Homonationalism: the Fourth Pillar of White Heteropatriarchy

Or That one weekend when Suey Park blew me off, Jared Leto forgot trans* folks, and Banana Republic tried to make money off it all

This past Saturday night I found my twitter feed taken over by Suey Park posting quotes and comments regarding this piece by Andrea Smith (I strongly encourage folks at least look it over so they have some context for what’s to come).  I came into this in the middle of her tweeting and didn’t quite understand where exactly this was coming from or the context but nonetheless enjoyed the tweets immensely, I favorited and retweeted a few of Park’s posts.  I one tweet found incredibly interesting and replied to Park and the following ensured:

 

After my last tweet Park responded with “STOP” and later deleted the tweet.

I want to start by saying that my intention was not to argue, discredit, or in any way disagree with what Park was tweeting about or Smith’s work.  I read Smith’s piece a long time ago and found it incredibly insightful and it helped informed how I understood and understand whiteness.  My intention, which I tried to get across in a few sets of 140 characters, was to both broaden our understanding of how different people are impacted by whiteness and also provide a way to hone in on the experiences of queer people, especially queer people of color (more specifically queer womyn of color) given the nature of the article.  I originally followed Park because of her amazing work on trans* justice as well as her activism on racial justice and racism.  In seeing her interactions with fellow progressives and with my own minimal interactions with her on twitter I was expecting a very different response than what I got.  I was hoping we could have a discussion and build from Smith’s work to more accurately place queer experiences and understand how representations of queerness can contribute to and perpetuate white heteropatriarchy.  I feel what ended up happening was, as I bluntly put it in the title of this piece, Park blew me off.  Yes she replied to me, but she in no way engaged the issue I was attempting to bring up.  I wanted to engage with someone I saw as an informed progressive person who had differing and valuable experiences that might lend itself to a unique take.  I wanted to continue the discussion Andrea Smith started down a queer path but was met with disbelief, discouragement, and condescension.

I believe that a fourth pillar is needed and that Jasbir Puar’s term homonationalism is that pillar.  In their article, Maya Mikdashi explains Puar’s homonationalism as: “the idea that LGBTQs the world over experience, practice, and are motivated by the same desires, and that their politics are grounded in an understanding that ties 1) the directionality of their love and desire into a stable identity and 2) that stable identity into the grounds from which one speaks and makes political claims.”  I see homonationalism as a crucial fourth pillar because while the other three must include queer people because queer people exist in communities of color and have been subject to slavery, genocide, and orientalism, those three do not directly identify the ways in which queer people deal with representation traps and the ways whiteness operates in, around, and on queer people and spaces.

On the Backs of Trans* People
In a time when organizations such as Human Rights Campaign have hijacked the queer movement and turned it into something whiter, more respectable, and more normative, the state of Israel actively engages in pink washing as a means of excusing humyn rights violations and occupation, and “allies” such as Macklemore and Jared Leto are seen by many as representatives for and saviors of queer people, we need to name what is occurring.  I believe that terms such as Lisa Duggan’s homonormativity and Jasbir Puar’s homonationalism are crucial to understand, critique, and ultimately combat these things.

All of this academic language seems detached and the fact that we are arguing this might seem irrelevant to the struggle but I think we need to have language to help us name and discuss events in popular culture one example of this is that I will be focusing on is Jared Leto’s portrayal of a trans womyn in Dallas Buyers Club, his Oscars acceptance speech, and the subsequent lifting of portions of that speech by a corporation as a means of tokenizing for profit.

Before we get started it should be said that a cis man winning best supporting actor for his portrayal of a trans womyn is an issue in itself.  The fact that a trans womyn was not cast to play a trans womyn is appalling.  There are a number of trans womyn who could have been cast who would no doubt have done a better job than Leto.  Once Leto was cast we would see his failure to understand his privilege and at the very least not offend and insult trans * people.  Lucian has brilliantly explained many of the problematics of Leto’s casting on twitter and with his latest article:

“Why does Hollywood not get cis women to play trans women? Because they believe trans women are actually men or closer to men than to women.”
“A man playing a trans woman reinforces the idea that trans women are really men who are just acting or playing dress up.”
“Telling cis actors to not play trans* roles is not the same as trans* people playing cis roles. Trans* people are only allowed trans* roles.”
“If you argue for cis people to play trans* people, you are arguing that our identities are just an act, a role, and not part of us.”

All of this leads up to the night of the Academy Awards where Leto won for best supporting actor (an award given to men in a supporting role).  As Lucian explains there are a number of issues with that and I hope to use that as the context to further discuss his acceptance speech, what was and was not said, and the implications of the speech.  I want to use his speech and what occurred after to make the case for homonationalism as the fourth pillar.

Leto ended his acceptance speech with “tonight I stand in front of the world with you and for you” but was he really with and for LGBTQ people?  The short answer is no. Not once did he directly mention any of the communities represented with the acronym LGBTQ.  For someone who played a trans womyn in the film you would hope he would at least say the name some influential trans womyn or at least broadly mention the trans community.  Instead Leto chose to address the revolutions and uprisings in the Ukraine and Venezuela.  While he did say that his Oscar was for the millions who have died from AIDS and anyone who “has ever felt injustice because of who they are or who they love.”  To put it bluntly, Leto was paying lip service and offered nothing to queer communities.  If he was truly with and for LGBTQ people he should have made his acceptance speech about LGBTQ people.  He should have contextualized the ways institutions, including Hollywood, stigmatize and oppressed LGBTQ people and the reason he was even cast to play a trans womyn over many capable actresses who are trans*.  He should have stated why thirty six million people have died of AIDS and the ways AIDS affects people of color disproportionately because of institutional vilification of communities of color, especially queer and trans* communities of color.  Leto should have used his time to advocate for ENDA (employment non-discrimination act).  He should have refused to accept the award himself and instead allow a trans womyn to use that podium to advocate for herself and her community.  Instead he delivered a disappointing speech that gave more thanks and paid more respect to Hollywood elites than the trans* communities he stepped on in order to win that award.  Rather than advocate for queer and trans* people he reduced systematic and institutional oppression to feelings of injustice.  To quote Ngọc Loan Trần:

“oppression is not a feeling. reducing it to how a community ‘feels’ they are being treated minimizes the violences that are enacted upon them, makes structural injustices a matter of perception of individual acceptance or rejection of oppressive conditions. oppression creates feelings, definitely. it creates trauma, internalized conflict, dissonance, confusion. but oppression is not a feeling.”

In the end this only reaffirms what many progressive people have seen time and time again, trans*, queer, and of color bodies are only awarded when they are not actually trans*, queer, or of color, with few respectable non-threatening exceptions.

Jared Leto’s speech offers us a front seat to homonationalism in the ways white straight cis bodies are made central to queer and trans* communities despite not being part of the community.  Leto is a prime example of the way homonationalism steals queer and trans* agency to tell their own stories and offers up a respectable, simplistic, white, and normative understanding who queer and trans* people are and what they want.  The idea that trans* people are not able to tell their own stories and that a white straight cis man is more capable to do so reinforces that trans* people don’t have diverse and differing needs, that this man is fully capable of presenting trans* people both in his role in the movie and as the actor portraying a trans womyn.  In giving him the platform to advocate for trans* issues (the underlying problematic of him being the advocate, being cast for the part, and his failure to address trans* issues or people are additional problems) it narrows and simplifies trans* people’s needs and identities.  In Jared Leto and his speech we see homonationalism at work as a pillar of white supremacy, a white straight cis man hijacks the opportunity for the presence of marginalized people while institutions get to pat their own backs for awarding someone who portrayed a trans womyn.  Leto allows marginalized people to be mentioned but not seen or heard from, instead we have the continued propping up of whiteness, straightness, and cisness continuing the idea of that acceptance and advocacy without any real action is enough.

Erasing People for Profit
What we do see, within minutes of Leto ending his acceptance speech, is the following Banana Republic advertisement on twitter

The ad takes an existing photo part of a larger campaign by Banana Republic to target LGBTQ (although mostly the G) people and adds a quote from Leto’s speech and the hashtag #true love.  In order to understand, contextualize, and combat advertisement like this the first step is to name it and thankfully Puar has done that part for us with homonationalism.  This ad whitewashes, normalizes, pacifies, tokenizes, comodifies, simplifies, and reduces queer and trans* people and homonationalism allows us to connect these things and understand how they prop up white heteropatriarchy.

This Banana Republic ad puts forward a symbol of the LGBTQ community in the form of engaged couple Jeremiah Brent and Nate Berkus.  The ad itself depicts queer people as white (hegemonically) attractive cis men.  This in itself is problematic because, similar to Jared Leto being cast as a trans womyn, a community is being narrowed to the most acceptable and respectable members.  We also must remember that this image of queerness is being tokenized as a means for a corporation to profit off of LGBTQ people while simultaneously, through the ad, erasing the existence of people of color, women, and trans* people as members of the queer community from the publics eye and putting forward what queer bodies are deemed valuable.  For Brent and Berkus to be cast also sends a message to queer and trans* people, that these two are what is acceptable and what everyone should strive to be.  Beyond this there is the implicit message that this is what LGBTQ people look like, and because of that there is the subliminal equating of LGBTQ with white.  This is no accident, there is a growing trend of ever increasing visibility of gay white middle class men which has translated into policies that primarily focus on them while leaving queer people of color and trans* people out.

Both Brent and Berkus fit into roles that are often understood to be stereotypically “gay” (Allow me to be perfectly clear, I fully support how either choose to live their lives and make a living and I am not criticizing them but rather that a corporations tokenizes them to present a symbol for queerness and love), Brent is involved in the fashion industry and Berkus is an interior designer.  For Banana Republic to use these two sends the signal of what is expected for queer trans* folks to do with their lives as well as what is viewed as s respectable and accepted relationship.  Continuing with the critique of respectability the pictue highlights “true love” and shows a monogamous non-threatening (read white upper middle class) soon to be married gay couple.  This defining of true love uses nice sounding rhetoric to narrowly define what love is for LGBTQ people and present an ideal or desired understanding of what good “true” relationships look like.  This furthers the vilification of non-normative relationships and identities, which ultimately does a disservice and even harm to LGBTQ people.  To take the ad’s presentation of true love even further it highlights that these two attractive white cis male bodies as able to have true love and I would argue that the implicit message it sends is that these are the people who are capable and worthy of true love.  This limiting and constricting discourse contributes to hegemonic beauty standards as well as racism within queer communities.

So what does this all mean?  It means that LGBTQ people are being reduced to only the most privileged within the community.  The queer movement has become solely about policies and efforts that help those who need it the least within the community.  It depicts LGBTQ people as a homogenized group who only want marriage, clothing from Banana Republic, and inclusion into the white heteropatriarchal society as it exists.  Homonationalism is at work here reducing, pacifying, and homogenizing LGBTQ people to make it fit under the roof of white heteropatriarchy that is held up by slavery, genocide, and orientalism.  This is why I wanted to discuss representation traps and the three pillars with Suey Park.  The issues that truly matter for so many LGBTQ people are being brushed aside because they challenge or do not fit in with white heteropatriarchy. In Jared Leto’s casting, actions, and speeches as well as the Banana Republic campaign, queer and trans* people are being erased and slenced.  The ability to put forward and pass substanitive laws that offer equitable treatment and protections are being weakened because from what the average person sees, they are not needed.  This could not be further from the truth.  The issue is not that violence and bigotry don’t exist, but rather that queer and trans* voices are not given the platform to speak on their experiences and point them out.  As we have seen just this past weekend at the Academy Awards, communities are constantly under attack because of homonationalism and it is important to understand how and why this is happening so that people stop paying lip service to the LGBTQ people and start acting in solidarity with them.

Capitalism and Contradictions: Arizona, Florida, and #UCLAdivest

Earlier this week I had the privilege to attend the UCLA UCAS (UCLA’s student government) meeting and be in solidarity with SJP at UCLA and their call for divestment from corporations that violate Palestinian human rights.  As the meeting went on it became very clear that it came down to underrepresented and marginalized communities banding together in support of the Palestinian call for divestment from humyn rights violations while Zionist forces aimed to defeat divestment because it hurt their feelings.  The evening was filled with racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia coming from the anti-divestment side but two things struck me as particularly appalling: Zionists claiming that Israel has not sterilized or deported Ethiopian migrants and that because of it’s policies regarding LGBTQ people it is democratic and free.  Both are lies and what I find startling are the underlying contradictions when we look at how Israel is treated and understood by mainstream US media compared to US states such as Arizona and Florida.

In the last week we have heard much about Arizona’s controversial SB 1062, a bill that allows for discrimination, with particular focus against LGBTQ people, on the basis of religious freedom.  Once it passed the Arizona legislature and was sent to Governor Jan Brewers desk there was an immediate response from gay rights activists, George Takei made a round on MSNCB to discuss his intention not only to boycott Arizona if the bill was signed but also encourage others to do the same.  With the threat of boycott along with a growing corporate opposition to the bill due to concerns loss of profits, Governor Brewer vetoed the bill.  What is crucial for everyone to understand is that this did not happen because of how immoral and hateful the bill was but rather because of capitalism, corporations feared appearing homophobic which would result in a loss of profits and the state feared a loss of tourism and revenue from LGBTQ people.  What I mean by all of this is that, within the context of Arizona’s other racist laws such as SB 1070, white gay and lesbian folks with money and political power appear to matter and they matter not because of their humanity but because of their whiteness and wealth.  While Arizona came under attack for this from mainstream liberal media and gay activists we see something very different happening in Israel.  Israel, as I was constantly reminded throughout the UCLA USAC meeting, is a liberal and democratic state and one where gays and lesbians were accepted.  It is important to note that this “acceptance” stems almost entirely from an Israeli campaign called Brand Israel where one of the focuses is to highlight same sex marriage and military inclusion of LGBTQ people.  As I have mentioned before this campaign should be challenged not only because Israel is not without homophobia but also the idea that these policies are right to start with.  Then we should be asking: what of the LGBTQ Palestinians who live under occupation who constantly fear violence from IDF soldiers?  In both Arizona and Israel white affluent gays and lesbians are welcome to the extent that laws are created or rejected because of them while people of color, in Arizona this largely means Latin@s and in occupied Palestine and Israel this means Palestinians and growingly, African migrants, are made to live under a brutal dehumanizing state.

Sadly the comparison and contradiction does not end there, because of SB 1070 documented Latin@s in Arizona live as second class citizens who are subject to profiling and must provide papers to police when asked to prove their right to move freely on their own land.   Undocumented people in Arizona, many of who are indigenous to the land, live under the fear of deportation not only because of federal policies but also state laws such as SB 1070.   This situation as garnered Arizona consistent criticism from places such as MSNBC and The Daily Show.  Now when we turn to Israel there is yet another contradiction.  The same thing occurs in Palestine where Palestinians must show papers through dehumanizing checkpoints on their own land because they are criminalized and collectively punished for the actions of the few.  The parallels are startling but while Arizona receives criticism Israel is labeled “liberal and democratic”.   Along with the shameful treatment of indigenous Palestinians, African migrants currently face similar xenophobic rhetoric, policies, and violence as undocumented people in Arizona (and the rest of the US as well).  I was told numerous times by students at UCLA, what I imagine to be a progressive intellectual college campus, that migrants are welcome and accepted.  Israel “accepts” African migrants and indigenous peoples similarly to how the United States, particularly Arizona, has in the past, with violence, sterilization, xenophobia, and the threat of deportation.

At the UCLA USAC meeting one of the most empowering moments was when members from UCLA’s Afrikan Student Union (ASU) spoke back to back for over ten minutes criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, its treatment of African migrants, and USAC’s desire to dialogue rather than take action.  The act of solidarity was truly inspiring especially in the face of the barrage of Zionists throughout the night and into morning constantly denying the fact that the state of Israel has sterilized Ethiopian womyn.  Some time during public comment after ASU spoke out, someone quoted W.E.B DuBois, “how does it feel to be a problem?”, in reference to the Palestinian and African people living in Israel.  At the time I was standing next to a one of the ASU members and was unsurprised when he raised his hand and expressed his understanding of that situation.  The commonality between the treatment of the African Diaspora in the US and that of the Palestinian people in occupied Palestine and African Migrants in Israel should be easy to see, what concerns me is the difference in the level of attention given and the silencing that occurs.

With the men who murdered Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin not seeing justice, Florida and its law commonly known as Stand Your Ground have come under fire as it increasingly seems that the law is tantamount to legalized murder of black boys.  This attack on black bodies has come with an uprising in the US, the Governor’s office in Florida was occupied, musical artists swore to boycott Florida until its laws changed, and books are being written about the racism embedded within the law.  However if we were to move Florida inside of Israel this reaction would not happen.  How do I know this?  Because black bodies in Israel are already under attack with racists policies and physical violence.  As previously mentioned Ethiopian womyn have been sterilized without their consent, but in addition to this there are rallies and marches, led by elected government officials, who call for deportation and violence against African migrants.

The contradiction is confusing, why would we view two incredibly similar situations so differently and why would they be treated so differently?  Why did USAC vote not pass the divestment resolution that would remove their complicity from known violation of humyn rights?  One of the things that ties this all together is capitalism.  The underlying connection for simultaneous tokenization and violence against LGBTQ people and the acts of violence and murder against African Americans and African migrants in Arizona, Florida, Israel, and occupied Palestine is the notion that certain bodies carry certain value.  The value of Palestinians apparently is not equal to the feelings of Zionist white UC citizens attending UCLA.  The value of white gay and lesbian bodies is high enough to be worth an entire marketing campaign or the veto of a bill while Latin@s and Palestinians are subject to brutality, dehumanization, and even death.  Lastly it would seem that African Americans and African migrants are valued so little that murder goes without punishment and womyn are sterilized to prevent any more black bodies from existing.  The difference between the actions of Arizona and Florida compared to Israel is that the wound of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism inflicted by Israel is much fresher as compared to the colonizing of indigenous land the US occupies.  This means for Israel it can’t afford to receive the same criticism leading to intentional campaigns to brand itself liberal and democratic.  It is because of this that we see students from one of the premier universities in the world being blinded by propaganda and nationalism causing them to stand up for the very thing they condemn in their own country.

#UCLAdivest

Later today I will be going to UCLA for the USAC (UCLA’s undergraduate student government) meeting where there will be a vote on the resolution “A Resolution to Divest from Companies that Violate Palestinian Human Rights” also known as the divestment resolution.  It will be the third time I have attended a UC student government meeting where resolution like this will be discussed and voted on, last year I was involved with UCSB Divest and earlier this month I was at UCR for the vote.

When I was first getting involved with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) people I knew through work and school questioned why I was involved and so passionate about an issue that didn’t seem to have anything to do with me.  Why do I, a white middle class cis man living in the US, care about something half a world away involving people I have no direct connection to?  My answer is that I cannot and will not agree with the premise of the question.  I am incredibly connected to this, as are you whether you know it or not, and it is my duty as someone who believes in justice and equity to support the Palestinian people and answer their call for Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions.

To me this issue is incredibly simple; the Palestinian people were removed from their land by Zionist forces and survived an ethnic cleansing.  In the process they lost much of their land and their culture, infrastructure, and economy was destroyed.  Zionists have and continue uprooted trees and destroyed homes.  Palestinians that are still in Palestine live under brutal apartheid and occupation and those that left are unable to return home.  To know this and not fully support Palestinians is deplorable, that is why I got involved with Students for Justice in Palestine at UCSB.

Once getting involved something happened that I will always remember and to this day fuels my solidarity and activism surrounding Palestine and the Palestinian people.  During public forum at UCSB last year I spoke in favor of the divestment resolution and while I was speaking I mentioned that I was queer and that many times I did not feel safe while in IV (the small college community directly next to UCSB).   After I was done speaking members of the audience were allowed to ask me questions and someone asked me how I, as a queer man, could support divestment when Israel gave my community so many rights.  I asked her if she could define rights because I did not think we understood rights the same way.  After having some trouble answering and the Chair of the Senate saying we would move on she shouted that queer people “have the right to live.”  At the time I was aware of pink washing and had a very basic understanding of it but had never encountered it in such a personal and direct way.  I remember speaking with friends after and realizing that I had been pink washed.  A Zionist had tried to turn my identity against me and what I knew to be right, they attempted use my queerness to undermine my passion and call my support into question.  That is when I truly understood what this meant to me.  My community was being turned into a tool to excuse ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and collective punishment.  I was being told that because I could get married (I am not an Israeli citizen or Jewish so that might pose a problem) and could join their military (why I would want to join an institution that exists for the sake of violence is beyond me) that I should be okay with what is happening to people in occupied Palestine.  I am being told that being able to walk down the aisle excuses the apartheid wall that prevents people from having access to water, medical help, and their education.  I am being told that because I can put on an Israeli military uniform and hold a gun that I should be okay with the sterilization of Ethiopian Jewish womyn or the use of white phosphorus against civilians.  Because I have “the right to live” in Israel Zionists apparently think I should forget that Israel’s founding and existence cannot be extricated from the Nakba.

To the queer members of USAC I ask you to remember that you have family in Palestine.  Queer people in Palestine suffer a brutal occupation by a state that wants you to believe it cares for you.  Israel does not truly care for our communities it only wishes to use queer communities in the US as a shield for it to occupy and violate the rights of people in Palestine, including our queer family there.  Reject pink washing and see that our oppressions are connected.  Sometimes we cannot walk down the street at night in our own community without fear of violence; that is a constant for those living under occupation.  It is our duty to ourselves, our identity, our communities, and our families to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people as they struggle against occupation.

I will be tweeting during the USAC meeting @bradyjforrest.  For more on pink washing check out my last piece, it has links in it to great sources.

To be Washed Pink with Palestine’s Water

One of the greatest evils of white supremacy is its ability to fracture and separate marginalized people from their community, pit marginalized communities against each other, and separate people from their land in order to maintain privilege and power.  It is clear that in Israel we see all three of these things occurring.  What this piece will focus on is the ways that Israel’s policies are, like whiteness itself, both particular and universal.  It is particular in the ways it brands itself as “gay friendly” through pinkwashing and universal because it does so while simultaneously normalizing the experiences and identities of the Palestinian people under occupation.

Pinkwashed
When we talk about queer people as they function as a tool for Israel’s propaganda we must first and foremost acknowledge that not all LGBTQ people are being used. This is not because they are somehow able to escape the objectification, but rather because there are not deemed to have worth in the context of western hegemony.  We must recognize the ways a racial hierarchy is perpetuated in Israel’s pinkwashing as well as the existence of queer Palestinians in occupied Palestine.  Their history of being targeted for violence and oppression because they are Palestinian occurs simultaneously with their experiences of being the target of policies that attempt to separate them from the Palestinian community as a whole as a means of further vilifying, othering, oppressing, and criminalizing Palestinians and Palestinian culture.  Queer Palestinians have long been the targets of the Israeli Government’s tactics to infiltrate Palestinian spaces as a means to divide and conquer.  In First Intifada Israel pushed the notion of being queer as unacceptable in an attempt to portray queer Palestinians as collaborators with the Israeli government.  Pinkwashing ultimately uses policies, such as inclusion in the military industrial complex and the marriage industrial complex, to give Israel the appearance of being a good accepting liberal state.  Our first task in deconstructing pinkwashing is to put it in context.  Even if we are to accept inclusion in the military and same sex marriage as progressive policies (I don’t, but will get to that later) that does not mean we stop looking at the other policies of the state.

When evoking the term pinkwashing, which is the “deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life”, we must ask ourselves how is pinkwashing possible?  Whose water is being used to wash the state of Israel pink?  This may seem to be just a witty play on words but in a very literal sense the reason Israel is able to exist as it does and promote itself to tourists is because of water.  The reason it is able to maintain the standard of living, despite a growing population and increasing infrastructural needs, for both its citizens and those living in the illegal settlements is because of its theft of Palestinian water.  It is this theft of water that enables Israel to attempt to market itself as a unique westernized country, without adequate water it would be impossible to present itself as a state with all the modern amenities expected by western tourists.  The foundation of pinkwashing lies in Israel’s attempts to appear modern, accepting, and liberal to queer people of western countries, especially the United States.

The Right to Water
While the theft of water is not the only violation of human rights committed by Israel against Palestine and its people, it is the one I wish to turn our attention right now.  If queer people and their human rights are treated as particularly special and singled out by the Israeli government then water rights are the opposite.  The water policy of Israel treats all Israeli citizens and settlers in the illegal settlements as one block of people and those living in occupied Palestine, regardless of sexual orientation or gender, entirely the same.  This is worth noting because queer internationals are welcomed with open arms in Israel, however there is a total disregard for one of the most basic human rights  -water- for those living in occupied Palestine.  A gay couple from the United States is encouraged to come to Tel Aviv and they would no doubt have running water in their hotel, but the experience of a gay couple living in occupied Palestine is starkly different.

Across the West Bank there is irregular water supply, particularly in the water-scarce summer months, as well as depleted/contaminated/salinated water in Gaza because of over-extraction of the Coastal Aquifer – due in part to the fact that Palestinians are not allowed to develop or repair water infrastructure.  In the West Bank there is no piped water at all for 215,00 Palestinians in 150 villages (26% of West Bank households) while half a million people in Gaza are not connected to a sewage system.  Recent studies have stated that the aquifer that supplies water to Gaza is 90% undrinkable without treatment and would be completely undrinkable by 2016. This all stands in start contrast to the continuous drinkable water at subsidized prices that exist in Israel.  (This data and statistics were taken from Palestine Right to Water Fact sheet and OTP: Gaza’s water could be undrinkable by 2016)

It is crucial to also understand that the situation in occupied Palestine is not on accident, a coincidence, or a mistake – it is due to the Israeli government implementing policies, made possible through occupation and state violence, that enables Israel to use more water than it has or more water than is possible to maintain long term, which leads to water theft.

(Graphs taken from the Fact sheet)

In part this situation occurred because of Israel’s desire for “security”, even at the expense of Palestinians.  Since the Second Intifada, infrastructure has been destroyed and people have been separated from their water sources due to the construction of the separation wall.  This need for security brings us back to pinkwashing.  Israel spends large amounts of money to promote its policy of military inclusion for queer people, but what does this military inclusion mean?  It means that queer people are being integrated into a system of violence and oppression that creates the horrible living conditions for those living in occupied Palestine.  Israel prides itself on including queer people in a system that kills and demoralizes people through checkpoints and walls, and it is these walls and checkpoints that prevent people from accessing water on their own land.

Those of us in the United States are told by a massive Israeli PR campaign  that we were behind the times because queer people could not serve in the military but I would ask: why would queer people want to?  Why would we want anyone to join a system that kills, separates, demoralizes, and disenfranchises people?  The state of Israel is attempting to simultaneously sell us the idea that joining the military system and perpetuating violence is something queer people should be a part of while that system actively violates all Palestinians’ rights, including queer Palestinians, to the most basic need, water.   Dividing the queer community from Palestinians, queer Palestinians from straight Palestinians, and all Palestinians from the land and water of Palestine is a tested strategy of oppressive and occupying forces and similar tactics are seen throughout history.  To build and sustain a country on the theft of water, leading to queer people dying of disease, dehydration, and economic violence, and then promote that country as a bastion of queer equality is to give some queer people flowers while stringing up and stoning others.

Out of SYNC: Transphobia, Realness, and Lance Bass

The past year has been one of ever increasing trans visibility.  Recently Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, and Carmen Carrera have been leading the change, sitting down with the likes of Katie Couric and Piers Morgan.  These appearance have been rocky to say the least with both Couric and Morgan not being able to move past the genital of their guests.  Mock, Cox, and Carerra have not let this stop them however, they have spoken up during their interviews and taken to social media to ensure their stories and the stories of other trans people were being told.  I cannot commend and support these fierce womyn enough and I know that because of their amazing advocacy that the injustices that trans people face, especially trans people of color, are being discussed on a larger scale.  However I am not naïve enough to believe that these three womyn are capable to erase transphobia and the ever prevalent transphobic language even within the queer community.  I also don’t think that enough attention and focus is being placed on the experience of transmen and the new attention on transwomyn should make us think who else have we been silencing.  And that brings me to the main topic of this article, Lance Bass.

On February 9^th 2014 he tweeted to Michael Sam, a college football player who is likely to be among the first picks in the upcoming NLF draft, congratulating him on coming out and after I replied to his tweet the following short exchange occurred:

Needless to say as a queer man who grew up listening N’SYNC having the openly gay former member of the group telling me to “shut up” and then block me on twitter stung a little, but what stung more was that the original tweet was coming from someone within my own community and a member of my community was trying to silence me.

While the tweet was probably posted with the best intention, Bass ties Sam’s coming out with how to be a “real man” and I find that deeply troubling for two reasons.  First it sets the parameters for who is a real man.  Second it ties being a real (gay) man to the act of coming out.

The phrase “real man” instantly reminds me of the countless times trans people are questioned about their gender authenticity.  This question is a pervasive one and hides in phrases such as “real man” but what it boils down to is the belief that trans people are lying, attempting to trick people, or aren’t the gender they say they are because of their genitalia or gender presentation/expression.  It is this vilification and othering that helps perpetuate a culture where the high rate of physical, verbal, and economic violence committed every day against trans people is acceptable or tolerable.  To see Bass use such policing and loaded language is frightening given the amount of attention and praise he receives as an advocate for queer youth.  This tweet puts on display how far we have to go and how much room there is for growth even for non trans members of the queer community.

As someone who has broke down in tears while coming out I know from personal experience how hard coming out can be.  The decision to come out or not is an incredibly personal and difficult one that queer people are constantly forced to face, not just once but over and over again.  Every time you are in a new environment or meeting new people it looms over you and raises a number of questions about safety and security.  Will it prevent you from being employed or have housing?  Will you be putting yourself at risk of physical violence?  Will your family accept you?  Will you have a home?  In Bass’ tweet he says that in coming out Sam is the “epitome of a leader” and shows “others how to be a real man”.  Being man enough, a real man, was a constant fear for me, and I am sure many other queer men, while growing up.  Our sexuality places us in a position where we are bombarded with media and people saying we are not real men and now Bass is telling us the opposite, we can only be real men when we come out.  Neither extreme are productive because it is a lose-lose.  You are not a man because of your sexuality or you have to fully embrace it and come out in order to be a real man.  This limiting understanding and presentation of gender is part of the problem.  The decision to come out or not does determine who is and is not a real man.  Coming out and all it entails should not be a barometer of your worth as a man.  The only way to be a real man is to identify as a man, no litmus test exists and no one can define what gender means for another person.

I am a man regardless of my willingness to disclose my sexual orientation or not.  My entire life I have had commercials, television shows, movies, and celebrities trying to box me into their understanding of a real man and now even members of my own community are doing the same.  I do not think that is the message we need to be sending queer youth.  We need to be offering reaffirmations of their identity and supporting their decisions.  Attempting to define what leadership and gender are only excludes those who need the most support and love.  The decision to come out is deeply personal and not doing so does not preclude our queer youth from leading or being authentically the gender, or lack of gender, of their choosing.

Making an Example: Anthony Weiner

The past week or so we have been reintroduced to Anthony Weiner because it has surfaced that he has continued to send explicit texts and pictures to women who are not his wife.  True to form both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have taken up the issue and after watching their take on the scandal, some fairly simple but interesting questions come to mind.  Is the issue solely that he is in a monogamous relationship with his wife and she was cheated on or does some of the condemnation come from the content of the texts?  If the texts weren’t as graphic/explicit would it be more acceptable?  It boils down to sex being taboo.  I think that if the texting and pictures were tamer then this would not be nearly as big of a deal.  The negative coverage surrounding the content of the texts without questions does not surprise me but it does aggravate me a little.  Assuming the texting was consensual, which I think is a more important piece of information than the texts themselves, then why does it matter how they have or talk about sex?  The continual condemnation and vilification of sex in the US is without a question, children and teens are constantly given misinformation about their own bodies from sex education classes or no information at all and simply told to abstain.

The Weiner issue is also emblematic of the constant policing of sex, the media has someone in the wrong and this allows them to also attach sex to the wrongness of the situation.   This messaging does not simply condemn the violation of trust and commitment between two people but proceeds to mock how people chose to have sex or talk about having sex.  This policing attempts to normalize not only marriage and monogamy but also the proper and correct way to be intimate.

Taking the issue of texting about sex or sex acts one step further, why is this even a problem.  Why is it bad for someone to sext?  Or is it that people with power of influence shouldn’t sext?  Or only people who are single and young should sext?  All of these things fall in line with the idea of society policing and maintaining a culture and politics of respectability and normalcy surrounding sex.  Challenging that norm results in public shaming and being vilified.  What people text or email or even talk about in private should not be up for debate as long as it does not harm anyone else.  You may bring up that Weiner’s sexting hurt his wife, and I argue that it doesn’t.  What hurts his wife is a breach of trust, if he were sexting her it wouldn’t be an issue, of course assuming it would be consensual.  Sexting in a way is a tool and the tool should not be responsible for those who use it to harm.  The issue shouldn’t be that sexting is bad and Weiner is a bad person for it, it should be is he truthful and honest with the people he represents or is looking to represent and is he capable of representing them effectively.

This is a psychological invasion of privacy.  By that I mean the societal norms, as presented by the media, are not simply present when they are being presented but stick with and follow people into the bedroom.  If the media tells you your whole childhood and teenage years that what turns you on and how you want to have sex are vile, unacceptable, weird, or laughable it becomes hard to understand how that does not eventually cause serious psychological problems.  The internalization of this could lead to a myriad of harmful beliefs surrounding your sexuality, body, and desires.  The media’s attempt at a public shaming of Weiner ends up doing more than shaming an individual; it creates and reinforces the acceptable and normal.  Even in the 2013 sex remains a taboo but when news shows (real or fake) address the subject turning it into a public shaming, morality lesson, or even attempt humor and mock it, there are consequences that are greater than silence.  The attempt to be sex positive is hard enough when the media enforces a society issued gag order on the topic.  The active condemning of sex that is found to be too explicit or weird ties into the fight for positive discussions sex, the freedom for women to choose, safe sex, and body positivity.  The sooner we understand the connectivity of these issues and address all the different pervasive types of body policing, the sooner we can begin the holistic fight against the fallacy of normalcy and respectability.

Letter to Robbie Rogers

Dear Robbie,

Congratulations.  It was a long time before someone told me congratulations for “coming out” to them and I felt like it was a response that was so validating and needed, I hope it might carry a similar feeling for you.  Thank you.  What you have done means the world to many queer youth and your presence in their lives could help them in ways no one else can.

I jumped the gun a little, my name is Brady and like you I am queer, white, in my 20s, and soccer was a major part of growing up.  While our current situations are drastically different (although I have been to a Galaxy game or two), our similarities make me feel compelled to write this.  First and foremost I write this letter from a place of love, for you as a queer sibling, for our community that stands at a crossroad, and for our younger selves who deserved to be happy.  This letter is no way  all encompassing and will hopefully be the start to a conversation, whether that be between us, members of our community, or just an internal one for a young boy in southern California trying to ease his stomach a little.

I must give fair warning however, because while this letter is written with love it is not solely concerning love.  I am writing you primarily to bring attention the crimes against our community and the crossroads on which we, as white queer men independent of and flag bearers for our community, have reached.

The crimes in which I speak manifest themselves as violence and marriage and the crossroad we must navigate is our future place in our community, because while we may be queer, we have been endowed with unearned privileges.  We are in a precarious position because we can hide in plain sight, even out, proud, and covered in rainbows and glitter.  We can do so because we appear pretty, acceptable, respectable, and in many ways we are immune to the violence that plagues the rest of our queer community (examples here, here, here, and here).  This violence is nothing new and the reason the queer movement exists is because folks decided enough was enough and fought back, literally.  I am telling you this because you have the ability to bring attention to these issues.  You have the ability to ask why this is allowed to happen.  Why are some of us praised and idolized while others are being attacked and killed?  We, white queer men, are the current flag bearers of a movement we did not start; we are the face of the national ad campaigns, the ones on successful TV shows, and we have the most to gain from popular issues such as marriage.  The movement has been revolving around us since the day it was taken from the trans* folks of color who started and led the Stonewall riots.  I think it is time to change that and put the focus on those who are the most in need and have been the target of the most hate.  It is time we stopped charging forward towards a flawed idea of equality and come together with those we have left behind, as a whole community, to chart a new future.

Marriage is more complicated and not thought of as a crime because in many ways we have brought it upon ourselves.  I follow your twitter and am aware that to some degree you celebrated the decisions on DOMA and Prop 8.  I am not a legal scholar but I do not believe marriage is solely a legal matter.  There has been a huge amount of work done giving different perspectives on gay marriage (here, here, here, here, here, and here are a few), but what I want to focus on is our understanding of equality and equity.  An analogy that I like to use is that equality means everyone has a pair of shoes while equity means  everyone has a pair of shoes that fits.  Gay men who look just like us, carrying blue flags with yellow equal signs, have been pushing for what they believe to be equality and our community is crumbling because of it.

You are not currently married and because of that you do not have access to the 1,500-1,700 rights and privileges that married couples have.  If we want equality for all then why are we focusing on expanding marriage to LGBTQ folks instead of working to expand all those rights and privileges to everyone, regardless if they chose to marry or not.  Equality under the law should mean total equality, not just equality once you get married.  If we are striving for equal treatment then we should look beyond ourselves to folks like the single moms out there trying their best to raise their kids or those in a relationship who don’t want or need their love approved or validated by a piece of paper from the government.

Next, how is marriage equitable?  How does marriage and the benefits that come with it help queer people of color who aren’t able to get a job, be safe from violence, or know they won’t be evicted because of how they identify?  How does marriage help trans*, gender nonconforming, and gender queer people when it actively pushes them into confining themselves yet again?  What about the polyamorous folks out there who have found more than one person they want to spend their life with?  Again I raise the flag bearer status we possess.  Whose flag are we holding?  Is it just blue and yellow or is it a rainbow?  Are we here to help our community so that all of us feel safe, loved, and supported or is our primary concern the wants of the pretty, acceptable, and respectable?

I am writing to you because despite not knowing you, I love you.  I watched you play soccer and silently prayed you would do well.  I read your letter to your younger self and almost cried.  We were in high school at the same time, in different places, and dealing with the same fear.  I am writing you because our actions moving forward must be rooted in love for our entire community not only those who look and love like us.  I am asking you to consider whose flag you chose to bear; there are young queer and trans* folks of color out there being killed and killing themselves because they did what we thought we couldn’t or because that cramp in their stomach hurt too much.  Our community, our entire community, deserves life, equity, justice, and happiness.  I hope you join with those of us who are striving to make those things a reality.

Much love,
Brady

I Won’t Be Your “All-American” Boy

Right in time for the fourth of July and the recent Supreme Court decisions on Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Proposition 8 we have been given what Buzzfeed proclaims the first gay male country star, Steve Grand.  I would highly suggest checking out the post before reading on so you have some context.

First and foremost I am not a country fan by any means and am only aware of this post due to a friend posting on Facebook.  That being said I like the song (I am listening to it as I write this) but right off the bat knew that it was going to rub me the wrong way and also push a lot of buttons with regards to my own personal experiences negotiating queerness, whiteness, and respectability/acceptability.

The music video tells the classic (gay) story of a good-looking guy (Grand’s character) meeting another good-looking guy (an All-American boy) who is probably straight but there are little signs of hope.  Watching this I knew exactly where it was headed, but was non the less drawn in and rooting for Steve’s character.  Then I remembered it is all a trap.  The trap is white, masculine, attractive, whiskey drinking, and All-American.

The queer community is and has been engaged in a battle within itself that boils down to what do we want and what path will we choose to get there.  I am unashamedly anti-marriage and feel that the queer movement has lost its way and become an investment in whiteness while leaving behind everyone who doesn’t fit the bill.  The two men in this music video fit this bill beautifully and for the most part so do I, which is why it hits me so hard.  The music video shows a possible path that leads to what many want, the gay romantic “American dream”.  However I think we, I, deserve better.  We deserve love, acceptance, equity, and respect; this imagined world presented in the video does not offer us much and in fact does damage to our community.

There are a lot questions that come to mind after watching this music video (far too many times) and hope that you will join me in thinking about them and attempt to answer them with me.

The first is why is everyone white?  This question to me is the most obvious and frightening because I can’t tell you what the motives are exactly but I know the consequences.  This  “All-American” world erases any and everyone who doesn’t fit, erasing not only the extensive diversity within the LGBTQ community but in the United States as a whole leaving the “All-American” boy as an attractive muscular white (straight) man.  It quickly becomes clear what the object of your attraction should be.

The second is why do queer men put straight (white) men on the pedestal of attraction?  The best way that I can answer this question is with more questions.  Is it that we are attracted to straight men or is it that we want to be straight men?  Are we confusing our attraction with our shame?  Are we attracted to white skin or white privilege?

Third, why is whiskey needed and drinking it desirable?  This is a serious question that we as a community must think about and answer because it is one that is consistently ignored.  Why do our parties always involve alcohol?  Why do we allow corporations like Absolut to infiltrate our spaces (i.e. pride parades and RuPaul’s Drag Race)?  These questions need to be addressed because we are drinking ourselves to an early death.  The queer community is plagued with depression, suicide, and homelessness and to truly address these issues alcohol consumption needs be talked about.

Fourth, why do we somehow always end up naked?  This is partially a comic question because queer parties at UCSB are known for a less is more stance when it comes to clothing but I also raise this because the issue of body image is so prevalent in our community.  The two men in the video are in incredible shape and while I strive to be body positive I wonder if my community is striving with me.  I don’t think that this video is body positive and really only offers us one way to look.  This depiction of what men look like (and the women as well) lines up with what we are already being presented by mainstream media (both straight and gay) that some bodies (skinny and muscular) are acceptable to be seen and others are not.  Some are worthy of a love story while others are rendered invisible.

The video presents far more than I am able to cover in a single post, I passed over the more straightforward critique of homonationalism that this video and song so blatantly present.  I hope to address that and more in future writing.  I do however feel obligated to leave you with one final question for us to consider together which will not doubt be the final question we as a community will answer.

Will we assimilate?

Ocean’s (of) Anarchy

It was my original intention to write this months ago but am glad that the wait has allowed me to post this on Resist With Us. 

This is based on a talk (a similar talk can be found here) given by J. Jack Halberstam that occurred at UCSB titled “No Church in the Wild: Queer Anarchy and The Aesthetics of Chaos,” primarily the portion where Halberstam discusses Jay Z and Kayne West’s song “No Church in the Wild” featuring Frank Ocean.  My main focus and interest lies in Frank Ocean’s hook:

Human beings in a mob
What’s a mob to a king?
What’s a king to a god?
What’s a god to a non-believer?
Who don’t believe in anything?

We make it out alive
All right, all right
No church in the wild

In the talk Halberstam does a beautiful close reading, which can be poorly and briefly summarized to be that human beings form mobs that fall underneath the rule of a king because a god has placed the authority to rule in him.  This creates a power structure, but what about those who do not believe in a “god”?  Halberstam raises the question of what happens to the structure when those at the bottom, the foundation, do not buy into it.  Jack proposes that these people begin to push towards the “wild” and anarchy by opting out of the system and refusing to participate.

This is where I hope to offer an alternative perspective that is based in and came out of my thoughts after a discussion with a friend where we attempt to articulate the “wild” and anarchy not as a utopia in the distance just out of reach, as José Muñoz describes in Cruising Utopia with the provocative claim that queerness—which he links to the utopic—is “not yet here,” but rather as a condition and reality that already exists for people who do not buy into believing in a “god” (read capitalism, patriarchy, hegemony).

Halberstam’s understanding of the wild and anarchy seems to be framed around notions of an ideal utopia where people create a bubble inside of the hegemonic heirarchy but outside it’s purview.  I believe that Halberstam’s view of the “wild” and anarchy are positioned in what I can only describe as a more radical push in queer theory that is laced in detachment from praxis. In contrast, my take on the “wild” and anarchy will be rooted in and grow out of quare critiques (see E. Patrick Johnson’s Quaring Queer) that aim to ground queer theory in the flesh and bodies of those in exile from the mob.

Halberstam views the hook as a reader that has investments and attachments to the mob, who focused on the structure it is symbolic of, rather than the effects on bodies outside the mob—these bodies are primarily those of queer and trans* people of color.  Jack also imagines that leaving the mob will allow one to become closer to the “wild” when in reality those who are not in the mob are already in the “wild” negotiating their place in relation to power while resisting to survive.  It should also not be overlooked that being outside in the “wild” does not always mean one chooses to do so.  Some may opt out of the system while the “king”, “god”, or even the “mob” pushes others out against their will.  The lack of agency is telling of how some people are viewed and valued.

This leads to another point that I would like to add to Halberstam’s reading: a focus on the first line of the hook.  The line specifies that human beings are allowed and able to form a mob, so where does that leave those outside the mob?  Ocean’s first line of the song offers up a critique and illuminates the reality of lacking race, gender, straight, and/or class privilege.  To not be in the mob leaves you as less than human (a reoccurring theme throughout history for minoritized peoples).  It is not that those outside the mob view themselves as such but the system and those who uphold it (god and king) relegate such people to less than human status.  While Halberstam alerts us to the formation of the hierarchical structure that the hook represents we must also look beyond its existence to how it operates.  I believe this is a crucial alternative means of looking at the relationship and formation of the “wild”, who inhabits it, and how they are treated/viewed by the powers that be. 

Along those same lines Halberstam focuses on the system that Ocean establishes and emphasizes those outside the mob but I would like to turn our attention to the “god”.  Halberstam puts our view from the position of the non-believer but I would like to flip our optics so that we are looking at the non-believer through the eyes of the “god”.  To fully understand this system of power and peoples’ relation to it, it is necessary to understand how the “god” (again read capitalism, patriarchy, hegemony) views those beneath it, how these systems of power handle what it sees as inhuman.  I hope to push our understanding of the “wild” beyond people being non-believers to the idea that “god” can still exists and have power over these non-believers and does not necessarily need their belief to do so.  What does this god (system[s] of power) do when it sees resistance, dissent, and lack of belief?  What are the consequences for the non-believer?  I pose these questions not to answer them but to open a door or a can of worms with the hopes that by walking through and looking in we can better understanding what the “wild” and anarchy currently means for those who live there. 

In a way Ocean answers this.  The last three lines of the hook offer us one view of living in the wild, one where a queer black man calmly, beautifully, and positively says fuck you to the systems of power and that those in the wild will make it out alive, because there is no other option.  However, this potential anthem of resistance must be further critiqued and juxtaposed against a multiplicity of material realities for folks who inhabit the “wild” due to their agency or lack thereof.  Because the “wild” is not a mythical land; it is the streets of New York where people, many who look like Jay Z, West, and Ocean, are not making it out alive.

Open Letter to All Whose Existence is Resistance

We have created this blog as an outlet and avenue for us to express, explore, analyze, criticism, and appreciate the world around us. We come from a variety of progressive and radical circles at the University of California, Santa Barbara and our major intersection lies in our work to better the student government as well as our efforts supporting UCSB Divest. We hope that our combined knowledge and insight on the issues we advocate for and are passionate about will prove worthwhile. 

The title of this blog, Resist With US, came about largely out of our mutual disapproval of the organization Stand With Us, an organization basedin the US that advocates for Israel, and is a play off of the name. However it is not simply that, it is a call for resistance to hegemonic forces that would oppress, limit, and invalidate those who want alternative means of being and thriving in the world, particularly in the United States.

We hope our writings are thought provoking, relatable, diverse, progressive, and sometimes radical or unsettling.  We love intentional critical constructive feedback and hope that if you find something you truly love you share it with friends, colleagues, and peers. 

This blog exists as a safe space for those who are deemed “other”and while we greatly appreciate allyship our primary focus is and will be the issues facing historically underrepresented and marginalized folks.  To learn more about the authors and the blog please check out the About page.

In love and solidarity,
RWU