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.

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.

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?