Where Do We Go From Here?

The suicide of Rutgers student, Tyler Clementi has sent shockwaves across the United States. For me, it has awakened a long-dormant anger. "There are guilty parties everywhere." The question looms: "Where do we go from here?" For starters The Community could try the tack of past civil rights campaigns; from LULAC to the NAACP. If we want the support of Middle America we should try putting our best middle class, well educated foot forward. That makes it harder for them to alienate us. Next, we need the support of our government.
We must stop expecting our savior to come from outside.We must push, prod and bully our way into a fully integrated American society. There is no turning back, there will be no second chance, and we are ruining our chance for tomorrow because gay children all across the world are still alienated, sitting in their rooms praying for acceptance or escape, and when they find neither, they are just praying for it all to end.
"There are guilty parties everywhere," and Middle America is no exception. You must stop telling your children there is something wrong with them, when they hear that everywhere. You must stop making your children feel second class for something they were born with and cannot change. You must tell your children that there are so many different colors and tones to the world than what's in your house or in your neighborhood or in your town. You must realize that the differences between You and Us are only skin deep. There is no turning back, there will be no second chance for tomorrow because your children, your children who happen to be gay are still alienated, sitting in their rooms praying for acceptance or escape, and when they find neither, they are just praying for it all to end.
"There are guilty parties everywhere"

Is This Life Without Will and Grace?

I was a freshman in college, one of the most conservative in the country, one that had a known appetite for queer bating when I was getting ready to pack it in and go home. Aside from my handful of friends from home who carefully guarded my secret, there were no gay people, at least not outside of Gay.com.

"Watch Will and Grace, so you can see what life is really like for us." The simplest suggestion ever. Two gay men who made it through where I was and lived it up in New York. I knew then that everything would be OK. But Will and Grace are gone. The show has been off the air now for four years and even then, it pandered to a few too many stereotypes than real life. Vapid Jack bounced from man to man and Will had such an inferiority complex that he was always too afraid to get a man. Then Will meets Vince and off the air they go. Ironically just at the moment that America is pitched in the largest cultural battle since the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. But they did show that life could be as normal as anyone else. Gays can have close friends and find love and really the ladies on Sex and the City still haven't figured that out.

And so gay kids have almost no one to look to on TV today. Maybe that's why three of them have decided to take their own lives this week. The failure is larger than an absence of viable role models on television, the failure belongs to all of us. The parents of that child failed to reassure their frightened boys that they would love them unconditionally no matter what. The schools and public institutions failed to really prevent or assess the extent of the bullying. The Community failed to provide real-world role models. Perhaps we as a Community bear the heaviest guilt. We put too much emphasis on good looks and alcohol and recreational sex and drug use. All too often the twinks and leather daddies overshadow the professionals in long-term relationships with families. Doesn't this give the picture of a very limited reality for gays?

They Gay Community is probably one of the most diverse in the world. It encompasses many different ages and ethnicities, and a myriad of economic and cultural stratas. It is extremely difficult to unify that many people. It is extremely easy to vilify (and accuse) each of those individuals; to herd your children away from them on the street or stare from the corner of you eye in public and mutter your disapproval for something you think is a choice. From my own experience I know being gay is just something you come out with, not something you choose. I am almost positive that these boys would tell you that they were just like you, only a little different. Except because they were gay, and that is still such a terrible thing to be in the United States today, they just kept quiet and decided to end it all now, before they knew how good it can really be.

High Thinking

My dental hygeinist takes her tools out of a snap kit. It's like a combination evening bag/toolbox. She also listens to a Christian radio station. She is really good at what she does. My teeth have never been cleaner. Seems like all is as it should be, right? But not so fast. Yesterday while I was getting my gums cleaned (This is really an expensive form of tortue, like if they could recruit former SS members to do this, they probably would) they gave me gas and novicane. It. was. awesome.

For those of you who don't know, the "laughing" gas basically acts on your body much like alcohol, I even got numb when I had too much, just like the beginning stages of alcohol poisoning. Just like alcohol the gas made me pensive, observant and overly chatty. This is where I go when I want to "chat" out my thoughts somewhat anonymously.

Anyhow I got to thinking of stereotypes. You know, this woman is sitting here listening to a Christian radio station, I've already told her about my boyfriend. I hope my mouth isn't bleeding because I know exactly what she's thinking; gay=AIDS, gay=AIDS, gay=AIDS. I'm not blaming her, I'm thinking; Christian=judger, Christian=judger, Christian=judger. Nevermind that I had to choke out the word boyfriend, and I didn't notice that the music was Christian until halfway through my first appointment. I should also point out that she is really nice. I really like her. If she ever finds this I hope she doesn't hate me.

Now for the point. Staring at that little hard, plastic evening bag filled with goodies that would make Alice Orlowski smile I got to thinking about a dentist that I can never forget. A dentist who killed one of his paitents, just by cleaning her teeth. The dentist had AIDS, I'm not sure if he was gay, and he cleaned his own teeth. He nicked his gums, bringing forth blood and then, maybe on purpose or maybe because he forgot, he cleaned her teeth and re-used the tools. This happened 20 years ago. Now they're dead, long forgotten save for a few old news tapes and paper archives, but that has stuck with me forever. Did they throw out the tools? Did she flinch cleaning my teeth? Why do I hold my breath every time I get a nick or cut, even though I know I'm ok?

I guess it just goes to show that, there is no telling what a person carries with them. No telling what's buried underneath, when it might surface. No telling how long I'll choke when I tell people I have a boyfriend or when I'll finally stop holding my breath at the sight of a little blood.

Texas Our Texas...

I wrote this in March, and have been hesitant to publish it, but thought in light of the fact that Texas rejected in collaborating on national education standards that this was timely.

Two weeks ago the Texas Board of Education sent shockwaves rippling through the scholastic community of the United States, when it voted to reorgonize the social studies circullum being taught to the state’s elementary school children. According to the changes students will be learning more about “conservative values” and less about important non-white historical figures. Say goodbye to Juan Seguin and hello to John Wayne.

The vote not only opens up questions about the state’s educational direction, and its accuracy, but also reveals the socio-economic changes that are rapidly tearing cultural fissures into Texas’ cultural fabric. School children in Texas have gone from being mostly white to mostly non-white in less than a generation. From 1990 to 2000, Texas’ Hispanic population grew by 2 million souls, roughly 30% of these newcomers don’t speak English in the home. The board’s knee-jerk reaction is to change what these children are learning in school to protect against what it sees as a loss of Texas’ cultural heritage.

As a Texan, I was reared on stories of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and the Alamo. My people have been in Texas since it was wrested from Mexican control in the mid-1800’s. Learning about these historical events was easy in part because they were bedtime stories at home. These stories not only gave my pride in my state but also insight into what it means to be a good citizen; to stand up against despotism and fight for freedom, values that hold a different weight in other countries.

Much like Margret Mitchell, who was ten when the learned the South had been “licked” in the Civil War, it wasn’t until college when I learned of the brutality practiced by Texan soliders at the battle of San Jacinto, practices that made it hard to think that the Texians were just tired of being picked on. As an adult I’ve also learned that history is never one-sided it just sounds that way, since it’s written by the winner. Since the Anglo Texians ultimately won the battle for Texas Independence the Tejanos who fought alongside them were given the peripheral role as helpers, that’s why a white kid like me found those heroes I did learn about in school so easy to identify with. They looked like me, and talked like me, and that made it all the easier for me to say, “If they did it, so can I.”

Today, I teach 5^th Grade. I thought that teaching 5^th grade would be so easy because I liked 5^th grade and that somehow I’d be just like those teachers who taught me. But teaching mostly English Language Learners in Dallas’ Oak Cliff is a far cry from Deepwood Elementary in middle-class Round Rock, Texas. Not only was a appalled to learn that most of these kids don’t know where the Alamo is, I was even more surprised that they seemed not to care. That surpise gave way to hurt and anger. Three years later, I get it. Why the hell should you care about some white folks taking over Texas. To these kids (and I’m sure the rest of the majority-minority children who attend Texas public schools) all the state standards have managed to do is murder their home language (and by extension the culture that goes with it), test them on information that they don’t have means to access outside the school day and then not supply appropriate support to help them get there. They’re too busy learning how to read period to have time to fool with something that happened 150 years ago.

While I totally understand that those who are sitting on the Texas Board of Education are doing this to protect what they see as the “Texan Way,” I must say that they are wrong. Not only does it distort the valuable contributions of non-white Texans, but it robs the children in Texas’ schools today of role models who might actually inspire them to become productive citizens. If they never read or hear stories about important people who look like them, they’ll never get that chance to say, “If they did it, so can I.” Without even a small thing to invest in, these children who already know so little will have no desire to learn more. You see what the Board doesn’t understand is that the history and the values go hand in hand. Education starts early, and it should be interesting and engaging in order for it to be most effective. Taking out a tool that helps educators to inspire their students (especially in abstract areas like Social Studies) will accomplish exactly what the Board is trying to stop. Taking out this tool will breed a generation of students who have no desire to be Texans, no desire to be United States citizens and no desire to be productive members of society. Will Texas really be great then?

Lessons Learned

The last entry I wrote, and left unpublised, was from February. I was going to say how I had been so wrong to misjudge certain members of my family and how I was even hoping that sooner-rather-than-later, I'd be able to put things that happened between us in the past. I was going to say that, until I realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I was going to say, that forgiveness or the road that leads there is as much for the trespassed as the trespasser. When the wrong party doesn't forgive, then they just keep stewing on the past and hurting themselves. That's what I'd been doing when it came to certain members of my family. Since I tend to obssess about things this happens to me a lot.

I was going to do all of this, until I found our Friday, from other family members, as always happens in this passive-aggresive, shit-pit of a family that people are getting their feelings hurt, and rather than confront me directly have started a campaign behind my back over things that I have written here. So let me just put this to rest:

1. This is my space, my thoughts and my voice, it can say whatever the fuck it wants, when it wants and how it wants.

2. If I'm writing it down, I'm just as happy to tell you to your face that this is what I think and why I think it. I'm not a a twit, I'm an educated, articulate, bilingual person. I know for better or worse that this is out there. I'd be happy to respond to comments, questions or concerns. For the parties mentioned here though, I doubt it would matter much since they tend to like to victimize themselves.

3. I consistently keep in contact with those friends and family I choose to have a relationship with, just like I assume that they keep in contact with me for the same reason. If we're not talking it's probably because I got tired of putting up with your bullshit.

4. I'm sure that this post will make me a bit of a hypocrite. That's cool. No one's perfect. I tend to want to be a victim too, and I'm sure I'm not blameless. Once it's all said and done though, I'm not hiding behind being a good person either.

Oops.

This year I finally made resolutions at the beginning of the year: new job, GRE and grad school. Since my job now is sucking my soul out of me in a tortuously, agonizingly slow way, I've decided this will be the first resolution I tackle. Plus Chaz was whining about me looking at Grad School programs when a new job might not allow me the time...

I've applied for something like 15 jobs in the past week. I'm beginning to feel like the job slut. I'm cycling through these so fast that if I was taking on Johns I'd be able to quit my regular employment. But you know, I have a contract and I can hang in there.

Whilst praying for another job I also periodically ask that my boss be smite-ed by a hangover, dysentery or that she randomly gets hit by a bus or MACK truck on the way to work. I don't care what happens so long as I don't have to put up with her crazy for a day. Today was one of those days! Also since the kids were "testing" (because, you know, they're all so ambitious) I had lots of time to work on other things like grades, and cleaning my room and cover letters. I had already drafted a few of these on a legal pad, and decided to bring it out just in case I was inspired today.

On the way out of the car this morning my Starbucks was far more important than The Blue Pad. So I put it one the trunk, where it miraculously stayed all day. I imagine that hobos and crack heads don't really need a blue legal pad. That is it stayed all day until my boss came back from her meeting at 2:00 p.m.

In her quest to be Good Samaritan of the Year, she starts asking around to find the owner. I'll cut it short and say that once she started reading and one of my girlfriends freaked out, she might know I'm scavenging for a new job. Awesome. Funny thing is I don't really care.

Let's Try This Again

My last post (recently deleted though it is) was about how I'd had it with the school year. That was on October 6. Tomorrow I'll be taking a Mental Health Day before I really do carry through on my threat and throw a child out the window. Of course if I really had my way, I'd throw a child out the window after decapitating them and putting their head on a stake. While I jest, and really do love my kids deep down, the thought of getting them to behave by using some Henry VIII style disipline does bring a smile to my lips.

I've decided that I'm going to take tomorrow off to be able to breathe and search for what I want to do.

I can't help but wonder if I keep praying the wrong prayer about becoming a good teacher, but rather that I'm praying that I just find a better fit.