We do not believe in your god

You are not our elders

Many of your ‘morals’ are our ’sins’

But we believe in and support your freedom to believe what you believe and to live how you wish to live

All we ask in return is the same magnanimity, the same goodwill

Keep your noses out of our uteruses and homes

Out of our loved ones’ private lives and relationships

Keep your threats off of our president

We don’t want your ‘morals,’ we don’t want your lifestyle

We have come to our own ‘morals’ with careful analyses of lifetimes of evidence

We are happy with our ethical codes and happy to live in a country whose constitution guarantees us the right to follow them

We believe in individual freedom, not taking freedom away

We believe in love, not bigotry and hatred

We believe in peace, not war

We believe in unity, not division

And we believe that if you keep trying to foist your beliefs on the rest of us, you are a political campaign and not a church and therefore should be taxed, like the rest of us

May the Catholic Church, Focus on the Family, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stop their ideological tyranny

May these churches and organizations engage instead in the Christ-like behavior of helping those who are suffering, of providing community and resources for those in need

And may we all enjoy the freedoms guaranteed by our founding constitution and so bravely defended for generations

Sincerely,

The Liberated

Everywhere, USA

Tonight I attended a panel discussion in which I could not get the space to phrase some simple questions. This is not to say that I feel the space was not allowed me, nor anyone else, but that there were, at all the wrong moments (for my little question(s)), many other people wishing to share commentary. And so it was that I was not able to ask my questions of the esteemed panel comprised of Phyllis Jackson, Judith Halberstam, Yong Soon Min, Amelia Jones, and Jennifer Doyle. While my questions remain, I now have- at least- the ability to better articulate the ruminatory peregrinations that my mind made during the volleyed commentary between panelists and audience members alike.

My primary question is: How can we (who label ourselves feminists, or more particularly, radical feminists) show everyone else that feminism is The Answer? I know, I know: the last two words of that last sentence will turn off many critical, educated postmodern theorists simply by implying a unified anything. I posit that we can sidestep that problem by allowing the radical, liberatory definition of feminism that I have learned from studying bell hooks which is, simply, that feminism is for Everybody (for the whole, unified entirety of humanity- Everybody!!) The definition of feminism in this case implies that it is a universal solution to a universal problem: oppression (which we may also call patriarchy). Liberation from oppression: feminism crumbling the walls of patriarchy. How do we show all of society that the feminist rejection of hierarchy and oppression, whether it be on the basis of race, sex, class, nationality, sexuality, physical ability, etc., is to everyone’s benefit? How do we show that even those amongst us who appear the most privileged have the benefit of a healthier society and a greater ability to express their true selves in a feminist context?

Professor Doyle referred to writing by Audre Lorde in which she exhorts those that are meeting, perhaps policy-making, to look around at each other and note who is missing. In any organization, who is missing that will clearly not be representing themselves? Who must we represent in our conversations? Professor Jackson made a great point: younger feminists were missing from the panel. I would add that older feminists (older than 60) were also missing from the panel. The question I really wanted to raise was . . . where were the men? This is, of course, tied to my conclusion that (obviously) mainstream society is not aware that feminism is for everybody, but more importantly: why didn’t anyone bring up the lack of 1) male-created feminist art in the WACK! exhibit and 2) the possible damage that may be done to feminism when it is represented in such a public way as simplistically “for, by, and about women” and 3) the panel’s lack of male members.

This concerns me because I work with young people, aged 12-18 years old. I teach them in the classroom, but I also work with them in an activist context, as the faculty advisor to the campus gay-straight alliance. Our GSA has explored the liberatory benefits to all people when we educate the campus on Transgender Day of Remembrance, National Coming Out Day, etc. The GSA members know that anti-racist work is directly tied to anti-homophobic work and anti-sexist work. We’re still working on class issues, but they are seeing the connections. I have used the word feminism once with the GSA students. When I did, the hint of snickers and sideways glances from some of the students indicated to me that for these children, feminism is the real “f” word. Feminism, to them, conjures what the anti-feminist backlash has intended for it to conjure: angry, white, queer women yelling about outdated concerns. I’m quite sure that this is as far as the young people who have not been radicalized into really learning about feminism go. They have not learned that feminism is an academic lens that deconstructs oppression of all sorts. They have not learned that, in the process of making women and men equal, all sexes benefit and that this equality-producing-universal-benefit is true in terms of all other (apparent) binaries (race, class, etc.) With my young students, I avoid using the word “feminism” just as I avoid using the word “anarchism.” The media messages regarding these terms are too strongly negative for me to approach them directly. Therefore, I have been challenged to articulate around the terms . . . which, in fact, is a very effective way to teach lasting knowledge.

These young people can make the intellectual leap from anti-homophobic work to anti-racist work. My impression is that they are not able to make the intellectual leap from feminism as the outdated and angry to feminism as the utterly relevant and inclusive. Professor Halberstam raised the question of the pieces in the exhibit that represent the female body in a selfless way- as object. She described them as disarming, as unexpectedly political. [I was not taking notes: this is me paraphrasing what she said (corrections welcome!)] She pointed out that these pieces used a patriarchal expectation of women as the medium for feminist expression. This was intriguing as Professor Halberstam described the pieces, but also intriguing to me because this is not how feminism is represented in mainstream media, which is where my students have learned anything they may know about feminism. What my students have learned is the image of reactionary feminism. Feminism that has had ENOUGH! of patriarchal, sexist bullshit and is ready to say something about it. What Professor Halberstam described were pieces that could be described as a kind of evocative feminism . . . by hooking a crochet needle (if you will) through one part sympathy and one part fury and one part identification and one part sadness, a feminist might be made. This is not the feminism we see in mainstream media.

In fact, this is not the kind of activism we ever see in the media, because it’s not the form that activism most often takes. For every anti-war or anti-Bush demonstration I go to, I have the choice of myriad contingents to join. All but one of them intend to hold many signs and to be vocal. The one group that I have never (yet) chosen to join is the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. While I am affiliated with the group, I have not walked with the group in silence at a large demonstration nor sat in quiet meditation off to one side. When making this decision, the question I always ask myself is: how long can I be angry? Is this the time to reject reaction and to NOT just do something, but to sit there? Until now, I’ve decided that my daily life is the peaceful activism of intentional community and cultivated compassion and that the demonstrations are the time to speak up and protest loudly against the white supremacist capitalist [imperialist] patriarchy that is literally in the way of every beautiful possibility on the planet. To be sure, there are ways to subvert that power structure (what I do when I find a place of compassion inside myself or when my community consenses on a decision after much discussion.) However, these subversions are lost in the onslaught of media images of gyrating hipsters listening to their iPods in a false reality of materialistic bliss. What I am protesting is that denial of a voice for our subversive collectives in an age when product consumption is identity and representation is reserved for the highest bidder. At the same time, I am living one alternative and sometimes documenting such.

This may be where the schizophrenic requirement to be at the center and also in the margins, as a few people mentioned during the panel / audience discussion, arises: a movement requires visibility and representation, but is at the same time so much more than what most people will ever see and could ever try to represent. Perhaps this is where our imperative, those who would call ourselves feminists, arises. We must represent ourselves. I consider myself a radical feminist, and my questions may serve to represent not only me, but perhaps other radical feminists: Where were the men tonight on the panel, and how can we get a widespread embrace of feminism as a present solution rather than as a historic event?

“Diana-LAEV”

I pause, realize that she has long left that hospital room and is now deceased, and delete the entry. The millisecond of the cellular phone’s processor losing the number happens, the phone screen mopped up by a sopping digital rag. The completion sees pixels fading into the center of the screen, similar to when a text message has been sent. Only this time, a trace of Diana has vanished. That’s when I realize that this is just the beginning. My friend L.A. has a book of hand-written and typed poetry of Diana’s. She wrote some of the poems when she was in college, in the sixties. The most recent one was written in July of last year. The other night I leafed through the binder, identifying with some lines of poetry and finding others quaintly amusing. I didn’t know that Diana wrote poetry. For now, we have this artifact to prove that she did. To represent her thoughts and hopes. To paint a picture of who she was. Yet this binder will not last forever. Just as my cellular phone entry disappeared into the ether, so will the poetry binder meet its end. And another piece of Diana will vanish. Like that. Her friends will forget details of times spent together. Her students will forget things that she taught. Of course, these people will take a part of Diana with them throughout their whole lives, until they die. But they will die. And with them, so will those pieces of Diana.

In June I will leave the school where I teach. The traces of my existence will slowly fade until none of the students at the school will be aware that I was ever there. This is okay. What I’m more concerned about are the seeds that I can only hope I have planted in the minds of my students.

I know that the voice that speaks through each of us is an ancient voice. Whenever we speak with someone of an older generation, what they share with us has been shaped by their conversations with those of older generations and older generations and older generations back to the beginning of human time. No person has existed without communicating with a person of the generation before them. In this way, we each speak the knowledge of the first humans capable of speech . . . and of those that followed. And, in this way, we each have ancient wisdom to share with the children on the planet. What I have shared with my students has been one part a fleeting snapshot of the state of chemistry and physics and another part a window into a vast reservoir of thought and creativity. I hope that the seeds that have been planted were those that will serve us all best to be carried into the future.

It’s similar to the blood of our ancestors flowing through us and into our children. Life, itself, is a message we are given and that we pass along. Richard Dawkins refers to this in his book River Out of Eden (which, once upon a time, my high school biology teacher assigned (thank you, Mr. Gabler)). The sanctity of (all) life is most apparent when we consider the large numbers of beings that were not successful in reproducing. So many streams of our river have wandered off to dwindle and then evaporate away. Yet we are all here (and all living creatures are here) because our ancestors were on the successful branch(es) of the river of life which, as I’ve mentioned, we may pass on to our children, if we have children.

Regarding this, some may say that the biological urge to reproduce is what makes our species successful; that it’s a good thing. I’ve been of the opinion lately that the queering of the population, leading to fewer reproductive and to more adoptive choices, is the best thing for us now. It doesn’t seem biologically positive to populate until we are barely holding onto this planet, worried for our future and squeezed into oblivion. Right now is the perfect time to make non-reproductive unions and welcome children that we may not have spoken life into, but whom we can speak wisdom to.

I can still hear Diana’s words in my mind. I thank her for the coded wisdom she has passed to me in her life anecdotes and her fears about death and her self-damnation for the cancer that took her life. Her parents, grandmother and her teachers have spoken to me in her voice. I bow to them all and those that came before them for having sent the messages that I have received and begun to decode.

My friend L. [feminine principle] insists that she has not one, but seven, clitorises. Upon sensing my skepticism, she elaborates: she and D. [masculine principle] passionately copulate, upon occasion (when he shows interest.)  These seven clitorises make the act explosively satisfying. Upon sensing my skepticism still yet, and in spite of sensing my disgust, she begins to disrobe in order to show me her mighty parts. They are suddenly filling my field of view, seven “clitorises” in a vertical line, large plastic light-up buttons of different colors, alternately glowing and fading, dominating her vulva.

Fascinating, indeed. I must agree.

Wake up. Roll over. Dilapidated building, empty but for one tenant as the remaining units are gutted for remodeling. Shaded courtyard, unkempt with fallen leaves from the shade tree and broken concrete, maze made of sections of fence. I can’t find my way back out immediately, and a low-level panic begins to roll in. As I am finally walking away from the complex, I remember that N. used to live there. And to think- I almost lived there.

Walk down the street, see F.B. In high school he was a nerd. He seems more interesting today. We begin to talk, and after some time a bus arrives. Only it’s a diner. And so many people pour out of it, I’m beginning to wonder . . . D.G., K.K., people whose names I don’t remember. D.G. and I decide to make a congo line. Some people join us, others are busy talking.

Wake up. Get on my bicycle.

Dark street, temperature suddenly drops as humidity rises and Orion blazes out of the deep black sky. The universe sends a greeting more than a million years ago and here I am, receiving it. Hello, old friend! Long time, no see. Betelgeuse is a pinpoint ruby, refracting a moving light source, strobing at the cosmic disco with a red filter over the source. Orion’s gushing shoulder injury. Or sparkling brooch. My retina absorb its scarlet treasures, savored photons firing my neurons.

The freewheel clicks away.

Get home. Roll over. Wake up.

Lately my attention, ever so protected from distraction so that I may create beauty and life in spite of the ugliness and death that one may see so often in the news, in other people, in the air . . . has been drawn into the ugliness. My attention has been taken, despite myself, as I increasingly cannot ignore the fact that my tax dollars and my nation of citizenry are being used to destroy those values that I hold dear and reinforce those patterns that destroy life.

It is easy, in this patriarchal, homophobic, philosophically intolerant, over-consumptive time and place where intellectualism is vilified and war is waged to dismiss someone like me and my views. I am a young queer woman who chooses humility- to ride a bicycle and eat low on the food “chain,” to aspire to follow the eightfold path of Buddhist teachings- rather than accept the dominant culture of immediate gratification interwoven with Death with a capital “D.” I am a Feminist with a capital “F,” militant without being violent. That is to say, I believe all men and all women should be free to be who they dream to be, regardless of whether a man will be able to support a family being that person or a woman will be conventionally beautiful as that person. We should all have the freedom of realizing self-actualization. That is feminism.

I am also a scientist that doesn’t take myself too seriously, and a teacher that desires to share a healthy and peaceful planet with my students rather than just knowledge. For all of these reasons, it is clear that I don’t support George W. Bush or his regime and I never have- I did not vote for him in 2000 and, when in his first few months in office he reneged on the Kyoto protocol, I had already had enough. Now that affront to the rest of the planet is forgotten in a slew of affronts and outright war crimes and human rights crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration. But I’m just an angry feminist queer, right?

Think Again.

I grew up in a highly conservative household. I was raised on evangelical Christianity, Republicanism, and Focus On the Family readings. I was a “Young Republican” in early high school, later a self-defined “Libertarian” (thank you, Ayn Rand.) I’m a Daughter of the American Revolution. I’ve heard all of the arguments about all of the controversial issues a conservative can make. I’m not categorically in opposition to all of them. But I AM categorically in opposition to leadership the likes of Bush and all of the politicians in D.C. that are supporting him. And I will be in the streets, along with thousands in LA and as yet untold numbers in over 175 places throughout the United States on October 5^th, protesting Bush and the course he has taken this nation.

I remember the time when my father signed me up with the Daughters of the American Revolution. He had spent parts of his free time for the last decade or so doing intense genealogical research on his (and my mother’s) family, eventually discovering that someone in our ancestry fought in the American Revolution. This is the only criterion for becoming a member of the Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution. So he sent the evidence in and suddenly he and I were members of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution (but my mother wasn’t, because it wasn’t her ancestor that fought.) I was in college. I quickly heard from friends that the Daughters of the American Revolution have an unfortunate history of racism and nationalism.

As part of my joining the Daughters of the American revolution, my father sent the Daughters my email address, so I would get periodic Southern California Daughters of the American Revolution email updates about gatherings and whatnot. Well, one of those emails had a homophobic, nationalist and militaristic joke in it, which implied that French soldiers are all gay because they aren’t as interested in war-mongering as American soldiers apparently are. I was so disgusted by the email that I deleted it. And then I immediately deleted it from my trash box. And then I kicked myself because I had just lost my chance to write a scathing reply to the violent homophobe that had sent it and everyone else on the list. Soon after that, I was graduated from college and I lost that email address. I no longer receive emails from the Daughters of the American Revolution that insult other people and my intelligence. Good riddance.

I am, however- still and forever, because I can’t change my ancestry- a Daughter of the American Revolution. As such, and as an American citizen generally, I will demonstrate on October 5^th as part of the World Can’t Wait- Drive Out the Bush Regime! demonstration. I will demonstrate against the Bush regime for taking the nation that my ancestor fought to liberate from empire and that subsequent ancestors worked their entire lives- in factories, in offices, in fields, in homes, and even in the military- to create. They created the wealth of this country and upheld the early ideals of this country and served this country in whatever ways they knew how. My father’s ancestors have served this country since its inception and my mother’s ancestors have served this country since the early 20^th century. I will demonstrate on October 5^th in all of their names.

I understand that this country’s wealth has been created first on the backs of slaves from Africa and forever on the backs of those with the least monetary wealth and more recently on the backs of people in developing countries, but I also recognize that many Americans today and many Americans in the past didn’t realize these scaled power structures, repeated from international dynamics to class dynamics and race dynamics, etc. It is in the idealized America that my ancestors placed their faith, and it is the Bush Regime’s erasure of that America and worldwide endangerment of America and Americans that I will protest.

On October 5^th, with respect for the ideals with which this nation was conceived, such as democratic representation and division of powers and the agency of the people that are governed to demand justice and a government that reflects their best interests, I will demonstrate. The zeitgeist producing this nation and its founding ideals are clearly described in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I recognize that every government is established by idealists, truly believing that their form of government will lead to a peaceful and prosperous existence. I also recognize that, while the founders of the United States of America had very clear ideals, shaped by the fire of tyrannical rule by a foreign king, they were also racist and engaged in a genocide of the indigenous peoples on this continent. Our history is a shameful one. I am proud of the ideals, and not proud of the hatred and killing that came alongside those ideals. Even at the beginning of this nation, those that called themselves citizens of the United States did not see the blatant connection between the imperialism they were escaping by declaring their independence and the imperialism they were perpetuating by claiming a land and murdering its people.

The clauses of the Declaration of Independence following the one above are a litany of the abuses suffered by residents of the British colonies under the thumb of the king of Britain. These are the abuses shaping the “absolute despotism” that motivated the colonists to “throw off” the king’s rule and declare themselves an independent nation.

Most of the abuses directly describe the tactics taken up by the Bush regime. More importantly, the arrogant, imperialistic, militaristic and self-interested attitude defining all of them equally describe the Bush regime’s actions. The founders of this nation declared this type of ruler a despot. They used the lessons from the oppression and suffering endured under the king to create a nation where such abuses would not happen again. And yet, before our very eyes, the Bush regime is bucking all of those protective devices against intolerance and despotism- the right to one’s own religion, the separation of powers, the right to privacy and fair trial . . . the list doesn’t end. It is time to throw off this government. This government that not only doesn’t represent most U.S. citizens’ best interests, but doesn’t represent the United States, as a nation’s, best interest as it perpetuates our “addiction to oil” and our military-industrial complex that, while it fattens the pockets of Bush’s CEO friends, places our nation at the top of every list of most despised peoples. We are despised for allowing our government to get so out of hand that the health of the global ecosystem and the life of people all over the planet are ominously at risk, both indirectly through our refusal to take responsibility for the planet’s health or directly, as the targets of our weapons.

As a Daughter of the American Revolution and as an American citizen, both labels conferred upon me not through any particular virtue of my own but by happenstance of my birth, I declare this government despotic and demand that the Bush regime step down and take its program with it. Please join me on October 5^th, in the town or city that you live in, to demand the same. It is our patriotic duty.

The World Can’t Wait- Drive Out the Bush Regime!

Yesterday I went to see my friend L.M. perform a somewhat intense tragicomic monologue that she had written about three years ago. This was her second time performing it. It was interesting to see and even more interesting to see the audience’s response, juxtaposed to my response. I think “comedy” stems from either a sense of identification or a sense of shock. I laughed throughout her whole piece, even though I also had tears in my eyes at one part, because I identified with what she said. From what I could observe, the audience laughed every so often because they were shocked by what she was saying. They were shocked by the idea that an anarchosocialist activist could be a “nice girl.” They were shocked by the discussion of using therapy and gardening and any other reasonable method to try to mediate intense feelings of anger. They were shocked at the idea of having a physical altercation with a parking code enforcer. They were shocked by what would be a politically incorrect portrayal of Italian families if any of them tried to convey the same information.

I identified with many of her experiences / statements. I don’t even know how much of what she said is true of her own life, and how much was created for comedic effect. But I feel that much more grateful to have L. as my friend knowing that she understands my experience in a deep way, whether from personal experience or from intuiting the array of realities in which people find themselves from her studies of human behavior. In either case, she’s a genius in her execution and in her ability to draw the comedy out of the tragic.

Listening to her reminded me of Thich Nhat Hanh and some of the books he has written regarding anger. One viewpoint that I derived from those readings is recognizing immediate emotional responses to situations as seeds for greater, widely-encompassing vines that can either support and tie all of our psychological pieces together (joy) or break through and create crumbling fissures between those pieces (anger). We can choose to water the seeds of joy and weed out the seeds of anger. L. talked about viewing her garden as a metaphor for her life, with the cultivation of the beautiful and nourishing plants as a symbol for her cultivation of the positive in her life and the weeding of the plants that she did not want as the removal of the anger in her life. I think Thay would find that a beautiful practice. So long as we also recognize that the plants that we do not want are valuable, in their own right. They provide oxygen and food and habitat for other organisms, just like our anger provides insight into our core beliefs and fears.