another very generalized and angry rant.
I just read Stone Butch Blues last night, in its entirety for the first time. It took me 5 1/2 hours and I cried and cried.
Today I am a little angrier than I was yesterday. Seems to be a common theme in my life these days.
I remember being 18 or 19 years old, living in Kamloops and going to the all-ages dance the local Gay and Lesbian Association would throw every 6 weeks. I remember sitting outside the venue in a circle with my young friends, and being approached by an older gay male couple. We talked a little bit about how we younger people identified as "queer" and how that was hard for our elders to hear because for them, "queer" was a word spat at them in hate. Then they smiled and said how happy they were to know that all the fighting and hell they had gone through in their youths had led to us being able to be 18 years old and more or less out and proud...
sometimes I think about some of the things that the people in my community went through for years and are still suffering today. I think about how the queer community in Vancouver is a rad place full of awesome, radical, damn smart people, and how I still feel less of a community here than I did in Kamloops. Less intergenerational friendship, less mentorship, less sense that even a stranger was standing with you. I think that's because there are more queers and less fear, here. i don't feel like I am banding together with my community for self-protection. Mostly that's a good feeling, you know... feeling like I am safe as I am. There were a lot of times when I felt hellishly unsafe in years past. The world is still a scary and dangerous fucking place and I can't ever ever ever forget that.
I am fucking angry about oppression. I am angry for the shit that I've experienced and seen and for the history in my communities as a queer and a woman and as family to someone who is differently abled. I am also damned angry about the oppressions I will never experience or understand but that terrify and hurt and damage people I love and people I don't know. I am damned angry about how we treat animals, about how we treat the earth. I am angry at myself every time I am oppressive to someone or let something go without speaking or acting, and when I recognize fucked up shit happening in places where I can't or don't feel like I can take it on. The way the mainstream marginalizes people and justifies doing the most horrible shit to them... the way we treat each other. Holy crap. I don't even know what to say.
I want to fight more and do more, but I'm freaked out about burning myself out yet again... I know I can be doing more, though. I think I am a chronic procrastinator.
Shit, I feel like the older I get, the angrier I get. Perversly, I get happier, too... angry and happy and loving the world, you know? It's like I have tough love for life. I have faith that there are smart, beautiful people fighting for a fair and just world, but that there are so many people who are hurt and hateful and small-minded. There are also so, so many people who are surviving and doing what they need to do to survive.
I feel like my indignation is a privilege and a luxury.
I really really need to learn more.
If you have some learning to pass on, please do. an article, a thought, an experience, a book, a movie, a place to visit, a speaker, anything... please send it my way.
Post it right here.
And to all my friends who are hurting right now because the world is a fucked up place for you, I love you so, so much. I love all of you.
Today I am a little angrier than I was yesterday. Seems to be a common theme in my life these days.
I remember being 18 or 19 years old, living in Kamloops and going to the all-ages dance the local Gay and Lesbian Association would throw every 6 weeks. I remember sitting outside the venue in a circle with my young friends, and being approached by an older gay male couple. We talked a little bit about how we younger people identified as "queer" and how that was hard for our elders to hear because for them, "queer" was a word spat at them in hate. Then they smiled and said how happy they were to know that all the fighting and hell they had gone through in their youths had led to us being able to be 18 years old and more or less out and proud...
sometimes I think about some of the things that the people in my community went through for years and are still suffering today. I think about how the queer community in Vancouver is a rad place full of awesome, radical, damn smart people, and how I still feel less of a community here than I did in Kamloops. Less intergenerational friendship, less mentorship, less sense that even a stranger was standing with you. I think that's because there are more queers and less fear, here. i don't feel like I am banding together with my community for self-protection. Mostly that's a good feeling, you know... feeling like I am safe as I am. There were a lot of times when I felt hellishly unsafe in years past. The world is still a scary and dangerous fucking place and I can't ever ever ever forget that.
I am fucking angry about oppression. I am angry for the shit that I've experienced and seen and for the history in my communities as a queer and a woman and as family to someone who is differently abled. I am also damned angry about the oppressions I will never experience or understand but that terrify and hurt and damage people I love and people I don't know. I am damned angry about how we treat animals, about how we treat the earth. I am angry at myself every time I am oppressive to someone or let something go without speaking or acting, and when I recognize fucked up shit happening in places where I can't or don't feel like I can take it on. The way the mainstream marginalizes people and justifies doing the most horrible shit to them... the way we treat each other. Holy crap. I don't even know what to say.
I want to fight more and do more, but I'm freaked out about burning myself out yet again... I know I can be doing more, though. I think I am a chronic procrastinator.
Shit, I feel like the older I get, the angrier I get. Perversly, I get happier, too... angry and happy and loving the world, you know? It's like I have tough love for life. I have faith that there are smart, beautiful people fighting for a fair and just world, but that there are so many people who are hurt and hateful and small-minded. There are also so, so many people who are surviving and doing what they need to do to survive.
I feel like my indignation is a privilege and a luxury.
I really really need to learn more.
If you have some learning to pass on, please do. an article, a thought, an experience, a book, a movie, a place to visit, a speaker, anything... please send it my way.
Post it right here.
And to all my friends who are hurting right now because the world is a fucked up place for you, I love you so, so much. I love all of you.