Fall is here, whether I want to resist it or not, and I've said goodbye to catching fireflies, climbing trees on warm July afternoons, running around Providence blissed-out with friends, stargazing on rooftops, etcetera. The season of getting drunk off dancing, swimming in the sea, partying at Gay Pride events- it has passed, and Halloween is right around the corner. It's time for pumpkin spice coffee and pumpkin-carving and welcoming the inevitable hibernation that winter brings.
Right now, however, I can't seem to access any of summer's "natural highs" with my body frozen beneath sweaters and scarves, and my mind hyper-focused on some pretty depressing topics. 2010 has provided plenty of reasons to be happy in my "personal life"...But in terms of overall outlook on the bigger picture, I cannot find any logical reason to stay calm.
Where to begin? Progress has not been made, outrage has not been heard, and mainstream media can hardly be trusted to speak of either idea, when channels like Fox go as far as to actually defend BP. While I blame this corporation for the spill, and while I will continue to point a finger at our government for its lack of response... I simultaneously acknowledge that we are all responsible for finding a solution and ensuring that this never happens again. We must all contribute what we can, to clean up this mess and the many others we have made over time.
I recently argued with an acquaintance about BP's disaster; he seemed to maintain an utterly pessimistic and self-centered view of the entire debacle. This man, (who will remain nameless out of respect for the people I know who care for him), insisted that all is hopeless, and declared that none of us should attempt to clean up or spread awareness -or assist on any level other than donating money. Moreover, he kept repeating during the course of our debate that he believes it is ridiculous to try and change our system in America. When I argued that, with our political, social, and economic systems structured as they are, this won't be the last oil spill to take place, all he could reply was, "If people get pissed off enough, they will get off their asses and do something about it, but until then, we're screwed. And the system doesn't have to change, we just have to be less lazy and work harder for what we want."
This, coming from an artist who has never contributed anything to a cause higher than art made by and for white men. This, coming from someone who has no mouths to feed besides his own. This, coming from someone with little education (traditional and non) on most subjects outside of art and music. I guess this ignorance of our "system" of oppression and exploitation and racist/sexist/homophobic societal ladders should be expected? It has me wondering... Is anyone, besides those interested in social justice, truly infuriated by current events? Is anyone, besides those who are passionate environmentalists and political/social activists, deeply disturbed by what has been in the news lately?
I, for one, cannot sleep soundly at night, knowing what I do about the recent suicides taking place among our nation's LGBT youth. While I would rather be queer and HERE than in most other countries at this point in time, I still cannot understand how we allow such abuse to drive teenagers to suicide; as teachers, parents, friends, classmates, etc. in America... how do we not speak up? How have we failed this many children? How did we let ourselves permit hate speech so intensely and so frequently, and not notice the homophobia in our teenage bullies?
I have run into this idea in my personal experiences recently, and was challenged to put my beliefs into action, even in the face of potentially losing this new counselor job that I love so much. I work in a school and residential facility for teens with behavioral and mental health disorders, who are mostly minorities coping with the effects of having suffered rape, abuse, and more. One coworker, upon learning of a teenage client's self-identifying as bisexual, went on a rant about how "You are either born gay or straight...it's just wrong to be bisexual, it doesn't work like that." At first, being new to this position, I was speechless. I was afraid to speak up and afraid of causing friction between myself and this woman- And more importantly, I, too, was now afraid to come out of the closet.
In the past couple of weeks, I attempted to play peacemaker between our client and this particular staff member. I tried to make it clear that any client's sexual orientation was not up for debate or criticism. It's obvious that I am looked at differently now, (for being out and proud and an advocate for a "confused" teenager who likes to be "skanky" in her dating habits), but I am not worried about losing this job anymore. And if I do lose it for an inappropriate discriminatory reason, I will not go quietly. Speaking out is always easier said than done- But the alternative is far worse. Losing a job or a friend or a comfort zone is a preferable outcome to possibly knowing a suicide or assault or hate crime could have been prevented but wasn't...
And yet, I still do not feel that the Average Joe or Jane does not care about any of these pressing matters, unless it directly affects them...My questions remain: How do we engage those outside of the activist communities to care about life or death situations? How do we convince everyday people to care about issues they either are not aware of, or don't find relevant? And last but certainly not least: How do we teach people to care about issues of significance-- even if those issues do not at all affect them/their own privileged lives?
~*~
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3 comments:
That was a great post, and I wish you would blog more often.
However, I don't completely agree with your view on the oil spill. In the end, we are all responsible for oil spills. Environmental damage is an inevitable consequence of our decision as a society to be completely dependent on oil. Every time we buy fuel, turn on a light, or buy any product that was derived from petroleum, or required energy to make, for that matter, we are telling the oil industry "do whatever it takes to get more oil." Short of outlawing the production and import of crude oil and its derivatives, we have no moral high ground: we decided that the risks were worth the reward.
You are absolutely right: outspoken activism is the only way to be effective. Donating money is just a way of hiring someone to do that job for you.
Great post Katrina!
A big part of our problem is always that the bulk of people around us, no matter how much they're discontented with the state of affairs, aren't encouraged to think of our collective and individual experiences in a critical, holistic manner. The discourse displayed in the mass media reinforces this way of thinking. So people don't tend to think of things as systemic, or to view roots of problems that are interconnected, and as long as this society's shared story comes from the sources of mass media and public schooling, this will be the case. Plus school mostly teaches people to turn their brains off.
You know I'm fond of the "we need it all" approach, and this really means attacking a problem from every side. We need people being outspoken about injustices, people taking down present systems, and people building up new ones. We need people calling homophobes out, we need people clashing with them, and we need people creating cultures safe for queer folk. We need community forums as much as community "militias" (not to be confused with the racist hate groups). Not having one of the elements has meant an incomplete movement in the past.
Christopher:
I didn't choose to live this way. Have you tried to live another way? I have. And I mean radically different, separate from the industrial economy. Then I encountered a series of problems: legal, logistical, social, and corporate. Corporations, for instance, own most of the land in this country. That makes it hard to find a place to set up camp. Laws exist to keep people from living without a house, even if you actually have one and they just don't like it (because you made it yourself and it doesn't require you to contribute to the economy). And very few towns are set up with the intent of making it easy for someone to get around without an automobile. We're also duped into thinking that expensive schooling is the only way to get educated (or a valid way at all), putting us into debt, which requires us to work, which means we need an address, a car, insurance for the house and car, debt from the car, etc. etc. Considering that a lot of our impact environmentally is from food (i.e. the stuff that you need to live), it's hard to fault a family of four with parents working wage slave jobs for not always buying their food from the local organic farmer who doesn't use artificial fertilizer. Even I'm not able to abstain from oil-related commerce, and I'm considered pretty handy in the wilderness and garden. I've had friends who lasted for a while living off the land, and without already having funds you have to resort to skirting the law (read: without being well-off to begin with, it's too damned expensive to be poor). They're all eventually forced back into civilized society, usually because of laws. They tried to live another way. Our culture hates that.
Like so many situations in our abusive culture, the model of abuse and victim blaming is replicated: Blaming the average citizen for being in the situation they don't like and didn't choose (but maybe thought they did) is like blaming a dependent housewife with a controlling husband for staying with him. She could leave him if he's violent or otherwise abusive, but the deck is stacked against her.
That's not to say that citizens aren't ever responsible; plenty of people go on and use plenty more energy and oil products than they need to, fully aware of the impacts. They definitely share at least a bit of blame. But the real people at fault, the real enemies (yes, enemies) are the people who think they own everything and are calling the shots. It's the people sitting in offices trying to control the world and using everyone else as resources and pawns. They set the system up so that we need to buy their products, to buy into the system.
Oh, and of course those people whose "living" (paycheck, shackles) depend on privilege quickly learn to either ignore the exploitation, or to view it as something other than exploitation.
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