I Am Me

Tuesday, February 28

I was watching Law and Order tonight, a rerun, of which I've seen before. The character Serena, an assistant district attorney, was fired for being too passionate, too warm-blooded, to prosecute justice.

She then asked, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?"

Her boss said no, no way. And her satisfied reply was, "Good...good."




It still makes my heart skip a beat when I realize a person might be fired for being a lesbian woman, a gay man, or just a queer individual.

It was like she wasn't playing her role well enough as the hard-ass, so they thought she was too soft-hearted, too warm-blooded, too passionate, to do her job well.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Maybe it might be harder on Serena to prosecute someone her emotions tell her might be innocent (when the logical evidence is compelling enough to warrant prosecution), but I don't see how passion, zealousness and soft-heartedness could impede an assistant district attorney's ability to do a job well.




I want to have a career where I can be passionate, where I am encouraged and pushed to be passionate about my work. I want the freedom to explore anything and everything about which my heart is curious or intrigued. I want the support, the gentle guidance, and the ability to see such a career become my reality.

Any ideas, suggestions, contacts into my dream world?

Kim 8:04 PM |

Tuesday, February 21

Excerpt from "An Odd Break with the Human Heart," by Elizabeth Mitchell

Now that we've broken the barriers that once kept us out of law schools and board rooms, we have unearthed another, more hidden source of many of our limitations: the human heart. Suddenly, we see a deeper and more beguiling force at work in constructing a self for ourselves. These are the commitments ot our loved ones and friends, and their dreams for us of a self that fits into their lives neatly and cozily, like a puzzle piece. These are the wishes of a parent or the sway of feminism on our career choices.

To overcome these forces, and to look at our lives autonomously, we need to shrug off what we women have been trained to care about above all else: other peopl, their thoughts, feelings, and concerns. We need to put the training we received when we cared for dolls into perspective. Or we will be compelled to experience only shadow lives.

This is not to say that everyone I know is held back by ties to their community. Many women I know have identified their own ambitions and-more importantly-their own desires, and have dared to be self-interested. But many others have not. None of us would question our abilities to do a job as well as a man, but too often we don't risk leaving our ministering roles to pursue our own vision. While we are able to focus on what we know would make us feel satisfied, we remain addicted to institutions-to schools, to workplaces, and to other symbols of accomplishment. The rules of our lives have been changed by the women's movement, but for many women, these rules have brought with them a new set of limits, not a new sense of freedom.

My mother keeps me on a long leash. I move away from home, traveling farther, earning more, putting off motherhood. She's very proud. Then I hear the soft swish of the chain in the dust. I am not exactly towed back in, but held at the run of my tether. I hear she's been asking my brothers, "Has she talked of children yet?"

In our society, babies have come to represent everything but unmaturated human beings. They function as the nexus for debate and discussion in a world changed by feminism. Few people expect women's love relationships to resemble those of our grandmothers or our mothers, but most still wonder how anyone could reject children. Babies were a safety net. If everything goes wrong in this wild new world of female emancipation, at least I can say that I bore children. For some, it is the doll that I need to qualify as a real girl.

But I don't want all the hope of life to reside in the beginning of a new human being. I want that anticipation to reside in an unborn part of myself, whether it be intellectual, spiritual, or emotional. I want to push myself toward this self-realization.

I suspect the true goal would be the perpetual pursuit of joy. In seeking joy, the agonies would not disappear - perhaps, in fact, happiness would rarely materialize - but the human gesture would be toward toward delight, and that pursuit must begin with the individual. Groups or movements can bring equality. Only individuals can achieve ecstasy.

Despite the fact that there are many influences from my community I have put off, part of what I am taking on in at least temporarily rejecting the demands of my family, my friends, my gender, is an option my mother-who loves to travel but rarely does, who adores journalism but gave it up for marriage and children-has always wanted me to have: the exquisite agony of being an individual and the awful luxury of feeling unsettled.




Damn. This is something I have totally identified with in the recent past: the rejection of children, the perpetual pursuit of joy, the exquisite agony of being an individual and the awful luxury of feeling unsettled.

Kim 8:43 AM |

Tuesday, February 14

STILL I RISE

Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history,
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

~excerpt from The Impossible Will Take a Little While: a citizen's guide to hope in a time of fear, edited by (who else?) Paul Loeb



Yeah, Maya! (She rocks my world!)

Kim 11:34 PM |

WE DON'T HAVE TO BE SAINTS

"Whatever our situations, we all face a choice. We can ignore the problems that lie just beyond our front doors; we can allow decisions to be made in our name that lead to a meaner and more desperate world. We can yell at the TV newscasters and complain about how bad things are, using our bitterness as a hedge against involvement. Or we can work, as well as we can, to shape a more generous common future."
~ Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

"Social involvement is the rent we pay for living."
~Marian Wright Edelman

"There's a process of dying that happens when you shut yourself off to the inequalities and injustices in front of you."
~ Corrine Kelly, massage therapist turned social activist

"Whatever propels us beyond the merely personal - be it awe at the power & mystery of nature, religious belief, outrage at the sight of another person suffering, or simply a sense that we can do better than we have - we each need to take that all-important step of bringing our private convictions into the larger public arena. Because that's where we'll find our common humanity."
~ Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

The 'perfect standard' assumes many forms. When sleeping in boxes outside overnight to dramatize the plight of the homeless, some students were ridiculed for not being pious enough. Yet, even had they demonstrated their commitment by standing in the rain until they became hypothermic, or by launching a hunger strike, odds are the critics still wouldn't have been satisfied. They would have turned their argument around, and accused the activists of being too holy, of taking things too seriously. Whatever the critique, the approach is the same: identify a perceived flaw, large or small, then use it to dismiss an entire effort.

To hear others invoke the 'perfect standard' is damaging enough. It's worse to subject ourselves to it. Whatever the issue, whatever the approach, we never feel we have enough knowledge or standing. If we do speak out, someone might challenge us, might find an error in our thinking, or an inconsistency - what they might call a hypocrisy - in our lives.
~ Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

"We have insidiously convinced ourselves that our wisdom is not wisdom, our common sense is not common sense, and our conscience is not conscience."
~ Marianne Williamson, spiritual writer

We don't dare speak out unless we feel prepared to debate Henry Kissinger on Nightline.
~ Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

"Most of us know it's tacky for families to sleep on the street, for children to attend crumbling and underfunded schools, for corporations to clear-cut thousand-year-old forests, and for politicians to sell their favors to the highest bidder. Merely by virtue of its complexity and sphistication, modern society makes moral engagement more difficult. We don't need to compound the problem by demanding perfection of expression.

The larger point is that social change always proceeds one way or another in the absence of absolute knowledge, as long as people are willing to follow their convictions, to act despite their doubts, and to speak even at the risk of making mistakes."
~ Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time

"If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out."
~Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher and poet

In this time of immense technological and economic change, many of us who've been active in social causes before feel daunted by both the size and the array of contemporary problems. Though we should know better, we sometimes feel we have to tackle everything at once. If our efforts don't instantly achieve dramatic results, we are quick to criticize ourselves, and doubt that our efforts can matter.

By assuming that you need to address every facet of the question, all at once, you become so overwhelmed you feel unable to take a public stance at all. Although I know you will reinvolve yourself in one cause or another down the line, your humane and thoughtful perspectives would only have enriched debate. Your pained silence exemplifies the predicament many fomerly active people find themselves in today. They remain caring and compassionate, but they've lost faith in their voices.

"There is no question about doing a perfect job, or always getting it right. 'Perfect' is simply NOT RELEVANT, whatever that would mean. What is important is that we be authentic. We should aspire to become 'good-enough activists'. Realize that our contributions still make a difference even if we don't win the Nobel Peace Prize."

We can pick one issue or another, this or that tactical style. As long as we act thoughtfully and generously, and don't trample people's lives in the pursuit of our causes, our efforts can help, whther or not we're certain about every facet of each issue.

We may also feel now isn't the 'best time.' If not now, when?
While we wait for the ideal time to arrive, weeks, months, years pass by. We squander repeated opportunities to involve ourselves in the larger community for causes whose justification may be imperfect and whose outcome is far from certain - in other words, causes that are real. The 'perfect stand' promotes endless deferral.

It's time to stop passing the buck, or 'deferring' the buck. Deal with the buck now, so that 10 years later, it's not a 10 ton brick wall Buck who now owns your land and you must move away or die. (Okay, a little dramatic, but you get my point)

Contrary to expectation, we're most effective when we realize that there is no perfect time to get involved in social causes, no ideal circumstances for voiceing our convictions. What each of us faces instead is a series of imperfect moments in which we must decide what to stand for. Choices may at times be thrust upon us. More often, we'll have to seek them out consciously, in contexts that don't always encourage them and sometimes when we don't feel ready. The wonder is that when we do begin to act, we often gain the knowledge, confidence, and strength that we need to continue.

Kim 3:10 PM |

Sunday, February 12

I Am Suffering

My pain is seen
if pain can be
measured
assessed
quantified.

My pain exists
whether you see it or not,
whether your eyes are open,
or your mind is closed.

I am in pain
and
I
am
suffering.

How callous, how self-absorbed
how busy
must you be
to not notice me?

Or worse, you
see my pain, my suffering,
and you do nothing.
Nothing.

No recognition,
No acknowledgement,
No response,
No reaction.

You may ignore my pain,
you may turn a blind eye to my suffering.
But I do not have to
Tolerate you.

I will be recognized, pain and all.
Do not swallow your discomfort,
Let it resonate with mine.
Let it build so you will have to
Stand up.

We are all suffering.
We can revolt.
Together.

But first, you must testify.
You must come clean.
You must say you saw me,
saw me helpless on the floor,
and you did nothing.
Nothing.

Except now, your statement,
your allocution is something.
Is Something.
Redemption?
Contrition?
Penance?
Something.

It's better than nothing.

Kim 10:47 PM |

Wednesday, February 8

Jackson To Release Pope Prayers?
Pop superstar Michael Jackson has been asked by the Roman Catholic Church to set the prayers of the late Pope John Paul II to music. The 47-year-old singer was chosen to write music for the 24 prayers and chants, after Vatican officials decided his global celebrity would best promote their holy message. Father Giuseppe Moscati says, "We have the rights for the 24 prayers written by Pope John Paul. We had hoped the fact that we have been in contact with Michael Jackson would remain a secret. But sadly it has leaked out ahead of time. We are in discussions and trying to sort it out." The priest, who is head of the Millennium Music Society, insisted Jackson's hard-won battle against child molestation charges did not discount him as a candidate. He adds, "He was cleared and found not guilty by a jury. Michael Jackson is very interested in this project - we shall see what happens."

http://imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-02-07/#7


hmmm.......the Catholic Church has joined forces with Michael Jackson to......set Pope John Paul II's prayers to music.

In other news, birds of a feather flock together...

Kim 5:43 PM |

Monday, February 6

Another good book I've just started: To Be Real, edited by Rebecca Walker. It's about the (new feminist) internal struggle that those with a conscious deal with all the time. You know, the struggle between the anti-corporation mindset you might have, and the cold brutal reality that you're too broke to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart. Or maybe you're vegetarian/vegan, and you discover one day an awesome pair of leather boots you simply can't resist. Or maybe you're a Christian, a man, a rich person, a poor person, or a family-oriented individual, and you still think you can't be who you are and still call yourself a feminist.

Then read this book.

I am.

I'll blog more about it after I finish it...

In the meantime, another academic update:
It's Monday of 9th week. I got a solid B on my 2nd test! I have 5 more days of math class, plus the final exam, and then I'm DONE! Oy, the real world is impending its doom on me...

The truth is - I like college. I really do. I like to learn new things all the time. I like having the intellectual discussions, being around others open-minded enough to facilitate conversation, suspend judgement in order to discuss something they normally would just discard.

I don't want my ideas to be discarded. I do not want to be ignored. I want to be recognized for the crazy, demented, cool person I am, and not be judged at the same time. Why can't we celebrate the "other" in every person? Why is "difference" made fun of and worth harassing and belittling from our very young childhood days?

Why can't the utopic parts of college life follow me wherever I go? Why should it cost $30,000 a year to get that kind of atmosphere? Why isn't it free, like healthcare should be?

Why are some of the best things in life so expensive? They should be free so everyone can have access to "the best things in life."

We are all equal. We all deserve equal job opportunities, equal healthcare, equal education, and equal voices in the political arena. One person=one voice=one vote. Period.

WHEN?!?!?!?

Kim 11:01 PM |

Sunday, February 5

I can't believe this was discussed in 1976! Maybe we don't need to reinvent the wheel for civil rights...just use the stuff we've already got!

January 10, 1976

The Gay Pagan's Manifesto

Although the text of this document as presented in the January 10, 1976, Gay Community News lists Tommi Avicolli as the author, the accompanying not states "below a group of gay pagans centered in Philadelphia states their reasons why they do not support the Christian or Jewish faith." It is a useful view of the diversity of religious exploration in the gay and lesbian community in the 1970s and an aspect not often discussed.

The recently passed California bill legalizing gay sex has, of course, come under attack by fundamentalists organizing to oppose the bill in a referendum next year. It seems likely they will at least succeed in getting the signatures they need to promote such an action. In other states, other cities, everywhere, wherever gay rights or anti-sodomy statutes have risen so have the crazies - the religious fanatics with their bibles, self-righteousness and their tales of impending doom. It's all so confusing to me that in the midst of this, gay church people are still urging us to cling to Christianity. But to give them the benefit of the doubt, let me examine briefly the HIStory of the Christian church!

The Jewish nomads settled in the promised land, a land ripe with patriarchy and father-right. Whatever remained of the former matriarchies had been washed away by the onslaught of the male deities Zeus, Jehova, Rama, etc. Some matriarchal influence remained in the pagan cults which the good Jews protected themselves from through such ordinances as the ban on homosexuality, on idolatry, etc., attempts to purge themselves from their neighbor's lifestyles.

The Jews were a small people, yet Christianity was born out of their patriarchal roots. Jesus, whom we're not even sure existed (read The Pagan Christ) established a new order. His was to be a church of love, yet his teachings speak only of "brotherhood" and of men, not of women. His only dealing with women seems to be the forgiving of a prostitute. What did he do with her afterwards? Was it for his own "convenience" that he forgave her?

Christianity was strongly misogynistic from the start. Paul denies the right of women to teach: he further asserts that Adam was innocent of the first sin. Writings of the early Church fathers also try and deny maternity, but in theological terms, of course! ICorinthians 11:8-9 said, "The man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man." It's not much different than the attempt in Genesis to deny maternity by depicting Eve's creation from Adam's rib. Clement in the second century A.D. said: "every woman should be overwhelmed with shame at the thought that she is a woman" (Elizabeth Gould David, The First Sex, p. 231). Thus echoing an earlier Jewish prayer and completing a full circle.

Later Christians sought out the witches, females who revived earlier systemic practices, and together with the faggots, burned them on the altars of male supremacy. A woman could be persecuted for the most obvious "crimes": lesbianism, refusal to have sex with a priest, and/or even striking back a husband who had just beaten her. Heresy was a catch-all charge, loaded and convenient for the medieval patriarchs to use any attempt on the part of women or faggots to break the chains of their oppression.

Modern Christians try to whitewash this tradition, apologizing for Paul and Clement, for the persecutions of the nine million women and countless faggots! Even the gay church apologists strive to make right the wrong of Christianity.

Christianity is based upon the belief that men are superior to women; witness Genesis. Witness the absence of any strong female deity. Mary is an impotent fertility figure probably robbed from the Egyptians. The main deities of the Christian faith are male. The basic creation myth of the Christians concerns a male god creating life, an impossible situation since only women biologically can give birth. Christianity is a good psychological study of womb envy on the part of the male sex, the envy to procreate.

Christianity punishes women for the first sin. Eve is told to bear children in pain as punishment, and to be subservient to her husband. In medieval times, women were denied the use of pain killer, belladonna, during childbirth because the church felt it was against God's will. After all, they said, women were meant to suffer in childbirth!

Christianity clearly declares gay love sick. The bible cannot be changed. Nowhere does it give us the freedom to love. All those vague passages about everything are of no use to any free-thinking gay person.

Christianity is a bigoted way of life. It segregates one person from others of different faiths, declaring them heretics and sinners: it promotes prejudice and male supremacy. In other times, christians waged holy wars against pagans and murdered millions of us. Today it wages these same wars in other ways, through political manipulations and economic control. Witness the defeat of Intro 554 at the hands of the Catholic Church!

It has never been accurately determined just how much wealth the Vatican has. Millions (if not all) of the poor could be fed on what the Catholic Church owns. Yet the Pope chooses to live like an aristocrat and to appease the poor with phony encyclicals and ridiculous pomp and circumstance.

The poor have been deluded by centuries of queer-baiting and sex role reinforcement done at the expense of their freedoms of choice to love and to be adequately fed and housed. The church helped the feudal lords oppress the masses, helped capitalism, and did nothing to stop Hitler in the '30s. The silence of the church during times of oppression only reinforces my own concept of it as concerned with its own patriarchal existence.

Christianity has most of all created a network of co-optation that can incorporate any current trend back into itself. A few years ago the church complained of dwindling members; now recently they're rejoicing at their growing numbers. A clever propaganda campaign? Probably not. Economic recession sends people back to their security blankets and Christianity is an easy crutch to lean on.

Christianity can even absorb gay liberation. It can pretend to be accepting and loving to us while all the time greedy to snatch our cooperation. What will the church of the future be like? Will gays be worshipping a male deity, marrying and establishing nuclear family units (2.8 adopted kids) and supporting holy wars in Vietnams? Will we be feeding the new popes and patriarchs? NO!

Christianity has attempted to co-opt feminism by setting up a token commission to study the status of women: and in some churches by ordaining women. Yet if it were truly feminist, it would burn the cathedrals and feed the poor, abolish male deitied, obliterate the nuclear family and allow us to love and live in total freedom. I don't trust Christianity, not in its most tolerating, liberal streak. It's fool's gold. I don't understand why gays find it necessary to apologize for their homosexuality by asserting that God loves them, too. The Christian's patriarchal God doesn't love dykes and faggots and queens. He's all of our fathers, the strict disciplinarian who for years told us to be women and men in the finest tradition of the sex-role system. Little ladies and gentlemen, pooh!

We are queers in the eyes of this male God. We are perverted. But we shouldn't be ashamed of this fact. We should realize that in this fact we are most free. Free to challenge the millions of years of oppression and persecution against gays and women for their violation of a sexist and male supremist theology, a theology based upon the twisted logic of man creating life through womb envy. Man has never created life; his HIStory is one of wars, violence, and persecutions.

This male god is my enemy. I do not ask any acceptance from him. I rejoice in my queerness. He is not my god, nor my savior. I await his destruction as I await the destrction of all homophobes.

There is no salvation in Christianity: only a continuation of our oppression as queers and as women. As free entities. As adrogynes. As pagans and atheists. As goddess worshippers. As earth lovers, as matriarchy seekers. The goddess lives. Paganism now!

Woo, baby...that was so intense, I may need to go lie down for a little bit. While I'm away, consider this:

- if God hates Fags, maybe God is also wrong. Maybe there is something higher, more noble than a deity who discriminates.

- maybe I know there will always be something higher than a discriminatory God.

- If you say God is homophobic, then I await his destruction as I await the destruction of all homophobes.

- someday, we will all live and love in total freedom. But that can never happen without people willing to fight for change.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that has."

~ Margaret Mead

Kim 10:48 AM |

Saturday, February 4

New Bedford doesn't raise teenagers to hate gays.

So what else is new? This sounds remarkably similar to a little town in Wyoming, with the murder of Matthew Shephard...

Hmm, so let's explore this a bit shall we? We have 2 remarkably similar "incidents", excuse me, "alleged incidents"...

In both cases, the following is true:
- both victims were gay males
- both alleged perpetrators were "homophobic" - i.e. hate homosexual males.
- both victims were seriously hurt or killed
- both crimes were motivated by a hate so seething, so deep, so evil, it defies fathoming.
- both towns of the perpetrators deny responsibility for these crimes, because hate is not a core value of the town.

Ok, but where did these perpetrators grow up? Mars? I think not. They were socialized by their respective hometowns, they were raised by parents/families in those hometowns, and you can't just dismiss this. Certain towns are not more hateful than others, but in every town there is someone who hates fags. It doesn't matter if there's hate in the town or not, it matters how the town tolerates that hate. If the town turn a blind eye, it is permissing this hate, treating it as a normal, allowablke response to homosexuals. If the town does anything less than condemning hate, they must claim some of the responsibility for the crimes that occurred. They encouraged the environment in the perps' hate grew.

Maybe Laramie and New Bedford didn't pull the trigger or knife on the victim, but they acknowleged it was okay to feel like thinking/committing this kind of hate crime is tolerable.

And that kind of tolerance from anyone is more than intolerable. It is unacceptable.

Kim 11:07 PM |