking with LT about the homeless in NOLA.) Anyways, here is some passages:

“[Charles’s/Karl’s] own essay had been a rather perverse, but certainly clever, demolition of the dream of the good life in William Morris’s News from Nowhere, and the kind of communities associated with it, who wore hand-printed skirts and ate vegetables. He wrote that the dream of Heave had always worried him because it was so boring – there was nothing to do – and the dreams of Heaven on Earth, going back to the land, living in vegetable gardens and little plots of flowers, with no machines to be seen anywhere, struck him as a sleepy refusal to look at real problems and make real plans about what to do. He quoted Morris against himself

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?

He was indeed, wrote Charles/Karl censoriously, ‘the idle singer of an empty day’ (174).

Just a couple pages earlier, Charles/Karl said to his tutor, “What I can’t see – what I really can’t see – is why everyone doesn’t ask themselves that, all the time [why are the poor poor?]. How can these people bear to go to church and then go about in the streets and see what is there for everyone to see – and get told what the Bible says about the poor – and go on riding in carriages, and choosing neckties and hats – and eating huge beefsteaks – I can’t see it” (170). Charles/Karl is rejecting the life of his banker father who is manipulating the poor and Africans through the gold trade. Charles’s/Karl’s rebellion comes through his involvement in the anarchist movement. He eventually meets Emma Goldman in Paris, etc. I haven’t quite got to a part where we will see where he ends up, but his is one of the more interesting threads of the novel because of the fact that it seems so much like a surplus for the other narratives. In many ways, his story is there for comparative reasons. But maybe it is the story we are supposed to learn so much more from. Not sure? However, maybe I should reveal some of my stupidity. Um, I had totally never though of Heaven as Utopia. Okay. Yeah, a little crazy. But I just didn’t think of it in that terminology before. And when Byatt writes about his essay and the discussion of Heaven – I was so piqued. I also find myself a little reactionary to the passage because I know so many people that I are trying to live “off the grid,” and I’ve seen so many things documentaries about these types of people (another echo – Into the Wild, Grizzly Man).

What I think is so interesting is that Charles/Karl discusses something that I have issue with in this whole agrarian throwback movement and its nostalgic overtones. By ignoring progress and the current world and reverting back to medieval, pre-Industrial life, is that really solving anything? Certainly you might escape the ills of contemporary society, but isn’t it naïve to think that you are really escaping anything. I mean these societies, communes, trailers, houses, farms are just as utopic (? Utopia-like) as Shaker communities, Edward Carpenter’s pastoral visions, or Lawrence’s Rananim. And yet, I feel that I have no real right to bitch about some of this stuff because it is not like I am living in this type of community nor am I walking the street trying to save lives. I certainly talk the talk of activism and civil liberties and working for gender equality, etc., but when it comes to walking the walk, I think my lungs are still expanding. I take a couple steps on the path but never really get too far. Am I thus guilty because I am okay with my own bourgeois status?

Right, maybe, I don’t know? It is extremely unclear to me where Byatt stands on this issue, but her characters run the gamut of positions. Whereas Charles/Karl reacts to violently against this, it is clear that one of this foils, Tom, needs this type of ignorance to avoid the pain of society – although his pain is more social and not classed or technologically related. I think in the context of the book I am poised in the middle of her discourse concerning this topic so I am interested to see where this thread continues. As of now, Charles/Karl has just met Emma Goldman and some more Russian and German anarchists in Paris. Now that he is back in England, I don’t know what he will become or use this experience, but I can’t wait to find out.

Byatt, A. S. The Children’s Book. London: Chatto & Windus, 2009.

Disgusted, Fucking Disgusted

Between research and writing in these awful days at the end of my Master's Degree, I go home to eat lunch, take a break, and watch some news. The first video on CNN was of the recent suicide of Jaheem Herrera, of the Atlanta area, an eleven year old boy who committed suicide after being taunted by bullies at school. I found out this is something that has happened earlier this month with a Massachusetts's boy. Both boys, taunted by bullies, were most traumatized by the word "gay." Jaheem's mother said that this label was the hardest for Jaheem to accept and what might have put him over the edge.

Here is the link to check out an ABC News video on Carl Walker-Hoover's suicide just earlier this month.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7328091

CNN hasn't released their video online yet, but it is something to check out.

Why are kids so mean? Some many people out there have been bullied in their lives, why haven't people done something to change this. Is it simple because childhood bullying just finds its way into adult social aggression?

And why is it that homosexuality and being called "gay" is something that is so hard? Stick and stone may break your bones, but words are somehow making these kids commit suicide. We need to better educate our children. This is a serious social problem.

For all of you out there with children, young relatives, or somehow related to school-age children, please educate them on the severe effects of bullying!

[Sorry I posted this before being finished, I am just so ANGRY right now!]

Hitting Close to a New Home

Thank you Feministing for getting me more involved in my community. Now that I am in Oklahoma, one of the things I have been having to face is more people that are either unaware of different sexualities or unwilling to confront difference in its various forms.

One of the latest blog posts asks for readers to perform a simple favor -- to email the superintendent of an Oklahoma county about a former teacher, Debra Taylor. Taylor was suspended and put on paid leave when the county asked for her resignation, which the school board approved. Here's the rub. Taylor was reprimanded for teaching students about The Laramie Project.

Here's more from the feministing post:
"This is outrageous. What's funny is that the district is saying that Taylor wasn't forced to resign because of the play. Attorney John Moyer (representing the district) says, "If someone is saying that adverse employment action is being taken against Ms. Taylor because of homosexuality, they're wrong." So why don't you shed light on exactly why Taylor was suspended the day after she held the mock funeral based on the play? William Smith, SIECUS Vice President says: "What happens when the next teacher tries to talk about intolerance and hatred and murdering people for that, and they get harassed and forced to resign? This is bigger than just what's happening to Debra Taylor. It's about the perpetuation of hatred and injustice in our society. The same sort of hatred and discrimination that led to Shepard's death leads to this teacher's firing. We can't allow that to stand."

SIECUS is asking all interested parties to email Superintendent Turlington (eturlington@grandfield.k12.ok.us) the following email if you so desire.

"Debra Taylor did not deserve this kind of treatment. Young people need dedicated teachers willing to confront issues of respect and acceptance for people of all sexual orientations. She should be commended for creating a safe space for all her students and should be reinstated immediately."

I have already sent it from my three email addresses. I hope you can spare some time to at least send it from one! Spread knowledge and understanding!