Raceless?

There’s a viral video by Prince Ea which has the tagline “I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White. These Labels were Made Up to Divide Us.” It’s a sentiment I’ve heard pretty often. While that often comes from benevolent intentions, it misses a necessary point.

Scientifically, there may not be much of a delineation between races, if any. And it’s absolutely true that none is innately more intelligent, capable, or worthy of being treated with dignity and afforded rights than another. But it sets us back to ignore the fact that our society continues to uphold a very Eurocentric, white supremacist standard, and that arguing that “whiteness” and “blackness” are just constructs doesn’t erase that from existence. The problem isn’t that we recognize aesthetic and cultural differences. The problem is that we place white culture and white aesthetics on a pedestal and set that as the standard by which all others are measured. When we decide not to see race, we also decide not to see racism. We decide not to see patterns of discrimination. After all, there’s no basis on which to call Jim Crow racist if we cannot acknowledge that it was white Americans oppressing black ones; if we just call it “people oppressing people.” Which it was, but to ignore the specific hierarchy is to dismiss the experiences of so many. Ignoring and denying a problem by saying its very definition is invalid doesn’t stop it from existing.

I have seen this manifest in several damaging, dismissive ways. When the Charleston church shooting occurred, there was a viral post featuring a newspaper headline with a hand blocking out the words “white” and “black,” so that it read “Man Shoots Up Church” instead of “White Man Shoots Up Black Church.” The meme said underneath, “The media is trying to divide us.” But to ignore the fact that this was a racially motivated hate crime is extremely harmful, and to say it has nothing to do with race is a lie. The shooter himself said it was racially motivated. Accepting that as truth isn’t “dividing” people; it’s being honest. He was the one trying to divide people by shooting up a black church.

This rhetoric is also damaging when used to reject “Black Lives Matter.” The blogger Onision recently tweeted, “Black Lives Matter--What the fuck is a ‘black life’??? Last time I checked, we’re all just people.” Obviously we’re all people, and the Black Lives Matter campaign has never denied this. What it highlights is the fact that people who are socially designated as black are all too often treated as though their lives don’t matter, and so taking pride in your black identity and proclaiming that your life matters is an act of empowerment. Essentially saying “Well, racism is your fault because you identify as black” is incredibly callous.

Additionally, I’ve noticed that most of the people spreading the “We’re all one race, so stop labeling yourself white or black” message are white. This doesn’t seem coincidental. Us white people can afford to see ourselves as raceless and to disassociate ourselves from our ethnicity; others don’t have that luxury because of how others treat them. This includes some people of minority races who have internalized those attitudes, but that ultimately doesn’t benefit them. Also, a lot of white people will say “there are no races” and then go on to spread propaganda about white people being persecuted by minorities, without awareness of the contradiction.

I’ve observed in my own life that whenever I’ve been “colorblind,” I’ve ended up inadvertently erasing people of color. This happens when I draw. This happens when I reblog photos on Tumblr. Unless I make a conscious effort to include people of color in the media I create and repost, they end up unrepresented. This is because I am not immune from subconscious racism, either. I’m not exempt from seeing white people as raceless default humans. This is why it’s necessary to be aware of this bias rather than deny and ignore it. We shouldn’t only be able to acknowledge that someone’s life matters when their non-white ethnicity is taken out of the equation.

The black feminist writer Audre Lorde once said, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” This is a situation to which this definitely applies.

Eulogy for a great creator

My grandparents in New Haven, CT in 1948, when Harold was a student at Yale Art School.

In one of my earliest memories of my grandpa Harold, we celebrated Hanukkah with a menorah shaped like a Christmas tree.

He wasn’t strictly religious, but he had a love for certain traditions. He didn’t follow them as prescribed, though. He had a way of making everything his own.

Passover meant sitting around my grandparents’ table with all my cousins while Harold told the story of Moses, passing candy around to demonstrate the ten plagues. The chocolate chips he gave us represented boils, and there were gummy frogs. The grand finale came when he’d bring out a big bowl of red Jell-O and “part” it by spraying a line of whipped cream down the center. Then he’d drop a handful of little plastic soldiers into the bowl, and we’d all dig in.

One year he told the Passover story by putting on a shadow play with my aunts and uncles. They set up a big screen and a light in the living room. Harold narrated while they acted it out with shadows of puppets. My grandma Kiki had made a witch puppet for the Angel of Death. She flew it across the screen on a cardboard broomstick, making it cackle with glee. Aunt Abbie’s hair was the burning bush. She crouched behind the sofa, revealing the silhouette of her wild curls as she shook her head around, mimicking fire.

Harold was an incredible storyteller. He didn’t write, but his inventive and articulate style met perfectly with his theatrical flair. He came up with thrilling sagas to tell his kids and then his grandchildren. He brought stories from the Torah to pulsating life. He invented epics about dragons and monsters. His sound effects were flawless. He knew when to whisper and when to shout. His eyes would pop wide as the momentum built. These adventures left us gripping our seats or shrieking with laughter. His everyday manner was as animated as his stories and art.

Harold did everything to maximum capacity, sucking the last bit of air from every experience yet leaving more for everyone else. He danced on tables. He rolled in the autumn leaves. He watched sad movies with tears streaming down his face. He smacked his lips in appreciation while he ate. I used to try to correct his table manners as a toddler. When I was two years old, I’d shake a finger at him and say, “Grandpa, you’re not supposed to chew with your mouth open. You’re supposed to chew like this!” I’d stuff my face and chew exaggeratedly, mouth closed, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. My whole family would laugh hysterically and I wouldn’t know why. Harold ate just as he was supposed to, though. He consumed, and he gave, with unrestrained joy.

It seems so appropriate that his middle name was Wolf. He always reminded me of a canine with his exuberant manner and love of people and food. With his exploratory nature and endless curiosity, he always seemed to gather a following that became his lifelong pack. Even his physical features were embracing and full. His round face, broad nose, and full lips conveyed generosity. I’ve never known someone so financially thrifty who gave so much.

The frugality had a lot to do with his upbringing. He grew up during the Great Depression in a family where he had to vie with his brothers for food. But this seemed to only feed his resourcefulness. When my mother and her siblings were little, he’d take them on family trips to the Bethany dump. They’d explore the junkyard to look for materials they could use in art projects. This became a time honored Rabinowitz tradition.

I can’t think of Harold without remembering that, or without thinking of Kiki. He and my grandma are forever linked in my mind. I’ve always said them as one word: “HaroldandKiki.” One of my favorite stories was the memory of how they got together. They knew each other from the time they were children. They went to junior high and high school together, but were only distant acquaintances back then. In their class photo, they’re seated next to each other. On the last day of high school, Harold signed Kiki’s yearbook with, “I’ll be seeing you! Ha ha ha.” Neither of them had any idea they’d see each other every day for seventy years.

They reconnected three years later on the day World War II ended. They found themselves at a mutual friend’s party to celebrate. They sensed an interest in each other they hadn’t felt before, and started dating. Kiki told me they went to a carnival for their first date. At one point during the night, they got stuck at the top of the ferris wheel. Harold smiled at her and asked, “Can I kiss you?” She laughed and said, “Well, I guess I can’t run away.”

            They were married a year later and rode their bicycles cross country for their honeymoon. And then, in the early ‘50s, they built their tall, gorgeously chaotic, ramshackle stone house. Kiki built it while she was pregnant. That’s how badass she is. They made friends wherever they went with their playful antics. After Kiki gave birth to their sixth child, they gifted the nurse with a watermelon wrapped in a baby blanket. Kiki told her, “We’re returning the baby. It leaks.”

Over the years, their house became a haven. It was a community in itself. They took in family friends. Many of their kids knew someone who, at least briefly, had lived at their home. They started their family business there, Rabinowitz Design Workshop (later renamed Witz End Workshop). Creative Arts Workshop also began at their house when they gave art lessons to kids from the area. They used to come over, and Kiki would make them all a big pot of spaghetti and hot dogs.

For two people who seemed like one entity, Kiki and Harold butted heads a lot. They had some pretty hilarious arguments. I’ll always remember them fighting over directions in the car. They’d be equally insistent about which way to turn. Finally Kiki would shout, “Goddammit, Harold, I’m not going to listen to you anymore!” and pointedly veer off in the opposite direction, even if it got them briefly lost. He’d do the same when he was the one driving. Despite this, I’ve never met two people more wildly in love.

They loved to dance together. Any time I visited, I’d see him grab Kiki and twirl her around in the kitchen while they laughed. If there was no music, they’d invent their own. They were constantly ad libbing silly songs and rhymes together. Harold was a master of words. He invented a game to play with his children, and later his grandkids, called Stinky Pinky. In the game, people took turns coming up with a pair of words that rhymed and then gave a short description. Everyone else had to guess what it was. For example, someone would say, “A wet puppy.” Others would guess what they had in mind until somebody said, “Soggy doggy.” If you guessed it, you won that round.

Harold could speak in iambic pentameter off the top of his head and improvise limericks and poetry. This made him really popular at parties. At one event he donned Kiki’s purple muumuu, held a pineapple in his outstretched hand, and began to recite Hamlet. At another he stood under the balcony in his living room and extended his wine glass, shouting “My cup runneth over!” At that exact moment, a guest tried to pour wine over the balcony into his glass, but it ended up spilling on his head.
               And, of course, there was the time his son had Show and Tell back in first grade and decided to stand up in front of the class and announce, “Last weekend my dad was at a party and had a lot to drink and fell into a big bucket of popcorn!” My uncle hadn’t been there to see it, but he’d heard the story. Harold wrote legends just by living.

This is why it was so sad when Harold had a stroke back in 2000 and lost a lot of his verbal abilities. He went from someone who could keep a whole room in stitches to having trouble articulating basic thoughts. I remember the look of anguish on his face as he once said, “I can’t say what I mean to say.” And, for a short time, he referred to everyone he spoke to as Kiki. It was because of the stroke, but it made sense. He loved Kiki so much that he saw a part of her in everyone.

Even so, he never stopped enjoying life. He still drew beautifully. He still saw friends and rejoiced in family. He laughed until the end and died surrounded by everyone who loved him; all the lives he had changed. In the end, I can only regret that he won’t be a part of the memorial celebration, because it would be just like him to surprise everyone by showing up in a jester hat or a purple dress, ad libbing satirical poetry. But he’ll be there regardless, because he is everywhere he’s painted and joked and sang.

          Harold is the world he created.

This is why I won't take the late train.

I had an experience Friday night which is still echoing.

I had to work late because we were having a special event. The bus I needed to take stopped running at 7, so a coworker drove me to the Norwalk train station. It was 9 at night and I was waiting on a bench inside. The building was deserted, with no sound but the ticking clock. There was a calmness to the sense that I was the only one there.

Then, as I drew faces in my sketchbook, a man approached me. He must have been in his early to mid twenties. He had both an iPhone and a Tracfone. This immediately set off a red flag, since people involved in all kinds of creepy bullshit often carry both a regular cell and an untraceable one that’s easy to discard. He sat by me and started asking to see more of my drawings. I told him I was busy, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. He stared at me intently, leaning in closer.

I kept writing in the sketchbook, trying not to let my hand shake. He said, “I wrote a thousand journals in my head and I want to give them all to you.”

The man kept getting calls on his Tracfone. He intermittently walked across the room to talk to whoever was on the other line in a hushed voice. He then came back and continued to intrude with question after question, most of which I didn’t answer. The questions didn’t feel like they were hitting me; more like burrowing in. He offered no information about himself, and I didn’t ask. He demanded to know what I’d eaten that day. Where I lived. Where I was going, and how long my train ride would be. He asked if I had a boyfriend and I said, “I’m married.” He smirked and asked, “How are you enjoying that?”

I didn’t get up to leave because I knew he would follow me. I couldn’t say anything overtly angry because he would get violent. I could hear that threat as clearly as his breath. The tension pressed forward, ebbing and flowing in his lungs, at the whim of however I responded. I was at his whim. At any time he could snap the thin layer that solidified the air between us. There was a bulge in the pocket on his lower hip which was shaped exactly like a handgun. I was anchored to the chair, removed from the situation. I just watched it happen. As long as I kept him talking, he wasn’t raping me. As long as he stayed on that bench, I wasn’t being abducted. If I let him think about other things, he wouldn’t think about the gun resting against his leg. There was no one to run to if this conversation slipped off the track. It just kept barreling forward with me as the passenger.

This went on for half an hour.

He drew closer I distantly heard him say, “I came into your life for a reason. When you interact with somebody, you wanna get something out of them. I want to get something out of you. And I want to leave you with something. Every man has power, and women have power too. When you meet someone, you exchange that power and take it with you.”

If I could feel my skin, I think it would have been prickling.

He asked if I like blue. I answered, “Are you asking because everyone likes blue?” He reached under my bench, took a blue Skittle from the floor, and said, “I asked because I saw this here. I thought it was a sign.”

He peered back at the sketchbook and said, “I want to read your writing.”

I shook my head. He asked why not and I answered, “I don’t know you.”

He sighed, “That’s deep.”

Everything he was saying would have been hilariously trite, like a parody of a cheesy pickup artist, if it wasn’t carrying a bullet. He went on, “I saw you on the bus earlier. I saw you twice today, so I do know you.”

A darting glance at the clock told me my train was on its way. This shook me out of the numbness. I started to get up, and had to force myself to slow down and look calm.

He asked, “Do you want to see me again?”

I said no. He replied, “Doesn’t matter. I know what bus you take, so I will see you again. And again and again, and I’ll keep moving closer. And then I’ll be a part of your life.”

My legs were finally running and I disappeared behind the train door, heart pummeling, not looking back.

I never told him my name or where I work, but he knows from my name tag and the words on my shirt. And now I reach for my pepper spray and scour every direction when I step onto the bus. I’m never going back to that train station again.

Appearance-shaming, Freedom, and Entitlement

A lot of people will see someone dressed in a way they dislike, or with a body they don’t find attractive, and respond with actual anger—as if it’s a direct offense to them. As if a stranger’s appearance is supposed to please them, and the person is neglecting their job if it doesn’t. Especially if the individual in question doesn’t seem to care. This is expressed when somebody is disgusted with another’s style (usually a woman’s, although I have also heard this directed at men) and says, “I don’t want to see that.” As if everybody else’s sole reason for looking the way they do is to appeal to that viewer.

I've heard this about everything from revealing clothing, to piercings and tattoos, to styles that are just seen as silly, to factors like size and age. As if once a person crosses a certain threshold of weight or years, they’re now obligated to isolate themselves at home. As if occupying time and space on this planet is an indulgence (thank you, Industrial Age hangover). The one making the comment will sometimes accuse the other of being “selfish” for their visibility, completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of that idea. Additionally, those casting this judgment very rarely meet the beauty ideals they demand of others. They often even dress in a style similar to what they mock.

To be clear, I do think there are fashion choices which are not appropriate to all settings. Wearing a wedding dress to a wedding when you’re not the one getting married, obviously. Walking into a preschool in assless chaps. And something like blackface or a decorative swastika is strictly reserved for “Nobody, Nowhere, 0:00 p.m.” But that’s because those choices branch out beyond personal taste and into the “making a wildly hostile statement” territory. Those statements are obviously, deliberately directed toward people with the intent to harass them. Especially symbols that are aggressive toward marginalized groups. Those are the most harmful on a widespread scale, because they reinforce a power imbalance and highlight a traumatic history.

An outfit which shows a lot of skin can be a gray area. It's true that a body in itself shouldn’t be seen as offensive. (That doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to feel attracted to another person or to think they’re good-looking. But the fact that I don’t think someone looks good should not offend me. Their appearance isn’t my clickbait media. And likewise, nobody is obligated to think I'm attractive.) At the same time, people shouldn’t be forced to see nudity. This is where one’s wishes may impose on another’s consent. But to some people, any glimpse at a person they think is ugly—even if fully clothed—is regarded as a violation, which is ridiculously selfish entitlement.

As I mentioned, this isn’t only directed at women by men. I’ve heard women do this to each other. I’ve heard women do it to men. I’ve heard men inflict it on one another, and every gender variation in between. It’s true that men are also ridiculed and discriminated against for how they physically present themselves, and how they involuntarily look. I would say, though, that a man’s overall value tends to not be judged by his appearance to the same degree as a woman’s. This judgment over appearance and personal style also severely affects trans men and trans women. Many ignorant people feel threatened by seeing those whose clothing and bodies don’t meet traditional gender norms. That is never the fault of those being attacked for it. A person’s gender expression is nobody else’s concern.

The transphobia that creates the sense of feeling “attacked” by simply seeing a trans person is similar to the type of fear and outrage inspired by seeing other marginalized people wearing what denotes their identity. Clothing associated with those of lower economic status, for example. I can’t count how many times I’ve witnessed people up in arms over “that knockoff [insert brand name]” or “that ratchet getup.” It’s not just the clothing that disturbs them; that’s shorthand. Just as some are upset by the bodies inside the outfits, many are outraged by the people whom the attire represents. An outfit is rarely just an outfit and a body is rarely just a body—even if oppressed people are reduced, in the public eye, to their appearance alone. People encompass identities, and vice versa. The real sense of indignation derives from feeling threatened by the fact that some humans make their existence known without apology. No matter how ridiculous others may say they look, they’re wearing their dignity. To those with privileges to lose, that armor is seen as a sword.

Dawn in a Trash Can

Yesterday the sun rose inside a garbage bin.

We gathered up all his things. Packed them into a black metal trash basket and then headed to my parents’ house, where I plucked out the rest of it. Every letter he ever wrote me was in that basket. Every photo, every note we once passed back and forth, scribbling furiously to each other. His journal that he kept all throughout high school was in there. So were all those poems I wrote for him at sixteen and seventeen; literary high fructose corn syrup. I wish I could go back in time and shake the stars out of my eyes, but those stars had already fallen. We couldn’t snuff them out of history. We could burn them out of the future.

We burned it all in the middle of the empty dead end road. I didn’t look at the photos as they were consumed. Wouldn’t look back at that gaze staring out to challenge me. Instead, I looked at the writing. The pocket-sized spiral notebook fanned out like an accordion. Like a flower opening in bloom. The ink-inscribed torment and rage and confusion bowed in on itself, the pages wilting into a fetal curl. In their destruction, they reconfigured into shapes of beginnings. It wasn’t him that was destroyed; it was his pain. The pain he both carried and injected into others. I haven’t taken much from organized religion, but I always liked the idea of fire as refinement. Fire consumes while it purges. It leaves only the pure elements behind.

I burned all the love letters along with the hate ones. It can feel tragic to throw out beautiful words, but that beauty was what made them so dangerous. It had anchored me long ago, but that anchor had almost drowned me.

For years, I’d kept all these remnants inside a clay box in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. It was a box I’d made at Creative Arts Workshop the summer when I was six. Ever since grade school, I’d designated it as my pint-sized gallery of pain. I’d used it to house objects associated with bad memories, from embarrassing to sad to traumatic. Things I didn’t want to look at, but was also reluctant to throw away. In high school I’d kept an angry note from another ex in there, along with the padlock to a drawer where I’d locked up my childhood diaries. The journals were full of memories I’d repressed by siphoning them off onto paper. I wanted to hide them from myself, but also to remember. To tattoo them into my brain in invisible ink. That was when I’d started keeping those things, while also intent on tucking them out of sight.

I burned the box along with its contents. It blackened in the smoke, but wasn’t melted. It was stained and purified at the same time.

My sister was there, and so was Mike. Dedicated and steadfast as ever, he lit the flames. My sister circled around the fire, talking excitedly. Remembering history. Telling me about her own life and friends. She was there, and we love each other. When all those other layers are eroded and refined, that’s what matters. And so I folded up this moment as a keepsake to look at fondly; not to hoard away.

As the relics crumbled down to ash, the smoke started to smell faintly like almonds. I’m sure there’s a long history of symbolism behind them, and they could be waxed poetic about for ages. But what struck me so much was the simplicity. I half-wondered if I’d hear his distant guitar notes floating from the smoke, but the trace of almonds was enough. After burning down years of horror, what was left was a scent so refreshing and benign.

I thought of burying the debris or leaving them in the garden, but decided against it. As long as I held onto his creations, they held power over me. If I discarded the ashes in a poetic way, then they’d still retain a significance greater than themselves. So I tossed them out unceremoniously in a dumpster behind Sam Ash (the pun not realized at the time).

Something tentative was budding in the absence, and I wanted to let it grow.

On humor

Humor is often looked at in a reductive manner of “Anything somebody claims is a joke needs to be taken at face value as one,” and that analyzing joke structure means you lack a sense of humor. Neither of these assumptions are true.

Analyzing jokes is what a professional comedian does for a living. If everything they say sounds completely natural and off-the-cuff, that’s because they’re so well practiced. Successful stand-up requires a great deal of self awareness. As Robin Tran recently pointed out, there’s even an art to hiding the punchlines. Making it in comedy means playing to your audience.

There’s a well known subset of people, both online and off, who think they’re comedians just because they shout out every racist, sexist, and otherwise bigoted thought that barges into their minds, and they lambaste anyone who says it’s not funny. “It’s just a joke, bruh. Don’t you have a sense of humor?” And then this is the part where they fumble for any gay/black/female/trans person in the vicinity to use as a human shield and say, “They’re not offended.” But as soon as anybody who does belong to one of those groups is unamused, their opinion and identity is cast out with the rest of the perceived trash heap and they’re called “just another sensitive [insert slur here].” Their status as a member of a minority group immediately drops them from a position of value (or, rather, exploitation) to a position of mockery. It's pretty sobering to know just how easy it is to fall into that behavior, ourselves.

That’s not how professional comedians work. They have to make the audience like them. This is never achieved by getting angry at people for not laughing, or for getting offended by their offended reaction. It’s not achieved by laughing at a notably disenfranchised group and demanding that they sit there and take it, telling them, “You have to be able to laugh at yourself.” Laughing at oneself should always be a person’s own choice, and it’s funniest when it is. It just becomes bullying when they’re already screwed over by society and now some atomic stink bomb with a mic is demanding that they find it funny.

Even notoriously racist, homophobic, and otherwise douchey comedians know how to tailor their act to specific listeners. They know that if there’s an audience full of women, it’s wise to avoid jokes about them deserving to be raped. (Not that it’s better to make that joke to male audiences. This is about more than not looking like an asshole; it's about not actually being one.) They know that if they themselves are unattractive, it's hypocritical and clueless to make fun of other peoples’ looks. Again, not that it’s better for the comedian to pick on appearance if they are good-looking. There’s the famous rule about punching up, not down.

This leads into the topic of celebrities. Normally, famous people are fair game. They’re rich and successful, so what a comedian says probably isn’t going to affect their status or rub salt in a wound. This would naturally seem like a form of “punching up.” It is—except when the joke is about the famous person belonging to a group that’s historically and institutionally dumped on. This is where things get a little more complicated.

A bigoted joke about a Hollywood star is still a bigoted joke. It may not affect them personally; they probably won’t even hear it. But it will be heard by others of that same group who aren't rich and successful. A joke making fun of Tess Holliday’s weight or Laverne Cox’s transgenderism still affects plus-size women and trans people. Members of those populations are still seen as public laughing stocks, even if those two celebrities aren’t—and they’re ridiculed for aspects of themselves they never chose. (There are people who will argue that you do choose your body size and can decide to be transgender, but that’s a whole other topic. For now, I’ll just say that while some people may be able to dictate their weight to an extent, not everybody can and there are a lot of genetic factors involved. As for being trans, you can choose to get surgery but you don’t choose gender dysphoria. Also, not all trans people get surgery or experience dysphoria. That’s a subject for another blog post, though. My point is that these groups of people, along with others, are torn apart for traits that don’t harm anyone and are overwhelmingly attacked by society.) If someone is unable to make a joke without being a bigot, then they're not very funny or creative.

This is tough to talk about, because nobody wants to be the humor police. Nobody wants to be seen as the no-funster who crashes through the wall at a party to force feed everyone the PC Kool-Ade. But it’s very telling when a person who doesn’t laugh at a hateful joke, or who says it’s not cool, is the only one who’s judged as a buzzkill. Not the person who makes the hateful joke in the first place.

Another telling factor is the way you’re accused of being humorless as soon as you reject or even consider the premise of a joke, even if you and that same person had been cracking up about something else only minutes before and they were telling you how funny you were. It's interesting how quickly any previous demonstration of your humor is now forgotten. Or the way that many of the same people who insist that a racist, misogynistic, or classist comment is “just a joke” will then defend it because “it’s so true!” Or that if you question it, you’re assumed to be trying to censor everyone. It is true that there are some who want to censor others; who want to ban them from having any platform or have them arrested for what they say. I’ve known several such people and would say that approach goes way too far. But more often, anybody who objects at all is accused of being censorious. That’s not what most dissenters aim for. People are free to say what they want, however ignorant it may be. And, in turn, others are free to argue with them. Rather than shutting down public discussion, I want to provide more and to see more offered. Let’s see more counter-arguments. Let’s see more jokes that give off their own light instead of reflecting others who have been drained and derived from for as long as anyone can remember.

That would bring more than amusement; it would bring happiness. And that’s something the world is long due.

A letter for people I love

This is an open letter to anti-LGBT+ family members—because there’s more than one of you, and because, even if you might not believe it when we disagree, I do love you. Please bear with me.

Because we share genetics and grew up doing holidays together, I know where you come from. I know the particular brand of theology you’re expressing is what you’d been raised with from day one. I know your parents only ever wanted what was best for you, and they are good people. And I know you don’t want to be hateful. It hurts and offends you when others think you’re being cruel for opposing same-sex marriage, when you feel you’re just standing up for “what God says.” You also believe you’re being persecuted for this opinion, and are immersed in a religious culture which tells you that is true. I can’t personally relate to this, as I was not raised within evangelical Christianity. I do understand where you’re coming from, though. It can’t be an easy place to be.

But, in love and in sincerity, I’m asking you to please consider something: That it would be incredibly painful to be a gay or bi or transgender person living within that environment. Even if nobody from your church or your specific religious community is openly “out,” there very likely are LGBT people within your community who know this truth about who they are and hate themselves for it. And, without any assumptions or accusations on my part, please let me ask you some rhetorical questions.

Are you helping them to feel loved, regardless of your beliefs about their identity, or are you encouraging self-hate?

Are you telling them God loves them, but only if they change a huge aspect of who they are and have always been? If so, how can it be called a “free gift” if there are so many strings attached? It can’t be a demonstration of parental love if it’s so conditional. (Not that all parents love unconditionally, but the general Christian understanding is that God loves in the way that an ideal and perfect parent would.)

What are you trying to accomplish by posting anti-LGBT quotes and memes? Are you directing them at LGBT people, or at peers within your religious community who agree with you? Are they directed at people outside your group who disagree—and if so, are you using those posts to try to persuade them?

If you are addressing those things to other Christians, what’s your reason for doing so? Maybe you’re trying to prove your place within their circle, to show that you belong. If that’s the case, why is it necessary? Would true friends litmus test you?

If you’re trying to reach LGBT people, please understand that telling us we’re going to hell and deserve to be murdered is not love. I am, and have always been, a bisexual person. This doesn’t mean I’m in multiple relationships or want to be. I also never chose this. It’s something I’ve known since first grade, since before I knew it was even possible to like both men and women or had any word to name it. If you have questions about this, I’m willing to talk about it. But if you're only interested in telling me how wrong I am for being bi, then the conversation won't lead us anywhere helpful.

If you say gay people are damned or unloved by what you believe to be the ultimate and all-powerful source of love, that does affect me personally. It’s extremely hurtful. In a similar way, you feel personally affected and hurt when others say the same things about your specific branch of Christianity. But please understand that nobody is telling you that your relationships should be illegal, and nobody is forcing you to perform or enter into same-sex marriages. Many people within evangelical Christian culture do seem to want to force LGBT people into heterosexual relationships, though, or force them into the religion via law. It’s not all Christians. But there are a disconcerting amount who want everyone in the US to be legally forced to follow biblical mandates and for our government to be a theocracy. If that were the case, it would completely negate free will. It would also allow even more massive leeway for government corruption; for a leader to do anything they pleased and be unquestioned if they claimed that “God told them to do it.” Nobody is telling you that you cannot be Christian—and there are different ways of being Christian, not just conservative/evangelical. In turn, please don’t tell people they cannot be anything but heterosexual and cisgender (non-trans).

One thing I understand about conservative Christianity is that conscience and a sense of obedience often pull in opposite directions. You may not want to harm LGBT people, but feel that your religion is telling you to. You may be caught in deep and painful conflict for that reason. If this is the case, please understand that any deity worthy of being called “love” would never, ever demand that you choose between duty and compassion. If you have compassion, it’s there for a reason. Please don’t stifle its voice. Also, hate is more than a feeling. It’s an action. A person can have all the caring and empathetic feelings in the world for someone else, but if their actions do the other person harm, it’s not love. Love is what we do, not just what we feel. The same is true for hatred.

If you’ve gotten this far and are still reading, thank you. I’m grateful for your time and consideration. Yes, we’re still family and we’re still friends. But before you repost another quote or video or meme about something you may not fully understand, I ask that you please take a moment to reflect on these thoughts. You’re under no obligation to answer my questions, but please don’t be afraid to ask them to yourself.

Thank you for hearing this out.