Category Archives: Justice

On Being an Ally or, I CAN Breathe

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be an ally.

Allies, of course, can be found in all kinds of movements; there are white allies and straight allies, male allies and upper class allies. And allies serve an important role – even if you don’t face a certain type of oppression directly, you have, I believe, an obligation to recognize and work against that oppression.

But being an ally is also complicated.

Complicated, but not that complicated. It’s complicated the way every day life is complicated. The way it’s complicated when someone asks how they look in an outfit, or its complicated when you move from “dating” to “exclusive.”

It’s complicated because social interactions are complicated.

I wonder how complicated being an ally would seem if we were all more used to talking about issues of discrimination and oppression. It would still be complicated, I imagine, but perhaps not paralyzingly complicated.

I heard a white man on TV the other day frustratedly complain that he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to use the term “African American” or if it was okay to call somebody “black.” I just don’t know what you people want me to say! he exclaimed.

I think it was at “you people” where he really went wrong.

Being an ally is full of tension. It’s full of competing concerns and changing expectations. And that’s okay -

Life is full of tension.

As an ally, you should defer to the leadership of those most directly affected. You should be mindful of your power and privilege and do everything possible not to exert that power over others. You should listen, you should learn, and you should engage in the ways you are asked to.

But as an ally, you can’t let the work of speaking out always fall to those most directly affected. You should be the one raising questions of equity. You should be the one pointing to areas that need to change. You should be the one pushing the envelope and speaking out.

On the surface, it sounds like those things can’t co-exist – how can you simultaneously defer leadership and lead the charge?

It’s possible, I believe. And it’s complicated, but not that complicated.

Listen and learn, speak up and fight. Do the best you can, but always know you will make mistakes. Do your best to encourage those around you to point out those mistakes. Do your best to learn from those mistakes and do your best to help others learn from those mistakes as well.

It’s a journey for all of us.

In the wake of the recent grand jury decisions, I’ve been faced with some specific questions about what it means to be an ally.

Should a white person participate in a die-in about police killings of African Americans? Should a white person gesture “don’t shoot”? Should a white person yell, “I CAN’T BREATHE!”?

I’m not sure there’s a universal answer to these question, but doing the above doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I CAN breathe. Police are unlikely to shoot me without repercussions. I am white. That comes with privileges, and claiming too much understanding of things I don’t experience is inappropriate.

I am not Trayvon Martin.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t fight. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t fight. It just means my role in the fight is different, just as my experience in the world is different.

I don’t know if the word “ally” is too passive, I don’t know if a more active word would abuse too much power.

But I do know I have a responsibility to speak up and to speak out. I know I have a responsibility to do so in a way that is respectful of all people. I know there’s not a secret activist etiquette handbook, and I know I will make mistakes along the way.

I know I will do my best to apologize for those mistakes, and I know I will resolve to do better next time.

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Institutions as Bystanders

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Much has been said about the negative impact individuals have when they are bystanders – when they remain silent in the face of hate.

As Elie Wiesel eloquently described, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

Being a bystander is not being neutral – it is being complicit.

Much education and advocacy has gone into helping individuals realize the wrongness of being a bystander. Much education and advocacy has gone into giving individuals the tools to speak up and to take action. Much education and advocacy has focused on the role of individuals in countering injustice.

But what of the role of institutions?

Institutional racism and other forms of discrimination are, after all, institutional. But what is the role of an institution is speaking out and acting against injustice?

The question, in part, may depend on the type of institution – does a corporation have the same responsibility as a school?

Probably not – a school has a responsibility to educate, while a corporation has a responsibly, I suppose, to profit.

It’s not that you would never see this issues addressed in the corporate sector, but you would really only expect a brand to speak up on an issue under a certain set of conditions.

Most notably, if a bias incident at a company makes big news, that would certainly force a crisis-communications response. But if that’s the only time an institution reacts – I’m not sure that’s any different from being a bystander.

Companies may arguably also take a stand through their editorial decisions. After all, it seems we are not past the days when an advertisement featuring an interracial couple or a gay couple counts as a political statement.

But this is rather light support. A general a nod to inclusivity, without the teeth that real activism requires. As one of my grad school professors described it, its often done as an attempt to reach out to a target demographic while not offending another target demographic.

That still sounds like a bystander.

And perhaps this is all well and good for corporations – which do have an obligation to make a profit – or perhaps we should ask for more. Perhaps instead of boycotting company’s whose stances we disagree with, we should boycott companies who think they can take no stance at all.

And perhaps we should push other types of institutions – schools, cities, associations. These institutions which do have a social mission, which do have a duty to the public and not just to stockholders. Perhaps we should push all institutions to take a stand and speak out against bias.

Perhaps being neutral should not be an option.

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Non-Violence

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It is easy to speak of non-violence when you have nothing at risk.

But what does it mean to truly embrace non-violence? To commit to love even when you have everything at risk?

Mohandas Gandhi, who is so rightly revered for his own commitment to non-violence, famously offered this reflection:

Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.

By committing to non-violence, by voluntarily seeking their own death, Gandhi believed the massacre of the Jewish people “could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant.”

That is what a commitment to non-violence looks like.

I don’t mean to argue here that one shouldn’t have a commitment to non-violence. I have been fortunate enough to never have truly tested my mettle in this regard, so I honestly don’t know what is right. What I do know is that while non-violence certainly sounds good, it is not a devotion one should take on lightly.

Non-violence is a bold commitment.

A commitment to the power of love over the power of hate. A commitment to the rightness of peace over the corruptness of brutality. It is a willingness to sacrifice yourself – to sacrifice everything – in the name of a greater cause.

It is more than a commitment to peaceful protests or uplifting words. A true commitment to non-violence takes a great leap of faith, a belief that love – just love – has the greatest power of positive transformation.

It is greeting your killer with love in your heart.

In “Loving Your Enemies,” the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

Perhaps more of us should do that. Perhaps more of us should put our faith in the power of love. Perhaps more of us should be willing to risk everything in embracing the transformative power of love.

But let’s not pretend that it is easy.

Let’s not pretend that it is obvious. And let’s not sit back in the comfort of our own homes and judge those who might turn to violence in the face of despair.

It is easy to speak of non-violence when you have nothing on the line.

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Who are the Oppressed?

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In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire writes of oppression as a process of dehumanization, a process which dehumanizes the oppressed and the oppressor alike., albeit affecting them in different ways.

Critically, he argues, it is only the oppressed who have the power to humanize us all:

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.

The oppressors can only conceive of liberation as a trade-off, Freire argues. Rather than seek true liberation and humanization for all, oppressors “attempt to ‘soften’ the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed.” An act which “almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity.” Or, in another word, paternalism.

The oppressors cannot liberate because they can only come up with solutions like affirmative action or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. They can only come up with solutions which at their essence say, “For generations our people have oppressed your people, but we will gesture towards this trivial concession because our people are so generous. Feel fortunate to receive this from us.”

So the task of liberation must fall to the oppressed.

But who are exactly “the oppressed”?

Freire seems to draw this line so clearly, but our society is not so neatly bimodal.

There are, of course, fractures of clear comparison: in the United States, black people are oppressed and white people their oppressors. Generations of slavery and generations of paternalism have seen to that.

But there are other fault lines as well. Women are the oppressed. Members of the LGBT community are the oppressed. Latinos, Asians, and multiethnic people are the oppressed. Those with real or perceived mental health issues – the mad, as Foucault would say – are also the oppressed.

In individual’s identity is complex. No person fits into one neat little box.

Perhaps we all are “the oppressed.”

Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino studies “covering” – the social and legal pressure to hide your authentic self, which, as Freire would agree, leads to dehumanization and the degradation of the self. As Yoshino describes:

When I lecture on covering, I often encounter what I think of as the “angry straight white male” reaction. A member of the audience, almost invariably a white man, almost invariably angry, denies that covering is a civil rights issue. Why shouldn’t racial minorities or women or gays have to cover? These groups should receive legal protection against discrimination for things they cannot help, like skin color or chromosomes or innate sexual drives. But why should they receive protection for behaviors within their control – wearing cornrows, acting “feminine,” or flaunting their sexuality? After all, the questioner says, I have to cover all the time. I have to mute my depression, or my obesity, or my alcoholism, or my schizophrenia, or my shyness, or my working-class background or my nameless anomie. …Why should my struggle for an authentic self matter less?

I surprise these individuals when I agree.

Yoshino would argue that we all are “the oppressed.”

It important here to interject that a recognition that every one “covers” – or more boldly that everyone is oppressed – does not imply that everyone is oppressed equally.

As part of a dialogue a few months ago, we were all asked to share a story of a time we felt like an outsider. It was a powerful and humanizing experience.

But it would have been inaccurate and inappropriate for me to walk away from that conversation feeling like my experience being “othered” was comparable to an African American’s experience being “othered.” Or, really, that my experience was comparable to anyone else’s at all.

I imagine that we have all felt the fear and shame and degradation of the oppressed, but I know we have not all felt it equally and it has not affected us all the same.

I do not know what it is like to be black in America. I only know what it is like to be me.

Despite the danger of falsely equating or comparing experiences, there’s something I find promising in accepting the mass of Americans as “the oppressed.”

Perhaps as Freire argues, it is only the oppressed who have the power to liberate us all – but we cannot let them wage the war alone.

The voices, vision, and agency of people of color should lead the movement for racial equality, but I cannot let it be their job alone. It is my responsibility as well to think critically about my own privilege and to openly question structures of power.

I may be “the oppressor” but it is morally imperative that I play an appropriate role in this fight – the role “the oppressed” ask me to play.

And while I recognize myself as a person of privilege in this dichotomy, I believe it is my own identity as “the oppressed” which helps me be the person I most need to be. An “oppressor,” perhaps, but also an ally.

It seems there could be great power in this approach. If we all see our selves as oppressed. If we reject the notion of liberation as a zero-sum game and work together to ensure that all people are free to pursue the “vocation of becoming more fully human.” If we recognize our brutal histories of oppression have impacted us unequally, but we collectively refuse to rest until all people are true free.

If we truly worked together in this humanist endeavor -

Perhaps, then, change could come.

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Solutions

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I’ve been making a lot of complaints the last few days. Complaints about the deep injustices of our systems, complaints about how we as a society watch racially-charged tragedies happen again and again and again.

How many more black people need to die before we find solutions?

The Onion had an article a little while back, “Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away,” as if efforts to cure disease can best be measured by the threat to white people. As if.

How many more black people need to die?

I’ve wanted to write a post about solutions for days, but I’ve found it deeply challenging. There are some great solution-oriented posts out there, like Janee Woods’ 12 things white people can do now because of Ferguson.

If you haven’t read that piece yet, you should do that right now.

But I’ve challenged myself to find my own solutions, to identify the actions and inspirations which speak most to me.

It has been challenging.

As I’ve written before, I have no deep expertise in this matter. I know about physics and communication, not about policing and law. What could I possibly know? What could I possibility offer?

Yet this is the challenge that falls to every citizen. We each have expertise in some areas, and a lack of professional knowledge in others. But the work of societal solutions is our collective task and we each must be involved.

If we always defer to the professional experts, we lose the essence of our democracy and miss out on the best solutions. Seriously.

Having no expertise, should I just throw my hands in the air and leave the problem for others to solve? Certainly others have more developed and nuanced views on specific tactics that may be implemented – such as having officers wear body cameras. But that doesn’t mean I have no role in the solution.

That doesn’t mean I can just stand by.

So, here’s a – doubtless incomplete – list of things I’ve come up with that I can do. Me, personally. I no doubt will fail at times, but I will endeavor to do the best I can do. In no particular order:

  • Smile at strangers
    No really. Most people aren’t creepy or dangerous. I’ve had my fair share of creepers follow me down the street, and those folks are gonna creep no matter what you do. Don’t let that be a reason not to be neighborly. (Also, in my experience of creepers, white Harvard boys are the worst.)
     
  • Ask permission to be in spaces
    Don’t assume that your presence or participation is welcome in all spaces all of the time. This is particularly challenging for me, as I traditionally don’t feel welcome in spaces and am more at risk of feeling silenced than one might think. But there are times when you should push boundaries, speaking up even when it feels uncomfortable, and times when you should let those who feel even more silenced than you set the rules.

    If a space isn’t for you, don’t take it personally and don’t take offense. Just recognize that the conversation would be different if you were there, and that’s not the conversation participants need to have right now.
     
  • Educate yourself
    Ask good questions and seek guidance from others, but don’t let it be the job of people of color to explain everything to you. Read everything you can.
     
  • Educate and engage others
    Ask people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities about their experiences and views on racial injustice in this country. As someone who is white, I think it is particularly important to engage in these conversations with other white people. Share your story with others.
     
  • Speak up and speak out
    Raise questions of equity. Don’t let it be a person of color’s job to raise these issues.
     
  • Question your assumptions
    A lot of assumptions and implicit biases are hardwired into our systems. Know what yours are and question yourself when you make assumptions. You will make inaccurate and inappropriate assumptions about people, don’t let that dictate the way you act and think. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
     
  • Leverage your power to have an impact where you can
    Perhaps you will never have an impact on “race relations in America,” but you can have an impact within your communities – such as your neighborhood, your school, and your work. What power do you have in those communities and how can you affect change?
     
  • Listen genuinely
    Care about what other people are saying and try to understand what has shaped the way they think.
     
  • Always look for solutions
    There will always be more work to be done.
     
  • Challenge yourself to be your best
    You will make mistakes. Forgive yourself, but do better next time.
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Being White’s Not Necessarily a Walk in the Park, But it Does Come With Privilege

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“White privilege” can be complex to understand. There certainly seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what it means.

And a lot of that misunderstanding I can appreciate.

For me, the phrase “white privilege” invokes images of royalty lounging about on Roman-style chairs – perhaps with someone feeding them grapes. Or, perhaps, it might conjure images of rich people sitting around drinking tea and speaking in fake British accents. You know, as they do.

For a long time, I couldn’t understand how “white privilege” might apply to me. That wasn’t my life. That wasn’t me.

I’ve had racial slurs used against me. I’ve had violence threatened against me. I have buried my true self out of fear. I have seen things I’d rather not share, and I have experienced things I’d fight like hell to prevent anyone else from experiencing.

So, I wouldn’t call myself privileged.

But, you see, that’s not what white privilege is about.

I grew up in a predominately black neighborhood. A neighborhood with drugs, and crime, and gun shots ringing out every night.

It wasn’t always easy, but I got by. And perhaps, more importantly, I got out.

I got a world class education at schools which weren’t in my district. At schools where kids didn’t carry knifes or guns. Where students weren’t denied access to computers for fear of theft or vandalism. At schools with enriching arts programs and science field trips. Schools which inspired students to think critically and to speak out against injustice.

And no one ever questioned my right to be there.

I had to hide myself in someways, perhaps, but I could hide myself.

The school district where I went to high school recently hired a private detective to investigate whether a a 2nd grade Latina girl was legitimately a resident of the city.

No one ever investigated me.

I went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and I have been fortunate enough to build a wonderful, middle-class life.

I earned those things, yes, but – it was also easier for me to earn them because I am white.

And make no mistake, “easier” does not mean “easy.” It has been tough at times. I’ve had little handed to me.

But I have still benefited from a system that favors whiteness. The trajectory of my life has been profoundly impacted by the color of my skin.

I am well qualified for my work, of course, but studies show that employers tend to favor resumes from people with “white” sounding names.

How is that fair?

The answer is simple: It is not.

And the real thing is, living in a society that favors whiteness, that makes success more attainable for someone with my skin – well, that’s no a reason to cry reverse racism or to protest every time a thing doesn’t go my way.

Sure, we could fight over the scraps of a society that not only favors whiteness, but which also favors one gender, one sexual orientation, and prefers a certain sort of upbringing and sense of decorum.

But, if anything, the knowledge that being white has made my life easier…just makes me more angry and more committed to real justice.

If my life were the definition of easy, I sure as hell don’t want to see the definition of hard.

It is bad enough that so many people in our country live in poverty, are treated as second class citizens, or are otherwise discriminated against and oppressed. That basic inequity is terrible enough -

But it is unthinkable, conscionable, that there is a systemic regularity behind that inequity. In 2012, 28% of African Americans were living in poverty, compared to about 16% across all races. Black men are less likely to graduate from high school, and are more likely then their white peers to go to prison or to die from homicide.

That systemic, deep, persistent, inequity is the real horror here.

And that is what white privilege is.

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And The World Keeps Spinning -

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When my youngest niece was born, I spent a good twenty four consecutive hours in the hospital with my sister. I’d just gotten a sun burn and I’d neglected to bring any snacks. But it was a remarkable experience nonetheless.

When I final left those fluorescent-lit hallways and found myself blinking in the brightness of the world, it seemed remarkable to me just how ordinary everything seemed.

Something miraculous had happened, but the world kept spinning.

I found a similar sensation a few years later when my father passed away. I got caught in traffic at 8:30am on a Monday and I couldn’t figure out where everyone was going. It seemed strange to think of people going to work. It seem strange to see people engaged in every day activities. It seem strange to see the rest of the world acting as if nothing had happened.

Something devastating had happened, but the world kept spinning.

These are a few of my private moments of disorientation, but this feeling happens collectively as well.

I remember the highs of Red Sox victories – knowing smiles and cheers passing between strangers on the street. I remember the shared anxiety and trepidation in the week following the Boston Marathon bombing.

In days of disappointing Patriots losses or of collective bemoaning of snow, my geographic community feels united, as if the whole world is focused on what we know. But contact with the outside world reveals just how isolated that collective feeling is. Somehow, despite what feels so pressing to us, everyone else in the world is just carrying on.

Something happened, but the world kept spinning.

While many things have been difficult to process about what’s going on in Ferguson and around the country, this feeling of disjointedness and disorientation has really struck me the last few days.

I turn on the news and – as much as I know exactly what to expect – I almost find it hard to believe there’s anything besides issues of race or justice being covered.

Thanksgiving feels strangely hollow, Christmas shopping especially trivial, in the face the deep racial injustice we face in this country. There is so much work to be done. How is anyone thinking of anything else?

My Facebook news feed is heavily slanted towards people who are out on the streets protesting, who are organizing vigils, walkouts, and teach-ins. I understand from their posts that this isn’t the norm, but it’s almost enough to let me breath a sigh of relief.

Someone else has got that covered, I almost want to say. Someone else is doing something. And while I care – of course I care – I also have things to do, other priorities, other concerns. And no one really cares what I think, anyway.

Someone else has got that covered, so I’ll just crawl back towards a sense of normalcy and hope for the best. What can I really do, anyway?

And then I see a comment not about Ferguson, not about racial justice, or not questioning the systems of privilege and oppression we’ve artfully constructed in this country. And as much as a part of me may want to move on in my life, I find myself baffled that others have moved on so quickly.

Something has happened, I want to exclaim. How can the world keep spinning?

Of course, that’s what makes a system of privilege so insidious. That is what makes the injustice so cunning -

I am white. I have the privilege to just walk away. I have the privilege to think that what happened to a black man in Ferguson, in Miami, in Cleveland, in Oakland, in too many cities – I have the privilege to think what happened to them has nothing to do with me.

It’s almost easier to walk away.

After all, if the world keeps spinning, I might as well be on it. I almost certainly can’t make a difference, I almost certainly can’t bring about any change. I have no expertise in law or law enforcement or even, really, in social justice. I’m just an average person with things I would change, but no idea how I’d fix them.

I have so little to offer, and it is so, so easy to just sigh and walk away.

But I can’t.

I just can’t. And neither should you.

There is so much work to be done. So much. None of us know all the answers. None of us can figure it all out. None of us can make it all right. We need to work together – and we need to all work – to find solutions to these complex problems.

We should all be in shock. We should all be in awe. We should all be terrified and hopeful about what the future may hold.

There is important work to be done, and no one gets to sit this one out. After all, the world keeps spinning.

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It’s Not About Ferguson

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I wasn’t sure what to write today. I’ve had a hard time finding my words.

Ferguson is all that’s on the news, and with good reason. A grand jury failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed, 18-year-old, black man.

I could write about how the role of a grand jury is to evaluate a case by the low bar of whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed – advancing the suspect, still presumed innocent, to face a trial.

I could write about how incredibly rare it is for a grand jury not to indict, how of the 162,000 federal cases U.S. attorneys prosecuted in 2010, grand juries declined to indict in only 11 of them.

I could write about how the jury which failed to indict white police officer Darren Wilson was composed of nine white and three African-American jurors.

I could go through the thousands of pages of evidence, giving my own lay opinion of what it all means.

But none of that feels sufficient. None of that is enough.

What happened in Ferguson was shocking, but not surprising. It was horrifying but routine. It was a noteworthy moment, but a moment of little note.

The thing is – the true, deep, terrifying thing – is that it’s not about Ferguson.

In that moment, in that place, the details, of course, are everything. But in the grand scheme of things – it doesn’t really matter whether Officer Wilson genuinely felt threatened or whether he had genuine cause to feel threatened. It doesn’t really matter what the evidence indicates in this specific, individual, case. I mean, it matters a lot, but it also – it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that black men and women face a dramatic difference in life expectancy than white people do.

What matters is that black men and women are hugging their children tight, desperately praying for their safety. I don’t know whether Officer Wilson was genuinely threatened, but I know that my black brothers and sisters are genuinely threatened.

I know that black people are disproportionately more likely to be shot by police officers.

I know a 12-year-old black kid was shot and killed by police while playing with a toy gun.

You see, that’s the insidious thing about institutional racism – there’s always a reason why its “not about race” this time.

A police officer is trained to react a certain way, to anticipate a certain danger in order to stay alive. Can you really blame a white officer for feeling seriously threatened by a black man? It’s almost easy – especially as a white person – to look at the details and rationalize the injustice away.

But not everyone has that privilege.

Not everyone has the luxury of turning off the news with a sigh, saying this news has nothing to do with me. Not everyone has the privilege of feeling safe walking down the street in their own neighborhood.

Not everyone has that privilege. But everyone should.

As a white person, it seems so obvious, so assumed, that a person would have that safety. But my Facebook feed is full of people of color wondering which of their family members they might lose. My neighborhood is full of black men who look at me askance and hustle on their way – fearful I might find them a threat.

That reality is simply not okay.

I’m not interested in getting into a fight about evidence or laws. I’m not interested in picking apart the details or analyzing every action that has happened in Ferguson. What’s happening there has meaning, but it’s not the details that matter.

Black lives matter.

Black lives matter.  We cannot simply breath a heavy sigh, finding just enough compassion to calm our conscious. We cannot keep rolling our eyes, assuring ourselves that it’s not really about race this time. Assuring ourselves that we are not racist, or that there is no privilege which comes with being white.

We cannot let people of color fight this battle alone, and we cannot, we cannot – we cannot let our fellow man continue to die because of the color of their skin.

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Transgender Day of Remembrance

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Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The fact that we need such a day is a tragedy in and of itself. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to memorialize the lives lost to transphobic violence.

The mind reels to think there even could be such a thing.

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), in 2013 there were 2,001 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence. That same year, 72% of LGBTQ homicide victims were transgender women, including 67% transgender women of color.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reports that in schools, 16.8% of transgender students report being physically assaulted as a result of gender expression, while 32.1% experience physical harassment.

There is no universe in which that reality is okay.

Taken from the Transgender Day of Remembrance website, here is a list of those who have died from transphobic violence in the last year. That there should be one name on this list is too many -

Jacqueline Cowdrey (50 years old)
Cause of death: unknown
Location of death: Worthing, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Date of death: November 20th, 2013
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Rosa Ribut (Jon Syah Ribut – 35 years old)
Cause of death: blunt force trauma
Location of death: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Date of death: November 24th, 2013
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Betty Skinner (52 years old)
Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head
Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date of death: December 4th, 2013
———————————————————————————-
Brittany Stergis (22 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head
Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date of death: December 5th, 2013
———————————————————————————-
Elizalber Oliveira de Mesquita (39 years old)
Cause of death: stoned to death
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 5th, 2014
———————————————————————————-
Paloma
Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the head and chest
Location of death: Belém, Pará, Brazil
Date of death: January 8th, 2014
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Rayka Tomaz (20 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds.
Location of death: Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: January 10th, 2014
———————————————————————————-
Prince Joe (Joseph Sanchez – 18 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds, dumped on the street
Location of death: Belize City, Belize
Date of death: January 12th, 2014

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Toni Gretchen (50 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 16th, 2014
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Luana (20 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot to the chest
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: January 10th, 2014
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Cristal (Alexandre Nascimento de Araújo – 22 years old)
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
Date of death: January 19th, 2014
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Thifani (18 years old)
Cause of death: dismembered
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: January 27th, 2014
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Joice (José Antônio Vieira Freitas – 32 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 28th, 2014
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Sarita (Marcos de Almeida Oliveira)
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Itabela, Bahia, Brazil
Date of death: January 29, 2014
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Juju (Julian de Souza Cruz – 32 years old)
Cause of death: beaten and stoned to death
Location of death: Salgueiro, Pernambuco, Brazil
Date of death: January 29th, 2014
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Raíssa (Lourivaldo Xavier)
Cause of death: 6 gunshots to head and chest
Location of death: Cuiabá,Mato Gross, Brazil
Date of death: February 1st, 2014

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Tatty
Cause of death: facial injuries
Location of death: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Date of death: February 7th, 2014
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Rafaela (Alexsandro Alderotti José dos Santos – 32 years old)
Cause of death: multiple gunshots
Location of death: Recife, Brazil
Date of death: February 11th, 2014
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Alex Medeiros (8 years old)
Cause of death: Beaten to death by father for refusing to cut hair, liking women’s clothes, and dancing.
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: February 18th, 2014
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Paulete
Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the face
Location of death: Taguatinga, Brazil
Date of death: February 19th, 2014
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Camila Veronezi (24 years old)
Cause of death: suffocation
Location of death: Bragança Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: February 21st, 2014
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Lu (Célio Martins da Silva)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Nova Serrana, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: February 23rd, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: February 27th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: February 28th, 2014

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Kitana
Cause of death: 3 gunshot wounds to the head
Location of death:Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil
Date of death: Feburary 28th, 2014
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Sarita do Sopão (39 years old)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 29th, 2014
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Andressa Pinheiro
Cause of death: 15 stab wounds, dragged, fractured skull
Location of death:João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
Date of death: March 1st, 2014
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Rose Maria (32 years old)
Cause of death: stabbed in the neck
Location of death: Brás, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 5th, 2014
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Vitória (16 years old)
Cause of death: 2 gunshot wounds to the chest
Location of death: Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil
Date of death: March 12th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: burned to death
Location of death: Jardim Ingá, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: March 14th, 2014
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Paulete (Paulo Roberto Lima dos Santos – 19 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: March 17th, 2014
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Marciana
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Iguatu, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: March 24th, 2014

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Nicole (Marcos Vinicius Machado – 20 years old)
Cause of death: hands and feet bound, stabbed in the neck and abdomen
Location of death: Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil
Date of death: March 28th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: dismemberment
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 23rd, 2014
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Giovana Souza Silva (33 years old)
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 29th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten with weapon, fists by several people, dragged through the street.
Location of death: João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
Date of death: March 29th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: blow to the head with iron bar
Location of death: Sobral, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: April 2nd, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten and strangled to death.
Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
Date of death: April 2nd, 2014
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Mileide
Cause of death: 4 gunshot wounds
Location of death: Santo Antônio, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: April 7th, 2014
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Valquíria (aka Josivaldo Ribeiro Oliveira Brito)
Cause of death: gunshot to back.
Location of death: Praça dos Carreiros, Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
Date of death: April 20th, 2014

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Çağla Joker
Cause of death: gunshot to the chest
Location of death: Tarlabaşı, Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey
Date of death: April 21st, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: four gunshots
Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: May 29th, 2014
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Marcia Moraes (34 years old)
Cause of death: four gunshots
Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: May 29th, 2014
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Kandy Hall (40 years old)
Cause of death: massive trauma, body left in a field
Location of death: Montebello, Maryland, USA
Date of death: June 3rd, 2014
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Paola (Anderson Arruda Camote) (29 years old)
Cause of death: knife wounds to neck, feet and hands tied
Location of death: Arandu, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: June 8th, 2014
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Zoraida “Ale” Reyes (28 years old)
Cause of death:choked to death
Location of death: Anaheim, California, United States
Date of death: June 10th, 2014
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Mia Henderson (26 years old)
Cause of death: massive trauma, found dead in alley.
Location of death: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Date of death: June 16th, 2014
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Yaz’min Shancez
Cause of death:murdered, and burned
Location of death: Fort Myers, Florida, United States
Date of death: June 19th, 2014
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André Luiz Borges Rocha
Cause of death: gunshot wounds to the face
Location of death: Tijucal, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Date of death: June 23rd, 2014
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Tiffany Edwards (28 years old)
Cause of death:shot to death
Location of death: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Date of death: June 26th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.
Location of death: Coruripe, Alagoas, Brazil
Date of death: June 30th, 2014
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Kellen Santorine
Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.
Location of death: Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: July 13th, 2014
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Mackelly Castro (age:24)
Cause of death: hanging
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: July 18th, 2014
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Lele (age:24)
Cause of death: beaten to death
Location of death: Roatán, Honduras
Date of death: July 18th, 2014
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Dennysi Brandão (age:24)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds to the hip, chest, and back.
Location of death: Contagem, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: July 24th, 2014
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Alisson Henrique da Silva (age:25)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Macaíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: July 31st, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: found dead, with eyes removed.
Location of death: Jardim dos Ipês Itaquaquecetuba, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: August 9th, 2014
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Alejandra Leos
Cause of death: gunshot to the back
Location of death: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Date of death: September 5th, 2014
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Karen Alanis (age:23)
Cause of death: thrown from vehicle, ran over
Location of death: Caçapava, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: September 9th, 2014

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Marcela Duque (46 years old)
Cause of death: stoned to death
Location of death: Medellín, Colombia
Date of death: September 9th, 2014
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Cris
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Portal da Foz, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
Date of death: September 13th, 2014
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Marcela Lopez
Cause of death: Stoning
Location of death: Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia
Date of death: September 14th, 2014
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Mahadevi
Cause of death: pushed off moving train
Location of death: Malleshwara, Karnataka, India
Date of death: September 25th, 2014
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Bruna Lakiss (26 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot wound
Location of death: Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Date of death: September 30th, 2014
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Aniya Parker
Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head
Location of death: East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of death: October 3rd, 2014
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Gaivota dos Santos
Cause of death: three shots to the face
Location of death: Rio Largo, Alagoas, Brazil
Date of death: October 1st, 2014
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Géia Borghi
Cause of death: shot in the chest, bound, gagged, set afire
Location of death: Monte Mor, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: October 9th, 2014

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Jennifer Laude
Cause of death: asphyxiation by drowning
Location of death: Subic Bay, Zambales, Philippines
Date of death: October 11th, 2014

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Sara (27 years old)
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil
Date of death: October 12th, 2014
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Aguinaldo Cláudio Colombelli (45 years old)
Cause of death: 30 stab wounds
Location of death: Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: October 16th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten to death
Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
Date of death: October 16th, 2014
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Flávia
Cause of death: three gunshots
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: October 20th, 2014
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Mary Joy Añonuevo (55 years old)
Cause of death: stabbed 33 times
Location of death: Lucena, Quezon, Philippines
Date of death: October 21st, 2014
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Ashley Sherman
Cause of death: shot in the head
Location of death: Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Date of death: October 27st, 2014
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Maicon
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: November 1st, 2014
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Letícia
Cause of death:stabbed in the chest
Location of death: Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: November 6th, 2014
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Raquel
Cause of death:Gunshot
Location of death: Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: November 6th, 2014
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Adriana (16 years old)
Cause of death:Gunshot, body wrapped in sheet, tied to tree trunk, thrown in river.
Location of death: Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil
Date of death: November 9th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death:throat cut
Location of death: Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: November 9th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death:shot and burned
Location of death: Tblisi, Georgia
Date of death: November 10th, 2014
—————————————————-
Gizzy Fowler
Cause of death:Gunshot
Location of death: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Date of death: November 10th, 2014

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Archetypes, Foils, and Gender Norms

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Through much of Western history “Man” has been an archetype with woman his convenient foil.

These two tired tropes have served us well in some regards – a simple way to summarize all that is strong and stern, or all that is weak and emotional. A tool for understanding not only ourselves, but our broader social context.

There are, of course, problems with this approach.

Consider, for example, the quote, “The perfect woman is a higher type of human than the perfect man, and also something much more rare.”

At first blush that may sound good. Perhaps I should be flattered. But of course Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote the above in Human, All Too Human, isn’t exactly known for his raging feminist philosophy.

Perhaps because he also liked to write things like, “From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty.”

But I’m not sure I find the second quote particularly more problematic than the first. They both take women as a foil – Man is the object of interest, and Woman a mere tool for understanding this more important truth.

One solution seeks to right this historic wrong by flipping the paradigm, making Woman a central concern in her own right. Perhaps it is Woman who should be the archetype with man demoted to foil – little more than a shadow which serves to illustrate its master.

But I find that approach unsatisfactory.

No sentence which begins “Woman is…” will end well for me. Women are not a monolith. Men are not a monolith. And gender is not a two item list.

We’re all individual people. With shared traits and divergent traits. Neither an archetype nor a foil.

We’ve put generations of effort into defining our gender norms. Women are this. Men are that. But which ever way you prioritize that list, a bifurcated system does little to express who we actually are.

I am glad to see efforts to promote strong women, to show real images of women, and to treat women as more than a shadow for the other half of society.

But these efforts are not enough. They still feel too narrow, too defining. Perhaps we need to think more radically – not about what it means to be Woman or what it means to be Man, but about what it means to be a Person.

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