Thoughts On Ableism (s) Part 1

Ableism: The belief that their is one standard ability, size, state of mental health, state of physical health and overall body that an individual should have and the institituional practices and societal discrimination that devalues, berades, belittles and neglects those who do not fit this mythical norm.

I've been thinking about how complex ableism is lately. How it encompasses the myriad of ways standard accessibility in this country continues to only support those who are able to walk, or walk long distances...I've been thinking about how "pity politics" work, where thier is so much sadness for disabled individuals, as oppossed to sadness and frustration at the system that contines to produce ableist inequties, or us ourselves, for the way our ableism truly reflects our own challenges with embracing difference, and our alleginace to the idea of the standard body which causes us so much hurt and pain.

Some reflections.

I go to the spa on my birthday. Apart of my treatment is a facial, for which I am really excited. Id never had one till that day. The woman comes in and after introducing herself, prepares to ask me a series of questions concerning my use of skin products, skin history etc...
she ends with asking: "So what kind of skin do you think you have?" I have never given this any kind of thought, so i spurt out, I dont know, i guess it's regular...or um..normal skin?
Before i can get out normal she blurts out "NO! You do not have normal skin! Normal skin is PERFECT. With no blemishes, no marks. You have marks and blemishes. You do not have Normal skin."

Inside im thinking ouch. and damn. What the hell constitutes "Normal?" and what about this concept of normality did she feel she must so rigidly enforce? What does it mean when someone creates a concept of "normalcy" that no-one fits into? and what drives this compulsion? Also isnt perfection a myth? And subjective? But for so many people it is not. I can only imagine the hundreds of men and women who come to her for services and leave feeling awful or less than because theier skin is not "normal" or not "perfect." and instead of questioning the concept of normalcy itself, spend thier whole lives striving for a concept that is elusive and impossible.

2) Muscle Culture- Ironically and not surprisingly, muscle culture is really not often about being well(whatever that means). It's not always about being a counscious eater, so much as it is about superficiality and the re-enforcement of the "perfect body", ripe with six packs, flat tummy and all. I dont even find it to be about strength often.

What troubles me about this apsect of our culture is the degree of hatred and disdain that this space puts on people who do not have the "standard mythical body" and the level of negative body talk this culture encourages individuals to do to themselves and others. Now let me be clear, muscle culture doesnt operate in isolation, its simply emblematic of the larger culture. Yet it does have something to teach us.

The one concept i think illuminates this is the concept of "too".
IN our culture, we will often say, somone's chest is "too big", or "too small". Someone's legs calves are "too small" etc, etc. But the concept of "too" implies that that body is being compared to some standard. too small in comparsion too who? is a question i often ask, and when i do , the response is a blank stare.
For me the reality is, the idea of someone's body being "too" something is apart of our massive socialization and the reality that the mythical standardized body is always within our heads.

This is not to suggest that working out, or body building is wrong. No, that's not it at all. The problem i think is the puttin down of other people or internalized self hate that often comes along with that; and honestly its not just present at the gym. yet in my experience in gay culture, where superficiality often leads the way; in an interesting site to explore it, however brief.



The bigger question I want to offer is, How can we create space within ourselves ( cause we always start with us) to embrace different body abilities, sizes, shapes etc, and challenge our own self hate ( which is what it is, only projected on others at times) in order to be effective in creating a world where there is no "too" and all our bodies get and deserve equal repsect and honoring? How do we as able bodied individuals, look at our own fear of being disabled as really being linked to our own pitty politics and self hate? Can we find the courage to disrupt the mythical norm by loving our round tummies, our "non-normal " skin, our different abilities, senses, etc?

More to come....

Family is What you Make It! ( Re-discovered writings)

Family is what you make it! ( Re-discovered writings from a while ago)

The upcoming holiday season brings with it both new and old challenges for LGBTQ folks. As the egg nog pours and the shopping frenzies ensue, many of us will find ourselves faced with the option of returning home to our biological families. Even still, many of us will also be forced to face the harsh reality of not having that option.

Yet if we look around, and into ourselves, we are sure to find there is someone who deeply cares for us the way only a family member can.

Sometimes it's our best friend, or "judy-judy". Sometimes it's our "house" members, or "queer family." It could also be a counselor, a caretaker, or a co-worker. Whoever it is, remember that family is what you make it!

For example, in our communities many of us have created extensive fictive kin networks to support ourselves. Though these networks can often, just like our real family, pull stunts and shows (literally), there are still times when some member of our fictive kin was there when no-one else was. They may have offered a smile, a place to stay, an encouraging “U betta work!" or a shoulder to lean on. They may have provided some money, some time, or even better, some belly bursting laughter. Remember them! Thank them for their love or support.

Even if you can't do it personally, do it in your heart. It can make all the difference.

And it doesn't have to stop there. If you are not with your biological family, or even if you are,

hold a "family dinner" for your loved ones and fictive kin members. Get together and spend a day preparing a meal, eating in fellowship, and lounging around afterwards playing board games or watching a movie. Make a thank you wall to help you remember how far you all have come, and what each of you has made it through. Review the lessons of the year and make personal commitments to breaking cycles and patterns of destructive behavior.

Last but not least, forgive. Forgiveness is the act of releasing the anger we have held towards others in the past, in order to embrace the beauty and opportunity available in the present. It can be the easiest thing to say, yet sometimes the hardest thing to do. Still, work on forgiving your family members, fictive or biological, for who they were and who they were not able to be. Though it’s hard for some of us too see it that way, our family members, especially our parents, are individuals just like us. They have pain, issues, fears and problems just like we do. Like us they also may have made poor, or imbalanced decisions. Yet everyone is worthy of forgiveness and compassion. And there's no better time to start forgiving then now.

The holidays are here people! And now we have a decision to make. We can decide to spend this season focusing on "if only’s”, or we can make the choice to focus on and embrace what we have. And what we have, each of us, is someone out there, who loves and cares and worries about us, whether we know or realize it or not. Whether they show it the way we want them too, or whether they are able to show it at all. We have family. Because when we open our hearts, our minds, and our arms to ourselves and each other, family becomes not just what we make it, but ends up being who we are.

Happy Holidays!!

Random Writings 2: Masculinity Kills

THis is apart of an OLD journal i wrote about a year ago. Some stuff could be expanded ( and maybe i will edit it later) but i just cut and pasted it and thought to share. expect mis-spellings. Yall know how i do shatwty.


Masculinity Kills

The real danger is not men. The real danger is not masculinity or masculine embodied people. The real danger is what we have defined masculinity to be. The danger is the beliefs, ideas and concepts that we have for too long defined as male and “masculine”. The danger is that we have defined these things to equate aggression, violence, control and being unemotive. The danger is that too many of us have accepted these codes unilaterally and unapologetically. It is this concept of masculinity, and our acceptance of it, which is a large part of the reason our communities, our families, and our planet is out of balance and spiraling out of control.

Pop Culture mythology has lead us to believe that maleness, or being born as what is perceived to be biologically male automatically equates a number of things. Some of these things are: A natural propsensity towards aggression and violence, an unemotive nature, and in many cases a wandering irresponsible sexuality. Yet science, like the culture itself, is biased. The Scientists who research sexuality and gender often go into their scientific studies looking for evidence to validate what society has already assumed to be true. Thus the hidden barrage of assumptions on what those who are "anatomically male" espouse are not taken as theory; but instead established as fact.

Yet many scientists have debunked the beliefs that anatomically “male” embodied people express specific characteristics. Feminist Scientists have also questioned the construction of “maleness’ and “femaleness” itself. Do our gene chromosomes match up so nicely to our sexual genitalia; and then by extension, our perceived gender? Many would be surprised to find that the answer is probably not. Feminist Scientists who have conducted research and reviewed scientific literature have come to understand what many of us have known all along; that there is no proof to suggest that by virtue of being "male" or "female" one will express any specific traits. They confirm what feminists, sociologists and everyday people have always intuitively understood: That it is not any biological proclivity specific to those born what is known to be male that makes men aggressive and unemotive, but instead the culture of socialization that men experience. In other words, it is what males are taught.

And what are men taught? From birth, the socialization process based on “gender” begins. In most major hospitals, after birth children perceived to be young girls are given pink blankets, and those perceived to be young boys are given the color blue. The colors are not problematic, they are emblematic. They represent the very different messages, beliefs and ideas young boys and girls will receive about who they are , who they should be, and what it is not acceptable to be. This education will come through many forms, it will come through the family, in the form of relatives, cousins, uncles and aunts. It will come through television, music, and books. Boys will be given toy trucks, young girls dolls. If the boys desire dolls, that behavior will be shunned. The boys will be moved towards things that incite aggression. Toys that prep them for war. A quick glance at the “boys” section of any department store will reveal this. All of the toys young boys are encouraged to play with are toys that pertain to fighting, to power, and to control. This is apart of the socialization process. This trait of aggression is encouraged it is not innate.

This socialization process will continue throughout their lives, and will be unespcapable. At every turn young men will hear: real men don’t take no shit. Real men get lots of pussy. Real men have it under control, have their lives under control, have “their women” under control.
In even families who choose not to adhere to this strict manhood code, there children will nonetheless, as long as they participate in western society, be affected by it. The ideology of “maleness” will loom over them all of their lives.
But what is the cost to us as individuals, whether “male” or “female” who embrace this ideology? As an instructor at Men Stopping Violence, A social change organization dedicated to ending male violence against women, I got to see first hand what the cost of this manhood code is to men. Every day I work with men of different ages, different races, different nationalities and though they all were affected and responded to the dominant concept of masculininty differently, they are Men who, from birth internalized that to be a real man they had to “suck it up.” “It” being their emotions and their feelings. But What happens to a human being who is encouraged, through ideology and indoctrination, to disconnect from and not express their emotions and feelings because they make them “less than? What happens to a human being instructed all its life to never express hurt or pain, sadness and sorrow, because it will make them “less than?” What happens when rage and anger are the only ok feeling?
Well. It seems we can look to our world to find the answer, whether “male” or female” the absorption of a power over ethic has left us all in a less than desirable situation. It has left us with a world culture that values dominance and hierarchy, inequality and condemnation, and that is oppossed to any ethic that declares us each as divine, worthy of love, and worthy of life. It leaves us with dangerous masculinity. And at the end of the day, it’s the masculinity, our at least our definition of it, that is killing us all.

Random Writings 1: Ideological Violence

"Uncovered this from my online journal. Kinda interesting. Thoughts?"

In order to effectively infiltrate theories of wholeness into the larger human population, we as queers, as healers, as radical activists and leftists are going to have to incorporate more and more complex strategies. It is not to say that we should give up those skills and things that we have now, but it is to say that those methods are not always effective in getting our voices heard.

For instance, the in your face anti- activism of “were queer were here” or the aggressive demonstrations and protests where “sides” have been taken often do very little to change movements. What they often do instead, is help consolidate the “opposition’s belief that they must fight harder against the other side, and help endorse the idea that these issues are two sided as opposed to being much more complicated with shades of grey that could offer spaces for co-operation. This is why it is integral that we as activist-healers on the left begin the vital work of self awareness, love and reflection. We must learn to look at ourselves. We must recognize that what we create, we must first become. We must remember that the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. What do I mean by this? Let me share:

What we create we must first become: Each time we go out into the universe with our self righteousness, defensiveness , we replicate more of that same energy in others. When we enter debates or dialogues dis interested in hearing others, or of generating compassion, or of seeing the other side, those individuals get on the defensive and become what we have given:-self righteousness, defensiveness and anger. Then we are unable to hear eachother. The cycle perpetuates itself, and we get more violence, more anger, more pain, less resolution. Generating compassion and keeping a line of communication open between ourselves must be recognized as necessary.

But we cannot generate compassion if there is no self reflection, because we are too caught up in our own anger, in our own pain. We are often so caught up in our own anger, in our own pain and victimization that we cannot even see the world from their view. In order to help with this, The first thing I believe we all as activists have to do is recognize how the work we are doing, whether its reproductive justice or in domestic violence is connected to us ourselves and our own wounding. And we must go beneath the anger, where the real wounding is. Because Anger is nothing but an umbrella emotion; one which covers a list of feelings that we often disconnect from: hurt, pain, confusion, sadness, and frustration. In our patriarchal society in the context of war or debate, these feelings are presented as invalid. Yet we must reclaim them within ourselves.

For instance, lets say I am an individual who says that I am angry at the failure to pass an ENDA bill for LGBTQ rights. The anger is the first place we go, but what is beneath it? Could it be hurt? Hurt that the failure for this bill to pass directly speaks to a cultures placement of little value in my life, in me? Hurt that this is yet another assault on my self worth, a sense of self worth that as a queer person in America, is assaulted daily?

Going to the hurt can help us keep from going to attack. Not going to attack offers us the space to hear and be heard. To generate compassion. To connect internally with the narrative of pain versus the narrative of anger produces a different biochemical response in your body and aura. The narrative of anger gets the blood pressure high, the narrative of pain sombers us.

If we can connect with our deeper emotions, and remain internally aware, we begin to be able to see others more clearly. For if you are acting out of anger to cover pain, surely the others are as well?

Surely there is some wounding, some belief, some pain that leads them to attack. Could it be that the right wings claims of “backlash” , “abuse and “violence” have some level of credence to them?

Of course they do. People on the right wing’s feelings are valid because all of our feelings are valid. But we cannot hear the pain that an African American republican speaks of, because we are too caught up in our own victimization and judgement of his or her ideology and placement. Yet many African Americans who are republican do face harassment, and violence from the community. We must hear their experience and understand that is real for them, but to do so we must step outside of our self centerdness. Stepping outside of our self centerdness means that we have to validate others experiences, even when we don’t feel like it is the whole truth or believe it is what is really happening.

Validating the others perspective allows them to feel heard, and once being heard has happened, once an individual feels validated, the level of resistance wanes. This is where the concept of mirroring is so important. If we are able to mirror and validate back others in time of conflict so that they feel heard, the argumentative energy may be subdued. It also allows us an opportunity to get out of “our stuff” for a minute and hear someone else’s experience. Hearing someone else’s experience gives us the opportunity to see shared mutual interest, and also see others pain.

So if we believe the law of “what we create, we must first become –we have to see that when we create violence and aggression we are embodying those things; they are not separate from us. And the creation of those things within us and without us creates more of it in the universe. It is not the anger or the emotion that we must challenge, but the actions the we do in relation to that emotion. So if we choose to create compassion, to create active listening, there is the possibility that we may create that in others. Though we have to recognize also, that using these tactics may not change the “other side”. They may still respond with aggression.

Yet we do our part in committing not to perpetuate more violence by working towards compassion. We drain our own energy less, feed the egocentric compulsions of this culture less, and offer more room for transformation. We still hold others accountable. We still defend. state and protect ourselves, however, we do not give ourselves over to them, which in our culture is casual and everyday.

Yet this paradigm cannot be so easily uncovered. When we talk about mirroring and compassion, we have to recognize that there real inequalities that socialization and society have created around gender, sex, race, and much more. Interjecting these inequalities into the discourse complicates things. For instance, many women have been socialized always to generate compassion, and in many cases to nurture. When in conversations with many men, who have been socialized that they have an entitlement to space, some women may fall prey to emotional caretaking as opposed to radical dialogue. On the other end of this spectrum, many men may find themselves listening to react, and not listening to hear what the other is saying.

To this I say: that these are our challenges when resisting socialization. If we as men are really interested in ending oppression we must recognize that to not listen, or to listen only to attack is a “tool of the master . “ We must relinquish the need to be right and challenge ourselves to reclaim our full humanity by becoming more empathetic, intune and intouch. Apart also of women’s work must be to learn assertive skills. To become intentional about speaking their desires and needs and challenging the idea of women as meak and passive.

Both of these pose challenges however, and do create the possibility for real lived danger. Men may be bullied for being soft of gay, women may be silenced or intimidateed through violence or abuse. Resistance is not simple enough, and unfortuanately, we will often encounter more aggression than non-violence, even as active proponents of non-violence as a strategy.

which is why There is so much work to do...