Last August, I was asked to start a blog as part of a class requirement. At the time, I was anxiously uncertain. I've never thought of myself as a blogger, or as a potential blogger, or as someone who would ever in their little life do anything remotely blog-like. Part of it is my general aversion to social media...I cling to the idea of a quiet, inward life that I share with actual friends. You know...in person. As in, not on the internet.
But it was also largely because I had no idea why I'd do it. As far as I saw it, there were three kinds of blogs. The first are the genuinely awesome blogs that have been around for a long time and work collectively with multiple writers. In that sense, me starting a blog would be like starting another non-profit - why would I try and go out on my own when thousands of others are already doing what I'm doing, but better? Wouldn't it be smarter for me to just link up with another blog? Shouldn't I be the bigger person and resist individualism, here?
The second kind of blog are the grounded, personal kinds of blogs my friends have made to connect with other friends while they embark on their adventures. I was not leaving a well-paid corporate job to couch surf to the midwest, nor was I traveling to South America for two years, or anything at all romantic worth blogging about. My life is comparatively quite simple, really.
The third kind of blog, which most blogs are in my opinion, is pure self-promotional navel-gazing. I don't know why, but I was fairly sure that if I started a blog, it would be like that. It seemed to me that writing about my thoughts and feelings on a public cyber format for the multitudes to read seemd kinda...conceited.
But then I started blogging, and you know what? I realized that it didn't have to be self-aggrandizing after all! In fact, blogging came shockingly naturally to me. Rather, I should say, writing comes quite naturally to me, and blogging is just a more public form of writing. After working out the early kinks of the Academic Voice I'd straight-jacketed myself into over the years, I unearthed a warmer, more casual voice. I remembered how much I had loved to write, to find the narrative, to arch the narrative back to a meaningful point. I remembered how to discover these points as I was writing, to start writing without really knowing what I was saying until I knew I had already said it. And remembering the sense of aliveness in writing, not for an assignment or because I had to, but out of the love of it.
More importantly, I soon found that I had. Something. To. Say.
And (ah, here comes the aggrandizing!) I feel as though this blog has been some of the best scholarship I've produced in graduate school. If not the best, it has undoubtedly been the most meaningful. It keeps me fresh. It keeps me thinking. It keeps me honest. It challenges me to put out to known and unknown public eyes truths that I am not always so sure of, and others that I feel profoundly to be certain. It has called on me to articulate in old and new ways a progressive vision of the world. It has reminded me that the part of me that believes in fighting for this newer, better world has not been snuffed out by the academy, or upstate New York. It has reminded me of why I came here, and what I will do when I leave.
Writing this blog has shown me that there is a fourth kind of blog - the kind where the dorkish among us work out our vision. It's okay with me if no one reads it. It's okay with me if I spend an hour writing a post instead of volunteering. It's okay with me because life is, after all, a strenuous briefness, and I still have a lot to think about.
I'm not sure how long I will maintain this, but I am committed to riding it out a long as it still seems worthwhile. And during this week where we seem to suddenly remember to be gracious, I thank you, dear readers, for joining me in the struggle and the celebration of the blogosphere.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Resentful giving
Shortly after I first moved here, one of my neighbors - let's call him Bill - knocked on the door. It was evening time, pouring with rain, and the sun had long since gone down. He wanted my roommate, Paul, to drive him back to the mall to return a television he'd bought that he decided he didn't want. Paul wasn't home, so instead I called Bill a cab. We chatted for a few minutes until the cab came, and then he went on his way.
This was my first mistake. Afterward, Bill became a regular visitor. He'd knock on our door at least twice a week asking for any number of things. Rides. Bread. Coffee filters. Light bulbs. Eggs. Batteries. He always promised to 'return the favor,' and never did - it's not that we ever expected or asked him too. At first it was a nuisance, then it came to feel invasive. Bill liked to sit on the front deck of our apartment (he lived in the adjacent apartment, so it was technically a shared stoop) and he'd go off on long winded stories whenever we left or entered the house. I found him harmless until he started calling me his girlfriend and telling me how he was going to marry me. Then I stopped answering the door. When Paul wasn't home, I kept all the lights off except for my bedroom so Bill wouldn't think anyone was home. I dreaded exiting and entering the apartment when I saw his shadowy figure on the stoop, and a I felt similarly every time the doorbell rang and I hid in my bedroom.
After about six months at this apartment, I moved. Now, Bill was not the only or even the primary reason I moved, but he was certainly a pretty good reason. Bill showed me the luxury of having a space whose boundaries and possessions were not challenged. My class privilege now allows me the wonders of an apartment where nobody ever asks me for anything.
But there is more to the story than just me cashing in on my class privilege and relocating. Bill was a middle-aged black man who I'd gauge as working class. Bill reminded us of our race and class privilege in an uncomfortable way - by asking us for stuff, and us being too white-bread polite to say 'get off my porch and stop asking me to give you stuff I bought for myself, jerko.' So we enabled him to keep asking. We felt used and put upon, but neither of us told Bill that we'd rather him not consider us his own personal corner store anymore. I think that's because we believed we should give Bill what he asked for, even though we didn't want to. Bill saw two white graduate students and figured we could probably spare these things. And we could. To be honest, I'm fairly sure Bill could have, too. But that's really not the point. He asked, we gave...although we weren't very happy about it. That is the point - why were we giving so begrudgingly?
Let me tell you another uncomfortable story.
I never give money to people who ask me on the street. And I mean no one - I don't even donate to charity causes. This is a decision I came to many years ago, although it is not one that has gotten easier with every refusal. I remain as nervous and awkward and inwardly scrutinizing about saying 'no' to financial assistance or charitable giving on the street as I have always been.
There are panhandlers who pop up from time to time on the main street by my current apartment. There is a middle aged white woman, always cleanly dressed, who has asked me rather politely for money upwards of two dozen times in the year and a half I've been here. Even though I always refuse her, she asks again and again, even when I cross her path multiple times in the same afternoon. I hadn't seen her for a while, but she was stationed by the laundromat earlier today.
First, let me say that, after I refused her for the first time on my way out of the laundromat, I went out of my way to avoid refusing her again, to the point of walking all the way around the block to get back to the laundromat. I realize this is ridiculous. I felt ridiculous doing it. But that is how deeply the ickiness of class consciousness sits with me, to where I would walk considerably out of my way to not have to 'deal with' the discomfort of refusing her. (Never mind the discomfort she likely feels in constantly asking and being refused.)
When I left the laundromat again, I saw her a few paces away and prepared myself for another refusal. But a different panhandler, one sitting on the bench beside the laundromat, got to me first. He is another regular, a white, middle-aged man who was disheveled, dressed in dirty clothes, and did not appear to have bathed for some time. I'm fairly sure he has sustained brain damage from many years of substance abuse. "Can you spare some change?" he asked, his garbled voice hinting as much. I chirped my usual, "No, sorry!" and marched onward.
I thought after just witnessing me turn down this man, the woman wouldn't bother. But as I walked by, she piped up. "That's why people won't give me money."
I paused, not sure if she'd said what I thought she had said. "What's that?"
"Him looking like that; people not taking care of themselves. That's why people won't give me money."
"Oh." I laughed nervously, then raised my bottle of detergent in a half wave. "Well, take care!"
So I'm really not good at these things. Reflecting on them gives me that twisty feeling inside, because I'm not happy about turning down these folks and I'm also pretty certain I'll continue to turn them down. And I do realize I'm being hard on myself. We all have the right to a quiet, safe home life and to not have to speak to people we don't wish to speak to or give money when we do not want to - some of us, however, have greater access to this than others. Some of us can opt out of walking on the main streets. Some of us do not have to leave the house to wash our clothes. Some of us can drive cars instead of taking public transportation. Some of us can avoid living where poor people live. Some of us can avoid being poor.
What struck me, though, is how the woman blamed the other man for ruining her business. I'm decent and he's not, she seemed to be saying. How will people give me money if they associate me with him? As I walked away from the pair, I wondered whether there was a hierarchy of panhandling. We know that resentment is directed down the class hierarchy, not up - and the woman, rather than see an ally in the man, saw him as a drain on her game. We resent the presumed imposition of the poor in the same way the woman resented the imposition of someone who was - visibly, at least - poorer that she was. It's interesting to me that she thought that wearing nicer clothes (she was dressed better than me, but since I was in sweats, that wasn't saying much) would mean a higher yield. I wondered if it was true - does looking more 'respectable' make it easier to give?
Then I remembered Bill. Nah, I thought. It's always a pain in the ass.
And then after I thought that I felt pretty heartless again.
I see two sides to this resentful giving. The first is the classist part. We only want to give when we feel like it, when it suits us, when we don't have to be contaminated by the process of being begged or goaded. The begging and the goading taints the high-minded philanthropy we fancy. Their asking feels like an imposition - because it is an imposition. It is an imposition on our privilege to gallivant through life without being put upon to give anything up. "This is my money/batteries/porch! You can't have it!" That sort of unfortunate childishness.
The second side is perhaps more forgiving. Because people with a whole lot less than me are also asked by the Bills and panhandlers to give, and I doubt they are happy about it all the time, either. Sometimes we do have to (gulp) say 'no.' Giving can be endless, and unless you can detach any emotion from your bread or your money, it's always going to result in resentful giving. It's on us to do the reflective work to figure out where it is that we will give, and how.
Short-term payments are reactive and stunted...they ensure the system lives on...and sometimes if we do give, we have to be at peace with that, too. The point is to always be doing other things that will, hopefully, make it so one day no one will have to ask.
This was my first mistake. Afterward, Bill became a regular visitor. He'd knock on our door at least twice a week asking for any number of things. Rides. Bread. Coffee filters. Light bulbs. Eggs. Batteries. He always promised to 'return the favor,' and never did - it's not that we ever expected or asked him too. At first it was a nuisance, then it came to feel invasive. Bill liked to sit on the front deck of our apartment (he lived in the adjacent apartment, so it was technically a shared stoop) and he'd go off on long winded stories whenever we left or entered the house. I found him harmless until he started calling me his girlfriend and telling me how he was going to marry me. Then I stopped answering the door. When Paul wasn't home, I kept all the lights off except for my bedroom so Bill wouldn't think anyone was home. I dreaded exiting and entering the apartment when I saw his shadowy figure on the stoop, and a I felt similarly every time the doorbell rang and I hid in my bedroom.
After about six months at this apartment, I moved. Now, Bill was not the only or even the primary reason I moved, but he was certainly a pretty good reason. Bill showed me the luxury of having a space whose boundaries and possessions were not challenged. My class privilege now allows me the wonders of an apartment where nobody ever asks me for anything.
But there is more to the story than just me cashing in on my class privilege and relocating. Bill was a middle-aged black man who I'd gauge as working class. Bill reminded us of our race and class privilege in an uncomfortable way - by asking us for stuff, and us being too white-bread polite to say 'get off my porch and stop asking me to give you stuff I bought for myself, jerko.' So we enabled him to keep asking. We felt used and put upon, but neither of us told Bill that we'd rather him not consider us his own personal corner store anymore. I think that's because we believed we should give Bill what he asked for, even though we didn't want to. Bill saw two white graduate students and figured we could probably spare these things. And we could. To be honest, I'm fairly sure Bill could have, too. But that's really not the point. He asked, we gave...although we weren't very happy about it. That is the point - why were we giving so begrudgingly?
Let me tell you another uncomfortable story.
I never give money to people who ask me on the street. And I mean no one - I don't even donate to charity causes. This is a decision I came to many years ago, although it is not one that has gotten easier with every refusal. I remain as nervous and awkward and inwardly scrutinizing about saying 'no' to financial assistance or charitable giving on the street as I have always been.
There are panhandlers who pop up from time to time on the main street by my current apartment. There is a middle aged white woman, always cleanly dressed, who has asked me rather politely for money upwards of two dozen times in the year and a half I've been here. Even though I always refuse her, she asks again and again, even when I cross her path multiple times in the same afternoon. I hadn't seen her for a while, but she was stationed by the laundromat earlier today.
First, let me say that, after I refused her for the first time on my way out of the laundromat, I went out of my way to avoid refusing her again, to the point of walking all the way around the block to get back to the laundromat. I realize this is ridiculous. I felt ridiculous doing it. But that is how deeply the ickiness of class consciousness sits with me, to where I would walk considerably out of my way to not have to 'deal with' the discomfort of refusing her. (Never mind the discomfort she likely feels in constantly asking and being refused.)
When I left the laundromat again, I saw her a few paces away and prepared myself for another refusal. But a different panhandler, one sitting on the bench beside the laundromat, got to me first. He is another regular, a white, middle-aged man who was disheveled, dressed in dirty clothes, and did not appear to have bathed for some time. I'm fairly sure he has sustained brain damage from many years of substance abuse. "Can you spare some change?" he asked, his garbled voice hinting as much. I chirped my usual, "No, sorry!" and marched onward.
I thought after just witnessing me turn down this man, the woman wouldn't bother. But as I walked by, she piped up. "That's why people won't give me money."
I paused, not sure if she'd said what I thought she had said. "What's that?"
"Him looking like that; people not taking care of themselves. That's why people won't give me money."
"Oh." I laughed nervously, then raised my bottle of detergent in a half wave. "Well, take care!"
So I'm really not good at these things. Reflecting on them gives me that twisty feeling inside, because I'm not happy about turning down these folks and I'm also pretty certain I'll continue to turn them down. And I do realize I'm being hard on myself. We all have the right to a quiet, safe home life and to not have to speak to people we don't wish to speak to or give money when we do not want to - some of us, however, have greater access to this than others. Some of us can opt out of walking on the main streets. Some of us do not have to leave the house to wash our clothes. Some of us can drive cars instead of taking public transportation. Some of us can avoid living where poor people live. Some of us can avoid being poor.
What struck me, though, is how the woman blamed the other man for ruining her business. I'm decent and he's not, she seemed to be saying. How will people give me money if they associate me with him? As I walked away from the pair, I wondered whether there was a hierarchy of panhandling. We know that resentment is directed down the class hierarchy, not up - and the woman, rather than see an ally in the man, saw him as a drain on her game. We resent the presumed imposition of the poor in the same way the woman resented the imposition of someone who was - visibly, at least - poorer that she was. It's interesting to me that she thought that wearing nicer clothes (she was dressed better than me, but since I was in sweats, that wasn't saying much) would mean a higher yield. I wondered if it was true - does looking more 'respectable' make it easier to give?
Then I remembered Bill. Nah, I thought. It's always a pain in the ass.
And then after I thought that I felt pretty heartless again.
I see two sides to this resentful giving. The first is the classist part. We only want to give when we feel like it, when it suits us, when we don't have to be contaminated by the process of being begged or goaded. The begging and the goading taints the high-minded philanthropy we fancy. Their asking feels like an imposition - because it is an imposition. It is an imposition on our privilege to gallivant through life without being put upon to give anything up. "This is my money/batteries/porch! You can't have it!" That sort of unfortunate childishness.
The second side is perhaps more forgiving. Because people with a whole lot less than me are also asked by the Bills and panhandlers to give, and I doubt they are happy about it all the time, either. Sometimes we do have to (gulp) say 'no.' Giving can be endless, and unless you can detach any emotion from your bread or your money, it's always going to result in resentful giving. It's on us to do the reflective work to figure out where it is that we will give, and how.
Short-term payments are reactive and stunted...they ensure the system lives on...and sometimes if we do give, we have to be at peace with that, too. The point is to always be doing other things that will, hopefully, make it so one day no one will have to ask.
Friday, November 12, 2010
The rainbow paradox
It's time for a gay post.
That's right, dear readers - the time has come for me to talk about gay things. A gay confession, of sorts.
I don't tend to talk at length about being a lesbian, and in fact, that's probably part of the problem. I am miserably out of practice at being 'gay.' I don't think I ever really learned. I came out some time ago, but my attempts to interject myself into what was the gay/lesbian social space at my university was an abysmal failure. The idea of "lesbian community" at the time was weekly screenings of The L-Word. I can only recollect one meeting of the gay/lesbian student group that I attended, and what I remember is being overwhelmed by the hip-hop music blaring in a room packed with bobbing white heads and the Costco-sized jug of lube given away via a raffle. No, no, no, I was not cut out for this. My "anti-porn feminism" workshop at Pat Califia key-noted conference organized by the gay/lesbian student group pretty much destroyed any chance I had at being considered down with the social scene. Oh, the irony! I was just too feminist to be a good lesbian. And it's true - I wasn't interested in the meat market...I wanted change.
That's not to say that I skipped out on gays and lesbians entirely. I just got along so much better with straight feminists (which makes sense, because, after all, I used to be one). When I moved for graduate school, I made the promise to myself that, as long as I felt safe, I would not conceal my relationship with my partner. For the most part, that has been true. But after my disillusionment with the lesbian/gay scene at my undergrad, and after realizing that it's pretty much the same as the lesbian/gay scene every where else, I never really pursued any organizing agenda around that part of my identity. As one of my lesbian friends said recently, "I'm out, but I'm not rainbow!" To put it plainly, I never planned on being a professional gay.
But now things have changed. I am embarking on a lengthy project studying the intersections of whiteness/white privilege with being lesbian, gay, and bisexual. There is no way around it - I am writing a 'gay' dissertation. Through this project, I have had to acknowledge and confront my own internalized homophobia. The ferocity and rapidity with which it rages has caught me off guard...I did not expect for it to still have so violent a grip on how I see myself and other lesbians and gays.
It began when I first decided, yes, I would take on this topic for long term research. It took a lot to get to that 'yes.' Not because I didn't think the topic was substantial, sociologically awesome, and very much worthy of study, but because I had three looming fears. 1) I was afraid of studying myself. 2) I was afraid of studying my partner and our relationship (we are an interracial couple). 3) I was afraid of writing a 'gay' dissertation. Those fears delayed my commitment and prevented me from feeling at peace with what I had chosen. I still wonder what I've gotten myself into.
Flash forward a month. I was at the library, up in the stacks, checking out the selection. I realized I was in the lesbian/gay section, because all the books had LESBIAN and GAY written in gynormous letters as their titles, and pictures of kissing white people or outlines of naked bodies or leather chaps on the covers. I'm fairly sure that rainbows spewed out of them every time I turned the page. This aisle, for some unfortunate organizational reason, is positioned right beside the stairwell, so every time anyone walks up the stairs and onto the floor, they would face this aisle. More specifically, they would see me amid a pile of rainbows. As I was looking through these books, I was hyper conscious every time I heard footfalls on the stairs. What if they see me?
The saga of the rainbow books continued. When I checked them out, I put them face down on the counter. When I walked with the books, I was aware of whether or not the cover or spine was visible, and even, at times, tried to casually conceal them. It would be comical if it weren't true. (Actually, you might still think it is comical, and you'd be right). When I returned them, I glanced up awkwardly at the librarian as they flipped them over, suddenly wondering - do they think I'm a lesbian?
The illogic of these thoughts did not escape me. Many lesbians would like to be thought of as lesbians, because that is indeed what we are. Why would it matter if the librarian thinks I am a lesbian when I am one? But it is not so simple - the question "do they think I'm a lesbian," is not "do they think I am a woman who loves women" but "do they associate me with all of the stereotypes of a stigmatized group." Do they think I am those stereotypes. And what is difficult about that thought is that my first reaction was that I did not want to be associated with the stigmatized group. This was a difficult moment to swallow.
Flash forward another month. I am asked by a stranger in the laundromat who I am, what I do, etc. He has a doctorate in civil engineering, and he wants to know what I'm writing my dissertation on. "Oh, race relations," I say. This is a variation of what I have said to many different people. "Oh, racism." "Oh, race." And if they are more of the sociological persuasion, I might say "Oh, white privilege."
You see, I keep leaving the gay part out. Or perhaps, more aptly, closeted. It is far easier for me as a white person to say that I am writing about race than, as a lesbian, to say I am writing about gays and lesbians. Writing a 'gay' dissertation means I've been faced with outing myself far more regularly than ever before. And I have to say I have been found wanting. There is the illusion of safety in passing, or at least the illusion of safety in no one pressing you to announce your sexual identity - and they, poor hapless creatures, don't even know that asking me about my dissertation is asking me my identity, even my politics. But the few times I have said it to someone who is not lesbian or gay, I can tell from their faces that they know that is what I am saying. My elision of the "gay part" has been a way of avoiding those facial expressions. I have been trying to escape those moments.
I see a paradox here, a double-bind - do I out myself and afford greater visibility to all gay and lesbian people but risk social censure (or worse), or do I closet myself and perpetuate the marginalization of gay and lesbian people but feel, in that moment, safe? There is no easy answer - neither is all that comfortable. I do know that one is probably the braver, higher, more ethical road, for myself and for other women who love women. And it's not the road I've been taking.
In other words, I might have to start being a little more rainbow.
That's right, dear readers - the time has come for me to talk about gay things. A gay confession, of sorts.
I don't tend to talk at length about being a lesbian, and in fact, that's probably part of the problem. I am miserably out of practice at being 'gay.' I don't think I ever really learned. I came out some time ago, but my attempts to interject myself into what was the gay/lesbian social space at my university was an abysmal failure. The idea of "lesbian community" at the time was weekly screenings of The L-Word. I can only recollect one meeting of the gay/lesbian student group that I attended, and what I remember is being overwhelmed by the hip-hop music blaring in a room packed with bobbing white heads and the Costco-sized jug of lube given away via a raffle. No, no, no, I was not cut out for this. My "anti-porn feminism" workshop at Pat Califia key-noted conference organized by the gay/lesbian student group pretty much destroyed any chance I had at being considered down with the social scene. Oh, the irony! I was just too feminist to be a good lesbian. And it's true - I wasn't interested in the meat market...I wanted change.
That's not to say that I skipped out on gays and lesbians entirely. I just got along so much better with straight feminists (which makes sense, because, after all, I used to be one). When I moved for graduate school, I made the promise to myself that, as long as I felt safe, I would not conceal my relationship with my partner. For the most part, that has been true. But after my disillusionment with the lesbian/gay scene at my undergrad, and after realizing that it's pretty much the same as the lesbian/gay scene every where else, I never really pursued any organizing agenda around that part of my identity. As one of my lesbian friends said recently, "I'm out, but I'm not rainbow!" To put it plainly, I never planned on being a professional gay.
But now things have changed. I am embarking on a lengthy project studying the intersections of whiteness/white privilege with being lesbian, gay, and bisexual. There is no way around it - I am writing a 'gay' dissertation. Through this project, I have had to acknowledge and confront my own internalized homophobia. The ferocity and rapidity with which it rages has caught me off guard...I did not expect for it to still have so violent a grip on how I see myself and other lesbians and gays.
It began when I first decided, yes, I would take on this topic for long term research. It took a lot to get to that 'yes.' Not because I didn't think the topic was substantial, sociologically awesome, and very much worthy of study, but because I had three looming fears. 1) I was afraid of studying myself. 2) I was afraid of studying my partner and our relationship (we are an interracial couple). 3) I was afraid of writing a 'gay' dissertation. Those fears delayed my commitment and prevented me from feeling at peace with what I had chosen. I still wonder what I've gotten myself into.
Flash forward a month. I was at the library, up in the stacks, checking out the selection. I realized I was in the lesbian/gay section, because all the books had LESBIAN and GAY written in gynormous letters as their titles, and pictures of kissing white people or outlines of naked bodies or leather chaps on the covers. I'm fairly sure that rainbows spewed out of them every time I turned the page. This aisle, for some unfortunate organizational reason, is positioned right beside the stairwell, so every time anyone walks up the stairs and onto the floor, they would face this aisle. More specifically, they would see me amid a pile of rainbows. As I was looking through these books, I was hyper conscious every time I heard footfalls on the stairs. What if they see me?
The saga of the rainbow books continued. When I checked them out, I put them face down on the counter. When I walked with the books, I was aware of whether or not the cover or spine was visible, and even, at times, tried to casually conceal them. It would be comical if it weren't true. (Actually, you might still think it is comical, and you'd be right). When I returned them, I glanced up awkwardly at the librarian as they flipped them over, suddenly wondering - do they think I'm a lesbian?
The illogic of these thoughts did not escape me. Many lesbians would like to be thought of as lesbians, because that is indeed what we are. Why would it matter if the librarian thinks I am a lesbian when I am one? But it is not so simple - the question "do they think I'm a lesbian," is not "do they think I am a woman who loves women" but "do they associate me with all of the stereotypes of a stigmatized group." Do they think I am those stereotypes. And what is difficult about that thought is that my first reaction was that I did not want to be associated with the stigmatized group. This was a difficult moment to swallow.
Flash forward another month. I am asked by a stranger in the laundromat who I am, what I do, etc. He has a doctorate in civil engineering, and he wants to know what I'm writing my dissertation on. "Oh, race relations," I say. This is a variation of what I have said to many different people. "Oh, racism." "Oh, race." And if they are more of the sociological persuasion, I might say "Oh, white privilege."
You see, I keep leaving the gay part out. Or perhaps, more aptly, closeted. It is far easier for me as a white person to say that I am writing about race than, as a lesbian, to say I am writing about gays and lesbians. Writing a 'gay' dissertation means I've been faced with outing myself far more regularly than ever before. And I have to say I have been found wanting. There is the illusion of safety in passing, or at least the illusion of safety in no one pressing you to announce your sexual identity - and they, poor hapless creatures, don't even know that asking me about my dissertation is asking me my identity, even my politics. But the few times I have said it to someone who is not lesbian or gay, I can tell from their faces that they know that is what I am saying. My elision of the "gay part" has been a way of avoiding those facial expressions. I have been trying to escape those moments.
I see a paradox here, a double-bind - do I out myself and afford greater visibility to all gay and lesbian people but risk social censure (or worse), or do I closet myself and perpetuate the marginalization of gay and lesbian people but feel, in that moment, safe? There is no easy answer - neither is all that comfortable. I do know that one is probably the braver, higher, more ethical road, for myself and for other women who love women. And it's not the road I've been taking.
In other words, I might have to start being a little more rainbow.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Wayward scholarship
Several weeks ago, a professor posed this question to visiting speakers: Is there radical potential in the university?
The speakers, both professors with progressive bents, seemed to believe there was. I, young cynic that I am, am not so sure. And I grow increasingly convinced that there is not. This is not just in light of the recent horrifying budget cuts applied to our College of Arts and Sciences, upon which so many scholars of more well-endowed universities have pontificated, although that is a pretty good reason to cement my doubt. The divestment of public, state and government funds to public higher education is a message that comes through loud and clear - you're on your own, sweetheart.
We are on our own. I want to address here that sense of on-our-ownness, specifically in the context of graduate life, specifically graduate life that is not adhering to what graduate life is 'supposed' to be.
First, let me state plainly what graduate life is like in all its tragic glory. We all know graduate life, regardless of politics, is one where we are indeed on our own. And being on our own isn't pretty. It involves spending days indoors in your pajamas without bathing (what's the point?) frantically skimming piles of books and writing about what you just 'read.' It involves either a lot of coffee, a lot of sugar, a lot of alcohol, or a lot of pot, depending on who you are; for some, graduate life involves a religious devotion to all four. It involves watching a lot of bad television programs or reading a lot of terrible manga and vainly justifying it under the guise of ethnography and content-analysis. It involves spontaneous eruptions into tears and woeful pity parties that devolve into more sugar and bad television to distract yourself from the fact that accomplishing anything will require more time alone in your pajamas frantically reading and writing about what you read. When not working all the other jobs required to make rent, it's like the life of a depressed, well-to-do housewife, without necessarily being depressed or well-to-do or married or even having much of a house.
There is an element to graduate student isolation that makes me wonder whether I am a little crazy. Really, something has to be wrong with us to willingly sign up for this.
Such isolation is built into the system. Any semblance of community is a thinly veiled strategy for personal advancement. We are encouraged to collaborate...insofar as it is better for our individual CVs ("Sure, I'd love to barely tolerate you for the next 18 months while we try to get a publication out of a topic we are both only superficially interested in!"). We are encouraged to go to social gatherings...insofar far as it a way to network for future employment ("You are so hilarious, Professor Famous! I bet it would be a riot working for your semi-famous friends at Prestigious University!"). Like Kirsch's distinction, you realize soon enough in painful ways that, even if you are friendly with everyone in your department, you sure ain't friends. You can meet with folks and ask for feedback all you want, but in the end you still have to write your papers on your own.
No matter what, trekking through graduate school is always ultimately up to you. And the bar that is set (publish! present! publish! be awesome at everything! publish again! beat out 400 applicants who are just like you for the one reputable job in your field!) is not one the majority of us will ever meet.
Now, I assure you I was prepared for this. I knew the muck I was getting myself into, but you see, that didn't bother me. I wasn't going to be a traditional scholar, so why worry? My greatest fault has been that I actually thought I could scrape through unaffected. Although I steeled myself early on to not fall for what I was 'supposed' to be, by golly, I have been constantly reminded of what a powerful, seductive force the ideal type scholar is to be reckoned with. It is impossible to focus on what is real and good and meaningful when immersed in an institution that is breeding you to be something else entirely. To not be what it is expecting of you - and there are no other alternatives - is to be a failed scholar. It is very difficult to hold on to why is is you are here when confronted with such a conclusion.
Failure, of course, is determined by how we measure success. I realize I am not necessarily a failed scholar. I do think I am a wayward one. But to be a wayward scholar requires a strength that I'm not entirely sure I possess. It is not a romantic path. Being a wayward scholar means being the angry person who keeps making everyone talk about unpleasant topics like structures and hegemony. It means challenging people who by all definitions you don't have much of a right to challenge. It means spoiling fun times because you cannot turn off your sociological mindfulness. It means the lines between what you study and what you live are completed and utterly blurred. It means really, actually, genuinely believing that the point is not to study the world, but to change it.
It means...well, very often being on your own.
It's not that I have hopes for finding radical potential anywhere else. An organizer recently told my partner that there are two possible paths: you either are lucky enough to find a financially sustainable means of organizing for social justice (and these jobs are few and far between, and hardly financially sustainable), or you find a job that pays the bills and devote the rest of your time and energy to social justice, maybe even shifting the structure of your pay-the-bills field along the way. Most of us will have to content ourselves with the latter, as there isn't much radical potential in any institutional complex, whether it be higher education, non-profits, or the corporate sphere.
Wayward scholarship doesn't have to mean isolation, but let's not kid ourselves. We do have to account for it as a very possible and likely side effect. Such isolation, however, may not last forever - social justice communities take a long time to build. Our home will not be built and ready for us to move in wherever we plop down. We must build it ourselves, stone by stone, until at last we realize there is finally a roof over our heads. That is the point - we are trying to build our homes. We are trying, as my partner says, to build a world in which we can be whole.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no radical potential in the university. No indeed. The radical potential lies within ourselves, and we must always fight to keep it from being killed off entirely.
The speakers, both professors with progressive bents, seemed to believe there was. I, young cynic that I am, am not so sure. And I grow increasingly convinced that there is not. This is not just in light of the recent horrifying budget cuts applied to our College of Arts and Sciences, upon which so many scholars of more well-endowed universities have pontificated, although that is a pretty good reason to cement my doubt. The divestment of public, state and government funds to public higher education is a message that comes through loud and clear - you're on your own, sweetheart.
We are on our own. I want to address here that sense of on-our-ownness, specifically in the context of graduate life, specifically graduate life that is not adhering to what graduate life is 'supposed' to be.
First, let me state plainly what graduate life is like in all its tragic glory. We all know graduate life, regardless of politics, is one where we are indeed on our own. And being on our own isn't pretty. It involves spending days indoors in your pajamas without bathing (what's the point?) frantically skimming piles of books and writing about what you just 'read.' It involves either a lot of coffee, a lot of sugar, a lot of alcohol, or a lot of pot, depending on who you are; for some, graduate life involves a religious devotion to all four. It involves watching a lot of bad television programs or reading a lot of terrible manga and vainly justifying it under the guise of ethnography and content-analysis. It involves spontaneous eruptions into tears and woeful pity parties that devolve into more sugar and bad television to distract yourself from the fact that accomplishing anything will require more time alone in your pajamas frantically reading and writing about what you read. When not working all the other jobs required to make rent, it's like the life of a depressed, well-to-do housewife, without necessarily being depressed or well-to-do or married or even having much of a house.
There is an element to graduate student isolation that makes me wonder whether I am a little crazy. Really, something has to be wrong with us to willingly sign up for this.
Such isolation is built into the system. Any semblance of community is a thinly veiled strategy for personal advancement. We are encouraged to collaborate...insofar as it is better for our individual CVs ("Sure, I'd love to barely tolerate you for the next 18 months while we try to get a publication out of a topic we are both only superficially interested in!"). We are encouraged to go to social gatherings...insofar far as it a way to network for future employment ("You are so hilarious, Professor Famous! I bet it would be a riot working for your semi-famous friends at Prestigious University!"). Like Kirsch's distinction, you realize soon enough in painful ways that, even if you are friendly with everyone in your department, you sure ain't friends. You can meet with folks and ask for feedback all you want, but in the end you still have to write your papers on your own.
No matter what, trekking through graduate school is always ultimately up to you. And the bar that is set (publish! present! publish! be awesome at everything! publish again! beat out 400 applicants who are just like you for the one reputable job in your field!) is not one the majority of us will ever meet.
Now, I assure you I was prepared for this. I knew the muck I was getting myself into, but you see, that didn't bother me. I wasn't going to be a traditional scholar, so why worry? My greatest fault has been that I actually thought I could scrape through unaffected. Although I steeled myself early on to not fall for what I was 'supposed' to be, by golly, I have been constantly reminded of what a powerful, seductive force the ideal type scholar is to be reckoned with. It is impossible to focus on what is real and good and meaningful when immersed in an institution that is breeding you to be something else entirely. To not be what it is expecting of you - and there are no other alternatives - is to be a failed scholar. It is very difficult to hold on to why is is you are here when confronted with such a conclusion.
Failure, of course, is determined by how we measure success. I realize I am not necessarily a failed scholar. I do think I am a wayward one. But to be a wayward scholar requires a strength that I'm not entirely sure I possess. It is not a romantic path. Being a wayward scholar means being the angry person who keeps making everyone talk about unpleasant topics like structures and hegemony. It means challenging people who by all definitions you don't have much of a right to challenge. It means spoiling fun times because you cannot turn off your sociological mindfulness. It means the lines between what you study and what you live are completed and utterly blurred. It means really, actually, genuinely believing that the point is not to study the world, but to change it.
It means...well, very often being on your own.
It's not that I have hopes for finding radical potential anywhere else. An organizer recently told my partner that there are two possible paths: you either are lucky enough to find a financially sustainable means of organizing for social justice (and these jobs are few and far between, and hardly financially sustainable), or you find a job that pays the bills and devote the rest of your time and energy to social justice, maybe even shifting the structure of your pay-the-bills field along the way. Most of us will have to content ourselves with the latter, as there isn't much radical potential in any institutional complex, whether it be higher education, non-profits, or the corporate sphere.
Wayward scholarship doesn't have to mean isolation, but let's not kid ourselves. We do have to account for it as a very possible and likely side effect. Such isolation, however, may not last forever - social justice communities take a long time to build. Our home will not be built and ready for us to move in wherever we plop down. We must build it ourselves, stone by stone, until at last we realize there is finally a roof over our heads. That is the point - we are trying to build our homes. We are trying, as my partner says, to build a world in which we can be whole.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no radical potential in the university. No indeed. The radical potential lies within ourselves, and we must always fight to keep it from being killed off entirely.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
My Money Story
Next semester, like some of you, dear readers, I will be taking my first ever class on class ("Class, Poverty, and Politics"). "Class" is usually added into courses on gender or race or sexuality, but rarely granted its own semester-length seminar. It is also the social location I have done the least amount of personal work on, and therefore what demands the greatest reflexivity and accountability.
The professor of the spring course recently recommended Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use it For Social Change! to those of us interested in checking ourselves on our privilege. My copy arrived last week, and one of the exercises of its workbook-style format kept me up very late the other night in thought. The exercise asks its reader to recount their "money story." How did we come to our class privilege? Most importantly, the exercise asks us to re-examine our money story after we tell it to be sure we are telling the full story.
In the spirit of full accountability, I am writing my money story here on this very public blog. My intention is to return to this entry at the conclusion of the spring semester and reassess my money story to determine whether I have left anything out. I plan to reflect on what I am about to write with the deeper understanding I expect I'll have next spring, when I'll be better able to fill in the gaps.
And so it begins like this.
My family's money is of very recent development, at least as far as I know. I do not know too much about either of my parents' lineages. I doubt that class status was ever static and linear in either of them, but I am not aware of any great wealth (although my paternal grandmother is the daughter of a British colonel and spent her childhood in India, which makes me wonder about the colonial legacy of my family, regardless of income). For their privacy, I will not go into too much detail about my parents' childhood experiences, but I will try to share as much as is needed in order to explain where we are now.
My mother grew up working-class, although additional difficult family circumstances meant her experience sometimes vacillated into working-poor. She is the third of five children raised in a little town off the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada. Her parents divorced when she was twelve. My father grew up middle-class (when there was such a thing...I don't know if a 'middle-class' exists anymore in the way my father experienced it) to parents who had lived through a war-torn England. They moved to a town outside of Toronto when he and his sister were just toddlers because of a job opportunity for his father, a railway electrician. Money was tight, but there are markers of a middle-class existence that come up in old pictures and stories that my father tells. For example, for a time they had an above-ground pool, and my father had braces when orthodontic work was at its most barbaric (his twin sister, however, did not receive braces).
Both of my parents joined the paid workforce quite young. My father was a paper boy and bagged groceries. My mother baby sat and worked in retail. My parents married when my mother was 19 and my father was 21 (they just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago). Neither was encouraged or expected to go to college, and neither did. For a time, they lived paycheck to paycheck. Once, they borrowed $5,000 from my dad's father, and, when they tell my sister and I this story, they always stress how they paid it back with interest. They moved occasionally to chase increasingly higher salaried jobs for my father, who worked in the hardware business and found upward mobility in the marketing side.
This is blurry part of the story for me. I realize in writing this story that there are important steps that I do not know, but have simply accepted as what is. How did my father go from bagging groceries to jet-setting across the country? What were the rungs of the ladder, and how long did he spend at each? I do not know. What I do know is that my father's social location was the wind at his back as he was upwardly mobile in his industry. A white, heterosexual male, he was mentored by other white, heterosexual men in superior positions. A man of color would not have had the same opportunities my father received, nor do I believe my mother would have been afforded the same mentorship. This is not to discount the incredible toil and time my father has dedicated to his work, but rather to account for the context in which his toil and time were more likely to yield financial reward.
This is the part of the story I do know. In the early 80s, my father received a job offer from a company based out of Louisville. After much red tape, they were able to work out a high skills visa for him to move to the United States with my mother. This was especially difficult to do since they did not have advanced degrees...I doubt such a visa without higher education is even possible now. I don't doubt, however, that the fact he was a white married man from a rather non-threatening Canada facilitated what is a very trying bureaucratic process. My twin sister and I were born shortly afterward. Due to the conditions of the visa, my mother could not work. This meant, however, that I had the great privilege of an at-home parent throughout my childhood.
I have said to my parents before that we were wealthy during this time, although they disagree with me. I still stand by this assessment. I'm sure I can think of endless examples that marked our wealth. We took spring break trips to major U.S. cities every year, and for a couple of years we went to a rather lavish resorts in Virginia. We went to plays. We belonged to a country club. We swam, did gymnastics, played piano, golfed. I did all these things as a child without any thought to the finances it took to do them. We had health insurance, orthodontic work, and access to developmental and physical therapies when we needed them. We were always pushed to succeed academically and given the necessary tools to do so.
For the sake of full accountability, I must tell you that I am strongly resisting an overwhelming impulse to clarify that we weren't 'really' wealthy, because wealthy people are the people who go to boarding schools and have horse farms and drive Porsches and never have to work a day in their lives. It is very difficult to resist this impulse. I know I must tell you the harder, colder details without cushioning the stark truth to class privilege. None of us have to have trust funds or be due for any whopping inheritance to still be wealthy. Wealth is much more flexible than so rigid a caricature; moreover, it is always easier to see the people who are ahead of you than the multitudes you've left in your wake.
Now, the rest of my money story.
My sister and I both made it into a traditional public middle school, which was determined via a lottery. Entering this middle school was essential, because it tracked us into what were considered the "better" public high schools. This was ephemeral however, because shortly after we started sixth grade, my father's company experienced a hostile takeover, and he was laid off.
My father took a new position with a substantial pay cut. We moved to a town of what was then about 50,000 in eastern North Carolina. My father stopped wearing suits and ties and cologne. And traveling - he was home constantly, and we were, too, as we stopped taking vacations. This was a difficult time for my family, but I would say we were still definitively upper middle class. We were still very comfortable. We still played piano and belonged to a country club. I knew from the trailer parks we rode through every morning and afternoon on the bus route that not everyone lived like us. Plus, money works differently in a mid-sized southern town than in a large southern city.
By the time my sister and I were looking at colleges, both of my parents were self-employed, my mother in real estate and my father still in hardware marketing. My parents supported me financially throughout the college search, application, and selection process. At the time, my father felt deeply ashamed that he could not send both my sister and I to private university without going into substantial debt. Instead, my sister and I attended a prestigious public university, debt-free (poor us!). They supported us through summer interships, study abroad programs, and expensive student housing. Perhaps the greatest evidence of my class privilege is that I majored in English and minored in creative writing...and I aspired to be a professor of English despite the consequences. And then my parents supported me through applying to graduate programs, and later they fronted the moving costs when I selected a program and relocated to upstate New York.
And here I am, in graduate school, my 'money story' the bricks in the path leading to where I stand now.
I am afraid I have painted too simple of a picture, as class is not so uncomplicated, nor have the struggles that my parents have faced been so sweetly surmounted. But my point, of course, is not to defend the struggles, but identify the simplicity and ease with which class privilege works, unquestioned, in the lives of those who have it. Although I am almost entirely self-sufficient now, I know that the many tools along the way facilitated, if not outright allowed for, my current position. Even though I make about one and half times the poverty level as a graduate student and have taken on student loan debt of my own, I still understand myself to be upper middle class. To be a graduate student itself is an elite form of low-income existence. I carry my class privilege with me always, regardless of my income.
I will return to this post next May to see if I have done this story justice.
The professor of the spring course recently recommended Classified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use it For Social Change! to those of us interested in checking ourselves on our privilege. My copy arrived last week, and one of the exercises of its workbook-style format kept me up very late the other night in thought. The exercise asks its reader to recount their "money story." How did we come to our class privilege? Most importantly, the exercise asks us to re-examine our money story after we tell it to be sure we are telling the full story.
In the spirit of full accountability, I am writing my money story here on this very public blog. My intention is to return to this entry at the conclusion of the spring semester and reassess my money story to determine whether I have left anything out. I plan to reflect on what I am about to write with the deeper understanding I expect I'll have next spring, when I'll be better able to fill in the gaps.
And so it begins like this.
My family's money is of very recent development, at least as far as I know. I do not know too much about either of my parents' lineages. I doubt that class status was ever static and linear in either of them, but I am not aware of any great wealth (although my paternal grandmother is the daughter of a British colonel and spent her childhood in India, which makes me wonder about the colonial legacy of my family, regardless of income). For their privacy, I will not go into too much detail about my parents' childhood experiences, but I will try to share as much as is needed in order to explain where we are now.
My mother grew up working-class, although additional difficult family circumstances meant her experience sometimes vacillated into working-poor. She is the third of five children raised in a little town off the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada. Her parents divorced when she was twelve. My father grew up middle-class (when there was such a thing...I don't know if a 'middle-class' exists anymore in the way my father experienced it) to parents who had lived through a war-torn England. They moved to a town outside of Toronto when he and his sister were just toddlers because of a job opportunity for his father, a railway electrician. Money was tight, but there are markers of a middle-class existence that come up in old pictures and stories that my father tells. For example, for a time they had an above-ground pool, and my father had braces when orthodontic work was at its most barbaric (his twin sister, however, did not receive braces).
Both of my parents joined the paid workforce quite young. My father was a paper boy and bagged groceries. My mother baby sat and worked in retail. My parents married when my mother was 19 and my father was 21 (they just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago). Neither was encouraged or expected to go to college, and neither did. For a time, they lived paycheck to paycheck. Once, they borrowed $5,000 from my dad's father, and, when they tell my sister and I this story, they always stress how they paid it back with interest. They moved occasionally to chase increasingly higher salaried jobs for my father, who worked in the hardware business and found upward mobility in the marketing side.
This is blurry part of the story for me. I realize in writing this story that there are important steps that I do not know, but have simply accepted as what is. How did my father go from bagging groceries to jet-setting across the country? What were the rungs of the ladder, and how long did he spend at each? I do not know. What I do know is that my father's social location was the wind at his back as he was upwardly mobile in his industry. A white, heterosexual male, he was mentored by other white, heterosexual men in superior positions. A man of color would not have had the same opportunities my father received, nor do I believe my mother would have been afforded the same mentorship. This is not to discount the incredible toil and time my father has dedicated to his work, but rather to account for the context in which his toil and time were more likely to yield financial reward.
This is the part of the story I do know. In the early 80s, my father received a job offer from a company based out of Louisville. After much red tape, they were able to work out a high skills visa for him to move to the United States with my mother. This was especially difficult to do since they did not have advanced degrees...I doubt such a visa without higher education is even possible now. I don't doubt, however, that the fact he was a white married man from a rather non-threatening Canada facilitated what is a very trying bureaucratic process. My twin sister and I were born shortly afterward. Due to the conditions of the visa, my mother could not work. This meant, however, that I had the great privilege of an at-home parent throughout my childhood.
I have said to my parents before that we were wealthy during this time, although they disagree with me. I still stand by this assessment. I'm sure I can think of endless examples that marked our wealth. We took spring break trips to major U.S. cities every year, and for a couple of years we went to a rather lavish resorts in Virginia. We went to plays. We belonged to a country club. We swam, did gymnastics, played piano, golfed. I did all these things as a child without any thought to the finances it took to do them. We had health insurance, orthodontic work, and access to developmental and physical therapies when we needed them. We were always pushed to succeed academically and given the necessary tools to do so.
For the sake of full accountability, I must tell you that I am strongly resisting an overwhelming impulse to clarify that we weren't 'really' wealthy, because wealthy people are the people who go to boarding schools and have horse farms and drive Porsches and never have to work a day in their lives. It is very difficult to resist this impulse. I know I must tell you the harder, colder details without cushioning the stark truth to class privilege. None of us have to have trust funds or be due for any whopping inheritance to still be wealthy. Wealth is much more flexible than so rigid a caricature; moreover, it is always easier to see the people who are ahead of you than the multitudes you've left in your wake.
Now, the rest of my money story.
My sister and I both made it into a traditional public middle school, which was determined via a lottery. Entering this middle school was essential, because it tracked us into what were considered the "better" public high schools. This was ephemeral however, because shortly after we started sixth grade, my father's company experienced a hostile takeover, and he was laid off.
My father took a new position with a substantial pay cut. We moved to a town of what was then about 50,000 in eastern North Carolina. My father stopped wearing suits and ties and cologne. And traveling - he was home constantly, and we were, too, as we stopped taking vacations. This was a difficult time for my family, but I would say we were still definitively upper middle class. We were still very comfortable. We still played piano and belonged to a country club. I knew from the trailer parks we rode through every morning and afternoon on the bus route that not everyone lived like us. Plus, money works differently in a mid-sized southern town than in a large southern city.
By the time my sister and I were looking at colleges, both of my parents were self-employed, my mother in real estate and my father still in hardware marketing. My parents supported me financially throughout the college search, application, and selection process. At the time, my father felt deeply ashamed that he could not send both my sister and I to private university without going into substantial debt. Instead, my sister and I attended a prestigious public university, debt-free (poor us!). They supported us through summer interships, study abroad programs, and expensive student housing. Perhaps the greatest evidence of my class privilege is that I majored in English and minored in creative writing...and I aspired to be a professor of English despite the consequences. And then my parents supported me through applying to graduate programs, and later they fronted the moving costs when I selected a program and relocated to upstate New York.
And here I am, in graduate school, my 'money story' the bricks in the path leading to where I stand now.
I am afraid I have painted too simple of a picture, as class is not so uncomplicated, nor have the struggles that my parents have faced been so sweetly surmounted. But my point, of course, is not to defend the struggles, but identify the simplicity and ease with which class privilege works, unquestioned, in the lives of those who have it. Although I am almost entirely self-sufficient now, I know that the many tools along the way facilitated, if not outright allowed for, my current position. Even though I make about one and half times the poverty level as a graduate student and have taken on student loan debt of my own, I still understand myself to be upper middle class. To be a graduate student itself is an elite form of low-income existence. I carry my class privilege with me always, regardless of my income.
I will return to this post next May to see if I have done this story justice.
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