Don't Look Away

Don’t look away. I know how hard it is to say this but don’t look away. All of those images, recordings, and other horrific accounts of the deplorable, sickening, and unconstitutional events at the camps they have set up along the southern border need to be your fuel to take action, get fired up, and take back this country from those that would want to destroy everything we hold dear.

I’ve written a lot about how the 2016 election has impacted my family. If you want to catch up on any of those posts, you can click here:

• A Letter to Those I’ve Lost
• Happy Anniversary

I didn’t think I’d be writing a series about my family post-2016, but if I learned anything, it is that the personal is political, and sadly, things don’t seem to be getting any better.

In the third volume of this ongoing series of misfortunate events, we start back at the very beginning except for this time, involving another family member that voted for Trump (I know, I don’t know how or why I have so many members of my family that voted for that Nazi). In what has become a news story and crisis to shock the world, many people have been taking to their personal social media accounts to spread the word of their outrage, distress, and heartache over children being ripped away from their families at the border. For days I did not see one post that was not talking about the humanitarian crisis at the border or calls for action and ways people could get involved to help.

While I was happy to see so many people trying to find a way to organize and take action, there always seems to be one person who calls on people to look away. Look no further than a member of my family, who voted for Trump, to comment on a status expressing outrage over the recordings of children being ripped away from their families stating: “Why can’t fb just be positive and fun. Why spread the negative?”

Why can’t social media be fun anymore? Why can’t we spread happy pictures of puppies, babies, and rainbows? While the answer may be simple to many of us, let me state it plainly to my relative: Because the world is on fire and we have a racist in the White House creating edicts that call for babies and children to be placed in ‘tender age’ facilities.

52% of white women voted for Trump. While that number still continues to shock many of us, my relatives are part of that statistic, and that is something that I have had to grapple with in order to make sense of this new world order we seem to be experiencing. However, what really is behind that statistic is the real monster responsible for both so many actions we have seen lately and ultimately the reason why someone would state: “Why can’t fb just be positive and fun?”

White privilege is the monster ripping children away from babies. White privilege is the beast that causes white mothers simply look away and find something more pleasing to look at on social media than the horrors going on throughout the world. White privilege is the invisible knapsack that 52% of white women are going to have to unpack if we are to ever get our country back.

Following the comment on social media, my relative reached out and said she wanted to: “save the welfare of our family” because as many of you have read, there has been a little bit of drama. However, before any action could be taken to “save the welfare of our family” (she literally wanted us to each post a cute photo of a baby or puppy to help make sure HER Facebook timeline was filled with cute photos rather than the news) she blocked my other relatives on social media.

So, that leaves me with little but nothing else to say than this: If you want to save the welfare of our family, then you start by not voting for and supporting the policy of a known racist. However, most importantly, you do not look away when you see something that upsets you. Question yourself as to why it upsets you.

If we learned anything from history it is that those that looked away were not favorably remembered by history. From people that looked away when women fought for the right to vote, when the Nazis took Jews to concentration camps, to when African Americans were (and still are) beat up, attacked, and killed for wanting civil rights and equality, people that look away are part of the problem.

I never really talk about my grandfather that much. To be quite honest, he was a very quiet man that I didn’t get to know that much. What I do know is that he did not look away. My grandpa was part of the first U.S. anti-aircraft battalions that arrived at Dachau Concentration Camp the morning after being liberated by the U.S. Army’s 42^nd and 45^th infantry division.

In a time where two-thirds of millennial and 4 out of 10 Americans overall don’t know what Auschwitz was, we need to make sure people do not look away from the tragedy and horrors around us for the sake of seeing something that comforts them. The scene that my grandfather discusses in the article (photo attached) is forever etched in his memory and while I don’t offer to speak for anyone but myself, what I have seen over the past few weeks (let alone the last two years, remember Charlottesville? I do!) will never leave my memory.

So, to my family member that is craving, albeit pleading, for people to look away, I say this: history will not kindly remember you.

Yes, You're a Homophobe

This post is dedicated to my fearless friend Michelle - an individual who stands up for what she believes in and those she loves no matter what.  Special thanks to Feminism and Religion for always being a space where my voice and the voices of others are welcome!

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A line has been drawn in the sand between those who support gay rights and those who do not.  While some call it being on the “right side of history,” I simply now refer to it as not sounding and looking like a bigot in the halls of history and in the various books, Facebook posts, and Tweets that our children will one day read.

I’ve spent a lot of my activist life attempting to educate or save for lack of a better term, individuals who say hateful things similar to Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson.In a recent GQ profile, the patriarch of the A&E series called being gay a “sin” and compared the sexual action between same sex individuals to bestiality.  Robertson said:

“It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man –would be more desirable than a man’s anus.  That’s just me.  I’m just thinking: There’s more there!  She’s got more to offer…But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man.  It’s just not logical…Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there.  Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”
 (Note: The rainbow colors were added by me)

While this may seem like a run of the mill statement coming from someone with this man’s views and beliefs, his statement has created quite the controversy as he has been placed on permanent suspension from the show, his family refuses to film without him (something that is economically harmful to A&E since the show has broken many broadcast ratings records pertaining to reality shows and is a proverbial cash cow for the network and their investors) and, the craziest point of all, the people defending him are stating that his statement isn’t homophobic but rather an expression of his deeply held religious beliefs.

While I would usually just brush off the man’s statements as the actions of another delusional homophobe, I can no longer sit idly by when statements like his not only influence my personal life but also the way in which my human rights are restricted by a man who influences millions of people who tune into watch him on a weekly basis and buy his family’s countless products.

Does being against gay people make you a homophobe?  Yes.  Does being against gay marriage make someone anti-gay? Yes.  It is that simple.  We live in a country and exist in an academy where we can’t make value statements against those individuals standing on the wrong side of history and totally taking advantage and profiting from the homophobia they produce and I have a problem with that.

People are forming a metaphorical human shield around Robertson and the rest of his Duck Dynasty clan and I’m here to say that those individuals, defending him and toting the declaration that homosexuality is a sin are on the wrong side of history and people will not forget who stood on what side of that proverbial line in the sand when this is all over.

I no longer feel the need to save people who feel the same way as Robertson.  I no longer feel the need to educate them about how I am just like them but I just happen to like boys.  I no longer feel the need to explain, over and over again, that although Pope Francis stated: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?” it doesn’t make the Catholic church or any other similar fundamentalist or conservative faith-based tradition any less homophobic than they have been or erase the violent and hateful history to those groups who didn't fit their definition of normal.  

Is Pope Francis’ statement groundbreaking?  Yes.  Has Pope Francis, being the leader of the Catholic church and major social, political, and cultural influencer changed any type of church dogma pertaining to homosexuality?  No – and that’s the problem.  People and groups in power need to create the change that we all need to see in the world and until they and their cohorts are willing to do that, I will not sit idly by and feel bad for calling someone or something a homophobe and leaving it at that.  The time has come for activists from all walks of life, who no longer are willing to sit by and watch as their rights are taken away from them, to take up the reins and finish the hard work that our brother and sisters and not only fought but also died for. 

Lately, this problem has become all too personal.  From Facebook status’ that declare Robertson and his clan have the right to say whatever they want because the Bible told them so, to individuals who are openly upset (as they should be) about his statements, I know now that we no longer can live in a society where people can walk the line of the homosexuality argument, examine both sides, and come to the conclusion that it is wrong based on scripture – when you’re against homosexuality and you base your reasoning on your faith that God condemns it or that you’re simply following the teaching of Jesus, you’re wrong.  Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and Jesus, a man who hung out with the poor and downtrodden, wouldn’t be hanging out with Robertson and his homophobic brood who openly preach hate.  Jesus loved sinners and Jesus would rather be dancing with me in West Hollywood on a Friday night than lugging through a swamp luring ducks into a trap with a duck caller made by a clan who think that my sexual actions are similar to that of an individual having sex with an animal.

Call me simplistic or call me a reductionist, but whether or not you call someone a faggot to their face or behind their back doesn't make you any less homophobic.  Using hegemonic biblical texts that no longer define or reflect the views of many individuals from all walks of life fighting for gay and lesbian rights and emphasizing the correct usage of genitalia that deduce a minority class of citizens down to nothing more than whom they decide to love is homophobia plain and simple.  

Just like radical feminists in the 1970s who no longer stood by as patriarchal forces took away their personal, political, bodily, and social autonomy to the ways that African American refused to be silent about how they had (and have continued to be treated) by racists, homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual men and women can no longer remain still in the face of targeted hateful attacks upon our communities. Until religion, politics, and society treat LGBTQIA people as equals no one is safe and until people are held accountable, both publicly and privately, for their actions and statements, this world will never change.

I recently tweeted that: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s most likely a duck; and in this case, its most likely a family full of homophobes hiding behind a statement that lies near the condemnation of shellfish.”  I stand behind this statement and I stand behind the millions of LGBTQIA people who know more about G-d’s love than a man and family who claim to be deeply religious.

Although I find it difficult to understand at times, I respect the position of those individuals and groups that frequently contribute to this blog who choose to remain in these types of traditions and fix the various problems equal rights activists must overcome from the inside.  I am clearly not from this camp and although I claim no religious identity, I do respect their call to action to make a difference in many of the conservative religious and faith-based communities I may and may not have mentioned above.  From the fight for women’s rights to the inclusion of LGBTQIA people in religious communities, the fight for equality, in my opinion, needs a flare of the radical.  Historically, I would call this the Alice Paul vs. Carrie Chapman Catt debacle – while some individuals choose to cozy up to those individuals in power and work for change from the inside out there are those who will literally starve themselves to death just for the ability to taste freedom.  Both are valid and worthy of respect but what one, at the end of the day, will achieve the equality we all so crave? 

If the Duck Dynasty debacle has taught us anything, it isn’t that we live in a country where people like Phil Robertson (and many others) have the ability to say whatever they want by hiding behind the Bible but rather the fact that there are millions of people who only wish to have the same inalienable rights as he does and solely takes for granted.  To be able to walk down the street holding the hand of the one you love is a great feeling and an action that some of us aren't able to perform without fear.