Here in Hawai`i, I am almost as American as you are.
We could dress the same and stand on the street corner shoulder-to-shoulder, and the average person would think we’re both the same. Equal citizens of this great land.
But we’re not. Not here in Hawai`i, and not in Oregon. Nor Montana, Nevada, New York, and Michigan. And certainly not in Texas. I couldn't fool you, though. You already know you must protect your marriages against me.
I only wish I were out to get you, and that I had the means to do so. That I wielded the insidious power that you have attributed to me. Then, at least, I could stand next to you on the street, looking the same and dressing the same, with the same daily concerns and similar exhaustive routines and understand why I am oppressed. And I could smile wickedly and know, deep inside, that nothing you could do could stop me.
Because then I could give you a taste of your own medicine. So you could know what it means to be declared a lesser citizen by your peers, and to have a neighbor sneer at you as she hastens away. To be told that your family is undeserving but that the next one is.
If only I could just brush you ever so slightly, and make you less American, too.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
When I was a child, my father taught me how to successfully move through crowds of people, with little effort. 'Just give them a touch,' he said, 'somewhere on their skin.' I remember him demonstrating this to me on the 4th of July, with fingertips he lightly pressed elbows, forearms, wrists. I was seven, I think, and amazed at how well it worked. The mass of people before us seemed to part, magically.
Wouldn't it be lovely if it only took that touch, so brief and light, to transmit the experience to others of what it means to be different? To divert the individual psyches of some crowd or throng, to see them all changing direction, simultaneously, like a school of fish or a flock of starlings? They would turn, together, changing, in a flash, from dark to light.
I wish I wish I wish.
Wonderfully, beautifully put, Rick. I have enjoyed your comment more than once, and I laud you for taking the higher ground.
In comparing my own wish to yours, I realized I had taken a dark path and I initially felt bad about it. At least in my mind, I set an ethical standard for myself that requires that I do better.
But no. I've thought about it, and I still want them to suffer. Oh, sure, I want them to "turn, together, in a flash, from dark to light," as you so eloquently put. But I also want them to feel guilt and shame and worthlessness as they make that turn. I want them be jeered by their peers, called unholy by priests, physically assaulted, and legislated into Something Less.
I do want peace and harmony, but I also want revenge.
OK.
As one who has been beaten, spat on, cursed, excommunicated and fired (all for being gay), I hear you. Brother, I want them to take it all back, somehow, so that I could be the man that didn't hurt so much.
Meanwhile, I must make room for a little hope, daily.
I adore your blog.
XO
R
More than revenge, peace or change of direction with an electric touch, I want understanding. I want them to understand what it feels like to fear that your friends and family may turn on you, what it feels like to be fired and spat upon, what it feels like to be unable to marry another person like everyone else, to have all this leveled upon you only because you love someone they think you shouldn't.
Minorities around the world have a different view of life because of the trials we are put through, trials straight white men do not go through. Countless are the number of times I have seen the blank look of ignorance on the face of a straight man in a bar when confronted with the concepts of minority injustices, injustices he has never experienced himself, never will experience, and for that reason will never empathize with. Straight white men. Texas legislators. Redundant.
I want them to understand, and then we would all get everything we want; peace, harmonious motion, AND revenge. And it would be that sweetest revenge of all, witnessing the look of understanding and horror on the face of your tormentor when he finally feels as you do and understands the wrong he has done.
Post a Comment