The Home Front

I'd like to offer hugs for all who need them, but especially for those queer folks among us and especially the queer feminists.  I feel you.  It can be nice to see all the family faces again, catch up, enjoy the good food, all of that, but home can also be a stressful and oppressive place for some of us and I hope I can offer a little support there. I can say that over the past few years it's become harder and harder to come back, despite my love for my family, and this year being single for the holidays I'm lacking for the first time in years the support of a partner to laugh through it with me.  So let's all blog shall we!

Families criticize, they bicker, they take anger out on each other, they give opinions when they're not asked of them, it's what families do.  If you want the benefits of family and the joys of being with your loved ones, this comes with it.  I can deal with that.  Part of growing up is taking a deep breath, letting it slide and laughing with your friends later about how crazy your family is.  I'd like to differentiate though, the difference between anger, hurt, retaliation from societal and institutional oppression, to affirm in us that we don't deserve the latter and we shouldn't need to passively accept it.

I just had an argument with my for the most part liberal, accepting, open-minded mother, about this very issue.  I have a homophobic uncle (through marriage). Not only is he incredibly homophobic, he's incredibly racist, sexist, the whole package.  On top of this he lacks a personality, he's lacks humor, and I've yet to see evidence of a soul, but hey, who am I to judge. He's a pilot and a military man, and has that terminator, "I was just following orders" empty hateful look about him.  I was venting about this to my mother along with his homophobic behavior around me and my now ex-girlfriend.  My mom gets defensive and tells me my aunt can love him despite his "politics" and for that matter, "religion or prejudices." This sent me into a rant about how those are the very things that make a person who they are, that this person hates me based on who I love and that's an indication of a serious internal issue.  In my defensiveness I MAY have referred to him as a "hateful, soulless mutherfucker," which my mother interpreted as hatred.  She ended the spat with, "God Meghan, you are so full of hate."  The fact that I'm defending LOVE is completely eclipsed by my defensive anger.  I couldn't believe she was defending not only this guy who don't like on a personal level, but someone whose beliefs make me less of a human being my society's standards.  This is the point I'm getting at.

Homophobia, racism and sexism are by definition hatred and judgement BASED IN INSTITUTIONAL POWER, meaning calling me a "fag" isn't just a word, it also represents me not having  job security, not having full protections under the law, being a potential target for violence and slurs at any time, etc.  Calling someone "ignorant" or "priviledged," an "asshole" or even a "honky/cracker" has none of these societal, institutional consequences, in fact, they are generally rewarded by our institutions.

There's a difference between individual, personal disagreements and participating in oppression.  Some of us have no choice on whether we hold our tongues around our families - it's a matter of having family or losing them, or sometimes life or death.  But we need to be able to parse out the everyday family disagreements and misunderstandings from the oppression we face everyday and at the very least, remind ourselves that we don't deserve that.  We don't deserve hatred based on who we are and who we love.  Falling in love is not a choice, but it is a choice to follow that love and fight for it and stand by it and help it grow and thrive and THAT choice is a brave and fucking noble choice and don't ever doubt that.  Especially in these family dinner moments when they can't separate anger from oppression and don't realize that we don't have a choice in whether or not to get angry and hurt, and it certainly doesn't mean that we're "full of hate" - we're full of love and fighting tooth and nail to protect that.  So keep this in mind and keep loving and keep fighting, we're in it together.

I'm going to close with an award winning haiku called "I Could Never Have a Homophobic Lover" by Caroline Rothstein, who I was lucky enough to hear perform at SUNY New Paltz last week:

Why would you want a

lover that discriminates

against sex and love?