Being Seen

[moondancerdrake]

I’ve had a great number of interesting conversations lately as the panel suggestions closed for Wiscon this year and we spoke about needing a place at the convention for PoC to gather. This got me thinking about my experiences at Wiscon and other places like it over the past decade or so.

Now, to begin with, I identify as a woman of color. I

Comments

[xakara]

There's always that moment of decision, that moment of creation in ever situation where we have to choose to craft a path of truth or a path of ease. Everyone moves in a cloud of assumption and it's always easiest to let it slide. But you know me, I'm not that person.

I walk into a situation and everyone assumes I'm straight and Christian and I'm in a relationship with--or looking for--a "strong Black man".

It's considered a choice to be out as a bisexual, Pagan in an interracial relationship. But those aren't things I chose, they aren't parts of me I can switch off and on, just like I can't be Black on Monday and something new on Tuesday. But because there's a perception of choice, the idea that I would choose something to placed me on the fringe or that could cause scrutiny is suspect. The same is true of light skinned minorities that can "pass". Why "choose" to be oppressed?

What people don't understand is that living a lie is self-oppression. When we speak to our truths we aren't choosing to be excluded, we're placing our authentic selves of higher priority than anyone else's comfortable standards. Exclusion, ridicule and hostility are sometimes the outcome, but personal freedom is worth slings and arrows.

I'm proud of you facing you fear and standing in your truth whatever comes. It is the only way the truth of others stretches to accomodate the rest of us.

~X