Sorry for being so remiss in writing here. I've been holding all of my transformations and processing a little closer to my body over the past year, and I've been through a LOT!!!

I'm in a reflective move because I'm leaving State College after two years out here. I came out here for a masters degree, and I was also looking forward to a good deal of personal growth. Instead, I'm leaving here with no masters degree, a sturdy relationship, and worlds of personal growth that I didn't expect. Was I disappointed with myself? Yes. There's no way someone as goal-oriented as me could feel initially happy that I didn't achieve something I set out to do. I think it was clear that I had been struggling. But I was so ashamed that I stopped myself from writing anything here about leaving school. Frankly, I would have hid it from my intimates if it had been possible. I had trouble facing it myself. But, dare I say, I've gotten to a point where I feel thankful for, and even good about encountering my personal limitations.

( The rest of this somewhat Job-like story )
Despite working 40 hours/week between Philipsburg (small town 25 min away) and State College with a whole bunch of straight, white, country-ass, lightly racist, sexist and homophobic people, I find myself happier. Ironic, no? I'm beginning to hear myself more, and I'm far more attuned to what the universe is telling me. I don't feel like the words and choices of others permeate my skin so easily. Everyday, people come into the store and I end up ministering to them in my friendly, nerdy way. They'll often say, "I don't know what I feel so comfortable telling you all this..." and I laugh, knowing that I've evoked this reaction from people for many many years and that I have a gift. I still have goals, but I appreciate process more now. I laugh more often, and make fun of myself. I cook. I wait for inspiration to come, and I'm beginning to read for joy instead of obligation. I get along with Darryl better, and I let his love in more. I try to control less. I communicate how I feel more, and I'm beginning to let my tears fall when they may. I feel good about myself, and I feel ok with my limitations. I'm motivated less by hurt and anger. I feel like I'm "in my body" more, and "in my head" a bit less. And I don't need Maryjane to get there! One of the coolest revelations I've had is that schools don't give me my intelligence. I have it, and I radiate it no matter where I am. It's not that my goals were wrong, but I was approaching them from a standpoint that needed to die. I needed to learn to emphasize external achievement less, and value internal achievement more. I'm learning to be courageously introspective. Boldly humble.

For the first time EVER, I'm ending a chapter of my life with no real plan. I don't know where I'll be living longterm. I don't know what job I'll have. I don't have "the next great achievement" mapped out. But it leaves so much more room for faith and serendipity. There's so much more that isn't tied up nicely in a bow (like debt, insurance, and other material things), but that's ok for now.

Time for food, beer, and television. Smooches!

I'm an ENJF or an INFJ, depending on the day, lol. I've been taking the Myers-Briggs since I was in seventh grade, and I started out as an ESFJ. From there I lost of the sensing, and more recently I've become way more introverted. I think it's been great and accurate...if only I'd do what the damn thing says!

Let the Healing Begin...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99298290

I'm glad that more and more Americans are being made aware of France's race problems. I was there when the government voted to prevent the collection of race-based census data back in 07' Without getting all heady, the French are some of the BIGGEST hypocrites when it comes to race. The French were some of the first to bring our "modern" notions of race onto the world stage. Race was used as a partial justification for colonialism...but the article only mentions the benefits colonialism brought the colonies. While I understand the journalistic hesitancy to write like an activist, this article plays it horribly safe. STILL, it's a good read if you're not up on this.

For the past year...I've felt like I've been stuck in a cocoon. Makes me wonder if caterpillars voluntarily transform, or if there are Monarch Butterflies out there just yearning to return to a slinky terrestrial life.

I've definitely been in a cocoon; and I use the word "stuck" because I've had the sense that life has been happening to me...against my will, since Grandma died. First came depression in the Spring and Summer. I felt like life had become a piece of 40-grit sandpaper and scraped whatever protective veneer I had down to pink flesh. RAW. A walk down the street became daunting. I felt like I couldn't control the degree to which things outside of myself affected me. I was awkward and paranoid. Dropped out of classes. Stopped caring. Cried almost everyday. Spontaneously cried in restaurants and on the streets. I really fell apart and unraveled in an unprecedented way. Sunlight hurt my eyes. I spoke with no one consistently except Darryl, and my team of counselors. YES...team. I did not care how I looked. It seems like I wore sweatpants and thermal tees every single day if I got dressed at all. I lost my appetite and dropped to 190 pounds from 215. I turned to a variety of drugs; illegal and legal; to cope. When I went home to Detroit for my sister's graduation in May, I was high the entire week. Weed made me feel like there was a barrier between me and the outside world. I craved distance from my own emotions. If Peaches says "fuck the pain away," I tried to smoke the pain away. I got as low as I could possibly get.

Then came fear. I was worried that people would know that I was struggling so much. I was scared that no one in my life could support me. I thought I would fail out of grad school. I feared that I could only be loved in my most perfect state. And I was ashamed of myself for sinking so low. Someone on the outside looking in could easily ask why I had any right to be down. My life seems to have many of the trapping of success. But as one of my astrology books put it, I subconsciously operate on the philosophy of "the darker it gets, the brighter one has to be." Each grand thing I've done in life up until this point was undergirded by a feeling of inadequacy within. People have no idea how true that is.

Then came pressure. I was told during the summer that if I did not clean up the mess from my depression, I would not be continuing in the program for the Fall. I also had a court-order against me for two months unpaid rent. My lights and gas were cut off. So since August, I've been in a mad dash to stay afloat in grad school. I barely made it through. I had to clean up my transcripts, write a thesis proposal in four weeks that most students take months to do. I had to defend that proposal, teach, and take two classes. Not to mention working on my relationship with Darryl. My doctor even called in December to check on me because according to her records, I had a "please God, no more" kind of year.

Around Thanksgiving, I bought "It's Pimpin, Pimpin" which is the new comedy special by Katt Williams. I fell in love with it because Williams addressed the issue of long-suffering in such a hilarious way. In his routine, he says that when black people get as low as they can possibly get, all we need is one opportunity to show that we are not bullshitting. 2009 is that opportunity.

Now comes rebirth. Here I am, on the precipice of my last full semester at Penn State. But before I can move on to embrace what the universe has for me in 2009, I needed to leave 2008, and an obsolete shell of myself here in this e-mausoleum. I've been exposed to the elements and learned the ways of the world to completion. So now I can find shelter at home free of the gnawing anxiety that I haven't accomplished enough, released from the need to prove myself in endless hostile and unfamiliar environments to brittle unforgiving authority figures. A season of youth, comfort, vulnerability, and connection with my feelings and those of others is on the horizon.

While I haven't made writing in my LJ a New Years resolution, I certainly wanted to do a better job of writing than I did in 08'. I have so many events, struggles, triumphs and transformations to reflect on from 08' that I'm kind of overwhelmed with where to begin:

Classes started back today, but the campus was surprisingly quiet. Everyone is staying indoors as much as possible because of the cold...which I understand. I won't be teaching any courses or doing any research work for other profs. I'm just writing my thesis and looking for a job on the other side of this degree. So far I'm aiming for government jobs-- namely at the Census Bureau. The 2010 Census is already getting underway in most places, so I'm confident that I'll find something. Whether that "something" pays me what I'm worth is another question...

I had a pretty good time hanging out with family down in Orlando, FL for my winter break. It's been about a year since my grandma's passing...and my family (myself included) is still healing from the aftershocks. Grandma Sally really was the linchpin holding everyone together. So the extended family is really in a state of stasis right now. I've been wrestling with what my role is in all of this. Am I called to move back to Detroit after this and start a new wave of family tradition there? Or am I supposed to just do me?

Darryl and I are in a good place, and have been for a while now. It took some emotional self-work on both of our ends to achieve some stability, but at least we have it within our relationship together. We took a grad level class together last semester, and it was really good to see him shine as a burgeoning academic. Everyone in the class assumed he was in grad school, even though he's still finishing up the undergrad. YAY for having a wonderful, intellectually stimulating boyfriend that I can grow with.

Other than that, just odds and ends. I'm getting glasses, and I'm sportin' a faux-hawk these days. Considering purchasing a used car to get around more easily. I think I've paid tribute to the concept of living more simply...but the shit just doesn't work when it comes to transportation in State College, lol.

Dan Savage posted the following on his Savage Love Blog (SLOG): http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/11/black_homophobia

My Response:

I think that we all need to understand something here. African American and Gay are not mutually exclusive categories. It always hurts me when I hear or read (white) gay men make comments about homophobia in the African American community, without doing any research into how their race and class positions interact with their sexuality.

The terms gay and homosexual are culturally specific terms that do not emanate from black culture. Each time we refer to a "D.L" black man as closeted, we ignore the cultural differences surrounding black sexuality. Even the term "closet" is culturally specific. Also, historically, the black community has not treated sexuality the same way. Did it ever occur to anyone that much of how blacks treat sexuality has to do with historical white racism that labeled black men and women as oversexed whores and rapists?

Since I do identify as gay, I certainly understand the frustration surrounding proposition 8. However, at the same time, I don't think it's enough to "confront" the black community like Savage suggest. I think that (white) gay men, who dominate the quest for gay marriage, need to 1) realize that they are not race-neutral nor class-neutral, 2) think about the fact that various cultures in the United States and around the world conceptualize sex and sexuality differently, and 3) think about the ways in which they continue to impose their cultural view of same-sex loving on people of color.

Also, I don't believe that the Right is fully responsible for pitting these groups against each other. The black community has always been relatively conservative on social issues. Blacks wouldn't even vote Democrat today if it wasn't for Franklin Roosevelt's direct effort to realign the black vote through his "Black Cabinet" during his administration.

The Right wins because liberals across the board continue to support a politics based solely on individual group struggle. We (liberals) seem incapable of understanding that discrimination based on race, class, gender, sexuality, or disability should not be seen as separate. We don't care about other people who suffer differently. What would it mean for us (gay men) to fight for universal civil unions? What would it mean to protest in the name of insuring individuals instead of (straight) couples and (certain) families? What would it mean to fight for a society that honored individual human rights, regardless of the extent to which they follow majority practices?? To me, the core problem is that we don't challenge the ascendancy of marriage in this country. At our most revolutionary, we only seek to reform it.

I get the anger, believe me. I come from a people who had to jump brooms in order to subvert a society that wouldn't allow them marriage because they weren't viewed as human. Now, since I do dick, I still can't get married. I just think that there's so much (straight) blacks, and (white) gays don't know about each other. I sit in the third space created by this rift, and it's a difficult walk everyday. I really end up feeling beaten by both sides because of their inability to acknowledge each other's struggles. That struggle has never been solely about race, class, gender, or sexuality. They've all happened simultaneously in the history of this country.

Wattup Doe (Detroit lingo for hello) :)

I haven't posted on here in FOREVER, and I think I'm ready to start again. So much to write about and reflect on...

But I can't do it right now, lol. I left Detroit last night on a train out of town, and now I'm in Pittsburgh waiting on a train to Lewistown, PA. I'll eventually be back in State College today around 1-ish. Tuesday will be very much about catching my reflections up with my life.

Suffice to say that 2008 has been "one of those years" so far. Way more difficulties than usual. But there are bright spots of growth too. Grist to the mill I guess.

Anyway, gotta run-- I don't wanna miss this train!

Smooches.

So my friend Sam called late tonight to ask for some professional advice concerning a job he may be up for at a gaming company called Fantasy Flight games. He also asked me how I was doing, which gave me a chance to actually answer that question for myself, lol.

I'm basically satisfied with the progress I'm making emotionally. I've stopped beating myself up for needing a break, and I've accepted that basically, what I'm going through is pretty damn normal. Deaths of loved ones are always hard, and take a while to deal with. Grad school stress is par for the course. The cross-cultural/activist burnout that I've been feeling lately is to be expected as well. Most people get to spend ample time inside their comfort zones. You may be forced to deal with issues of diversity and difference in your professional lives; but most of us simply go home and resume our comfortable existences.

That pattern ended for me when I was fifteen. Since then, I really have been living "in a foreign land," both literally and figuratively. THAT'S TOUGH! I've been running on nothing but my ideals and values to sustain me. I've been doing this so long that I sometimes forget that I am stretching myself. just_wesley was the first black gay friend that I ever (knowingly) had, and that was back in 2006. Darryl is the first person that I've had prolonged exposure to that makes me feel absolutely, positively, NORMAL, TYPICAL, and UNREMARKABLE.

He, and my other, newer, afro-fag friends are an amazing, healing gift. They make times of rest like this truly restful and restorative. There's a level of comfort I experience with them that I hadn't felt in a really long time. It's so comfortable that I prefer not to be away from it. I guess that's how most people feel, lol.

So yeah, I'm not necessarily "up and running" yet, but I'm not in the same place as I was last week, or last month either. That's encouraging, and I'm hopeful that there's more healing, resting, and growth to come.

So Darryl and I are sitting here watching Three's Company on TV Land. For me, Three's Company was one of those shows that I knew of, but didn't know anything about. The show is older, and frankly, there's nothing but white characters, so the chance of it entering my cultural radar when I was younger was pretty low.

But the other day, Darryl was telling me how major this show was because it featured a character pretending to be a gay man, who also cross-dressed. On the episode we're watching now, this cop ends up breaching the topic of homosexuality, and asks John Ritter's character if he was gay.

So then I started thinking. Three's Company came out in 1977, and this topic was already being breached on network television.

Noah's Arc, the first show to be centered around gay black (male) characters, didn't come out until 2005.

It may seem like an insignificant point, but I think it's pretty major. Three's company is a historically significant show because of how it deals with gender and sexuality, but I wonder how many people consider the fact that the show was completely white.

This doesn't take away from the significance of the show, but I think it makes a serious difference when you can see yourself, or someone who could be like you, on television. Also, whether you're queer or not, shows like Three's Company would have forced people to acknowledge that issues of sexuality and gender are out there.

Sometimes, when I'm talking to black friends, my family, etc. I feel like I am trying to introduce a new possibility to them when I talk about gender and sexuality. Last semester, when I had a chance to sit on a panel to discuss these issues with black Greek organizations on campus, one of the most frustrating things to deal with is introducing people to the idea that gender and sexual orientation are two different things. Gender is a social construction...a set of meanings that we layer on top of people in response to their genitalia. Gender changes from place to place--from culture to culture. Sexual orientation is simply about who you're attracted to. However, where I'm from, gender and sexuality always go together, and present themselves in familiar combinations. Girls like pink (and boys), while boys like blue (and girls).

What would things be like if a show like Noah's Arc made it to television back in the late 70's or 80's? What if there had been a black character, or other character of color on Three's Company? What would it be like if America had been exposed to the idea that gayness comes in all kinds of colors back then?

We lived next door to what would be called a black lesbian couple my entire life growing up in Detroit. My little sister even bought Ms. Mary's and Ms. Georgeanne's house a few years after they passed on. But because relatively few people in my neighborhood were even away of the possibility of of being gay (my grandma used the term "sissy," but what the hell is a female sissy?) Ms. Mary and Ms. Georgeanne were filed away as roommates (their story also raises the questions of whether it's important to be publicly gay, and whether our government can find ways to honor the many ways in which people love each other without making some peoples' sexuality a public discussion, but that's another post).

If we pretended that White America didn't discuss issues of sexuality and gender until Three's Company came out, that means they had a near-30-year head start to get used to the idea of queer. While I do understand the danger of comparing cultures across artificial, linear "progressions," nothing makes me wish I was white more than being gay.

I know being white isn't a panacea...my poor and rural white friends have certainly shown me that. But dammit, it's a head start on the road to normalcy.

This website is the best website EVER:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/page/3/

Maybe people already know about it-- but it's still a riot.

FROM: http://onebrownwoman.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/the-myth-of-the-nice-guy/

----------------------------------------------

I used to think I met a lot of nice guys (just a disclaimer: since I’m about to sarcastically and unforgivingly tear apart the myth of the nice guy, let me just say that i use the term to refer to straight men.). And you know what? I do. I meet nice guys all the time. They are polite, and they open the door for you and they don’t raise their voice or run away when you challenge their views. They are smart and have a good and unsexist sense of humor. They walk their drunk women friends back to their rooms on Saturday nights and don’t take advantage of them.

Ah nice guys. “He’s such a nice guy!”. I hear it all the time. And every time, I also hear the click of the bar being lowered a notch or two - the bar of “nice guy” standards.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the last year. Nice Guys - real nice guys (see links above) are not common. They are very rare. And one of the reasons why this can be hard to figure out is because nice guys often disguise themselves as Nice Guys. nice guys cover the basics - but when it comes to speaking up or owning up to one’s own privilege, that sheep outfit disappears to reveal the wolf of male-privilege.

They’re still speaking over women. They’re still reaping the benefits of being charming. They’re playing the nice guy card so that they can cruise on through life without being called out.

Is it a start? Yes. Is it awesome?

Nope.

Ah charming nice guys. Ever met a cng? Oh yea, they’re real interesting - they listen well and they don’t patronize you and they ask questions. But underneath it all they are still socialized the same way as the assholes.

It’s easier to think about when we talk about race, I think. Beverly Tatum talks about the moving walkway - and how we continue to think about this walkway in a binary. Some people walk in the direction of racism (active racists, individual racists) and others just stand there. The people standing there think they are resisting racism, because “I’m not racist! I have a black friend!” or other ridiculous white guilt/defensive comments. But really, as Tatum articulates, there is a third category, the group of people who are walking against the direction of the moving walkway, thus actively and consistantly challenging and resisting institutional racism. The passive people twiddling their thumbs towards racism are still benefiting from it.

In my experience, with gender, it seems more complicated, or more difficult to understand this. Actually, I retract that statement. It isn’t that it seems more difficult. It’s just the people that I spend time around are mostly people or color or actively anti-racist white people who understand their privilege. So, race seems to be an “easier” thing to grasp than gender. Oh but patriarchy and male privilege work the same way, don’t they. nice guys passively standing around on the moving walkway, handing gatorade to the women who are running against it. When there are so many passive standers, who can blame women for thinking that’s all there is? And to be honest, I don’t think that women think that’s all there is. It’s just who can wait around for something that exists in such rarity? There are other factors, other experiences, other situations, that make those standers seem like runners. And that’s ok, in a way. That’s something I can’t really argue with.

But for those of us who are in a place where we can constantly and actively run against patriarchy and sexism, and be outspoken activists about it, I think it’s more than necessary to knock a few nice guys down in order for them to realize where things are headed.

The thing I hate the most is nice guys who appear nice because they say nothing at all. They appear to be progressive because they don’t argue for or against anything. Everything’s fine and good and mediocre. Nothing lights their flame of anger and outrage because those nice guys can afford to warm their hands against other people’s fires when and how they want to. Women cannot afford to just stop. There’s no on and off switch for the people who do not benefit from privilege. But at the heart of it, that’s what privilege is, isn’t it? Being able to stop running against the grain whenever you get tired. We all do it, with our respective privileges. All we can hope to do is remember what it means for us to be able to rest and then start running again, next to the people who can never stop.

Something really frustrating keeps happening today. Whenever I walk somewhere on campus, I cry the entire time while I'm walking. The first time was interesting, and somewhat cathartic. The second time annoyed me, because I need to get work done at the Geography Department. The third time worried me, because it's obvious that there's a BIG emotional backlog that has decided to leak out of me, no matter what I think.

I used to cry a lot when I was younger. But growing up as a man in this world unfortunately means that you learn to suppress emotion. Be a good boy, and don't cry. And even though I'm conscious of the fact that I do hold back emotionally--I can't always stop myself from doing it. It's just a conditioned response that I'm trying to unlearn. I have a hard time asking for help. I think my grandma passing was the watershed moment I needed for my emotions to flow more naturally again. The levees have certainly broken.

So what's hurting so much?

1. Grandma passing- I had a few conversations with my mom months ago because I wanted to come out to my grandma. My mom told me that it wasn't a good idea. In fact, she told me that it would probably kill her. Lots of resentment around this issue. First, there's the possibility that she may not have reacted poorly at all. Second, how does it a person feel when they're told that who they are would kill someone? I honestly didn't think about this when it was happening. I just reacted subconsciously. Which leads to..

2. Family- I feel an intense emotional distance from my family. I want them in my life, but I really don't feel like I can be myself around them sometimes. I think this comes from years of being othered within my own family. The jibes, the teasing, the hitting, the ridicule...created a strong love/hate relationship with them that hasn't left me in my adult life. We often talk about the "in-crowd" in places like high schools, but no one likes to talk about the fact that there are ALWAYS in-crowds and outcasts, no matter what the setting. Families are no exception. I started to breach these topics and confront my family about how I felt at the tail-end of the holiday break. But then when grandma died, it shifted the focus of the family in a new direction...so I'm back on the margins again. Good for nothing but computer-related tasks and random facts.

Now I'm crying again. *sigh*

3. Pressure- I'm starting to develop a strong hatred for the (white) professional world that I'm operating in. It's heartless...and cold...and inhumane at times. I was just starting to feel good about myself this week for pulling it all back together, and getting back into the routine. I got up, went to the gym, came back to the apartment, and immediately got started on administrative crap (emails, bills, etc.). Then I read a series of emails from professors and administrators basically threatening me. There were threats to drop grades, not accept assignments, etc. However, for me, the most upsetting parts of these emails were the ones that implied that I was taking advantage of the death in my family. I'm a great students. I work hard, and I deserve everything I've earned in this academic arena so far. If I'm not doing assignments, it's because something is seriously wrong...not because I'm a two-timing bastard. It's almost like they feel that there's an "appropriate" amount of time that I should take in order to feel what I'm feeling. My response to that: FUCK THEM.

Why is it that when you going through tough times, the world responds by taking more away from you, and punishing you more? There's something fucked up about an American system that values dollars and physical productivity over the health and well-being of its citizens.

But it does worry me. This is really all I have. As my brother in law told me one day, "you can't fail now--you've already gone too far down this road." The stakes are higher now. I have more responsibility, and less support. And if I fuck up, I have the ghetto waiting for me back in Detroit, and a whole bunch of jealous and resentful people in that ghetto waiting for this phoenix to fall.

4. No end in sight- Nuff' Said

Yeah...so things are returning back to normal, since the shock of my grandma passing away. That event basically sparked a chain reaction of drama that really had me down for the count. It's been a long time since I felt that depressed. I thought the family was basically falling apart.

But yeah, things have calmed down, and I'm chipping at the 6-week long backlog of tasks that I haven't really gotten done. It's daunting, but I'll get through it. Unfortunately, this semester is basically shot in terms of doing anything above the call of duty professionally. There are syllabuses for courses I'm taking this semester that I haven't even read yet. I'm bummed about that because I know that grad school is at least partially a competition, and I want to stay ahead of the game to make sure that I actually have a job at the end of this.

Darryl's been wonderful through all of the drama. I can tell that he doesn't always know what to do, but he's always there--willing to come over and just be with me. During times when do you don't know where you support is, having someone like Darryl really helps.

I'm finally starting my exercise program tomorrow, which is long overdue. I'm also excited because my buddy Sam is visiting from the Cities next week on Friday. I think I'm gonna have a small party in celebration of his visit. If time/money permits, we'll do a small day trip to Philly or something like that. We'll see.

I can't believe the semester is almost halfway over....BLEGH

I was planning on writing an update here before the next semester gets underway. There's a lot going on...mostly good. But a terrible thing has come up. My grandma is on life support in Detroit. She was apparently suffering from some type of stomach infection that overtook her today. She's had four cardiac arrests, and although she's "stable" right now, she's not conscious, and my father called to let me know that I need to think about getting back to Detroit soon for funeral proceedings.

I'm kind of numb at the moment. I've not really accepted that this is real. I started to lose it a little earlier, but I reeled it back in for some reason. I'm an internal processor when it comes to emotions, so I think my deeper reaction to my grandma's imminent passing will hit me later. I've just wanted to stay calm and collected so I can help support my family back in Detroit, for whom life seems to be falling apart temporarily.

I'm also really confused about what to do. We've dealt with a lot of death in my family; in fact there were three funerals we went to while I was on break in Detroit. But there hasn't been a super-major death in the family for about 10 years.

My aunts are coming in from out west to help make decisions about how long they want grandma on life support, and how to proceed afterward.

Damn...this is so fucked up.

This weekend I attended a training session an LGBT mentorship program here at Penn State. My friend Christian warned me that much of the material covered during the session would be "101" for me, and he was right. However, I wasn't prepared for a random and stupid occurrence that transpired towards the end of today's sessions.

During lunch at the training session, we had a choice of vegetarian, beef, or chicken burritos. When I walked into the room to pick out what I wanted, one of the training coordinators told me what my choices were. I wanted to choose the chicken burrito, but the stereotype of all black people liking chicken darted through my mind, so I pretended to grudgingly accept the chicken burrito, as though I was settling for it. This wasn't the first time that I was in a room full of white people, feeling self-conscious about my blackness, even though the room was largely comprised of LGBT folks.

As soon as I pick up the burrito, one of the other participants in today's training says, "I know about you and chicken, Richard."

"Excuse me?"

"I know about YOU ALL, and chicken, Richard."

At that point, I decided to ignore him, in part because I'm generally exhausted with explaining these types of social faux pas to white people. I continued eating at my burrito, but his statement kept eating at me. I needed to either own up to what he was implying, or back away from his statement all together. Otherwise, I was just getting riled up over an implication, rather than a blunt public statement. So I asked him, "So what did you mean with the whole burrito-statement?"

"Black people love chicken!"

So the entire table starts laughing, and I try to go with the flow, but I'm actually offended by the statement. The director of the LGBT Center says, "Well at least he's being honest." To her credit, she was bright red, and obviously knew that he shouldn't have said that. BUT, instead of letting him know that, the director made a statement that appeared to award his "honesty," and did nothing to address the rather extreme alienation I was feeling as the result of his joke.

So I took the moment to say that the comment wasn't kosher because we didn't know each other well, and I didn't know if I could trust him making a statement like that. His retort: "But Jewish people love chicken too!"

My point was that I was not in a private space with white friends of mine who know me well. No one in that room has proven to me that they were savvy concerning race relations, and so as far as I was concerned, I was in a safe place for LGBT people; not necessarily people of color.

I felt kinda paralyzed at that point. Not only was I angry, I had a bunch of thoughts and questions
flying through my mind, like:

1. If I argue this any further, I'm just going to be labeled the angry black (gay) man.
2. Why didn't either of the coordinators of this training (who were female) say anything to this man?
3. Did the other people in the room laugh because they genuinely thought the joke was funny, or were they trying to diffuse an awkward situation?
4. I'm tired of ignorant white people.
5. Why am I the only person in the room forced to deal with this train of thought?
6. If only I had the fucking beef burrito....
7. Why is this seemingly minor occurrence bothering me SO MUCH??
8. This guy may identify as Jewish, but he's white as hell!
9. The majority of American Jews have been pretty much white since they left urban ghettos for suburbs and became integrated into mainstream American society.
10. White people are the only muthafuckas running around saying that race-based jokes are fair as long as everyone is equally offended.
11. The accumulation of relatively small things like this is how muthafuckas get shot the fuck up on campus.
12. I need to get out of here.

So in an effort to keep everything under control internally, I took a walk around the building we were in, and called Darryl to vent about the situation. I eventually made my way back to catch the conclusion of the training, but my mood had shifted drastically. I didn't feel emotionally safe in the room, so I sat there and continued to withdraw into my own silent space. I tried to journal about what was bothering me, and quickly filled up two pages of paper before stopping to try and pay attention.

After the training was over, both of the coordinator and the director of the LGBT center asked me if anything was wrong. And for the record, I hate when guilty white people ask you if anything is wrong when they KNOW what the fuck is wrong. It's as though the offense that they both witnessed isn't real until you complain about it.

Anyway, past experience (and anecdotes from brown and black lgbt friends) made it difficult for me to trust the director of the LGBT center with my vulnerability. Instead, I found myself in the office of the person who coordinated the training. Her question was simple enough: "Is everything ok?"

"No."

"What happened?"

So I ended up talking for almost 40 minutes straight. I talked about what happened during lunch. I talked about the thoughts that flew through my head. I talked about living in the white world for ten years and learning to suppress my black voice as a survival technique. I talked about sacrificing my blackness to express my gayness in Minnesota. I talked about the frustration of being in classes with white people that discuss social inequalities, and having white people assume that somehow, I'm precluded from the inequalities. I talked about being generally tokenized and always having to educate everybody about something cross-cultural. If I'm not explaining blackness to white people, I'm explaining gayness to black people. I talked about how hard it is to deal with the challenge of moving forward with my ambitions, and simultaneously having to develop effective mechanisms to cope with the emotional fallout of dealing with social inequalities. I whined about how much work I've done to become bi-cultural, bi-lingual, and tri-dialectal. I'm so "good" at hiding my blackness behaviorally that if you heard me without seeing me in some spaces, you'd think I'm white!

But I still can't avoid a fucking chicken joke. I can list dozens of other qualities I'd like to have the world know about me, and they all evaporate with one utterance from a white man. There is no way that I could ever have that level of social power.

And I can't take a break.

If I stop, I'll get kicked out of grad school. If I lose grad school, I no longer have health insurance, or school loan deferment. Besides, stopping won't relieve me of these burdens unless I became a hermit. I've already declared myself on "voluntary cross-cultural sabbatical," but it doesn't matter! In order to continue living my life, I have to educate cross-culturally. PERIOD.

I yelled about how hard it is to convince white folks that they should care about these issues. American individualism leads many people to think that all they need to care about is themselves, or their families at most. Because many Americans aren't directly affected by systemic inequality, they don't care until a 9-11, Virginia Tech, Columbine, or Katrina happens. And even when those catastrophes occur, we point to the individuals involved and discuss what they could've done differently. Yes individual responsibility matters, but it doesn't end there. We're all responsible for the type of society we perpetuate.

The society we perpetuate beats myself and others down materially and emotionally on a daily basis.

I wasn't upset over an isolated incident. The problem was that his dumb statement triggered a chain reaction. This incident reminds me of other incidents, both major and minor. The incidents reflect my oppressive, controversial social lablels (gay, black, male). And finally, the labels reflect oppressive social systems that I live under.

I am tired.

SO, SO tired.

Yet there is little respite from what exhausts me.

I imagine a world where all are free to drink liberally from the oasis of equality.

Until then,

Protect your fucking water holes.

Because bitches WILL NOT continue to die of thirst much longer.

How do I practice an ethic of love towards the people who represent, and knowingly benefit from the very privileges that make my life more difficult?

Yeah...I've been pondering this pretty hard lately. How can I really love my neighbor as myself when the social barriers that separate us are so thick? I understand what it means to see people past social division, but I definitely feel like I'm one of the few people even concerning myself with that challenge. I sit in a (predominantly white) class where we've been discussing social inequalities through the lens of geography. I understand that sometimes we laugh to diffuse the seriousness of the situation, but each time they laugh off the seriousness of an issue, I can't help but see it as a manifestation of their social privilege. At the end of the day, why should someone even care about social issues that don't affect them directly, right?

Wrong.

If I had a super power, it would be the ability to control empathy. Each time that I touched someone, I could literally upload the weight of my emotional experience into their psyche, or download theirs if I chose.

I wish I could literally open up my chest, extract the tension swelling near my diaphragm, and show it to the people who laugh when we talk about women and people of color being underrepresented in academia. I wish I could take my heart and place it on my desk when we talk about these issues so my colleagues could feel it thump extra loudly and hear my pulse quicken when we talk about race and poverty. I wish I could conjure a lump in the throats of my classmates so they could know how hard it is to be so publicly gay and black and male.

I wish that Europe hadn't been a dirty cesspool of disease and war. I wish that the people from there never felt the need to take what others had in an effort to improve their own lives. I wish they hadn't created economic systems based on the consumption of the very items they bought, sold, and stole. I wish they didn't convince the world that ownership is everything. I wish their ways of understanding the world weren't imposed on others.

I wish that my peoples' connection to this land didn't come through slavery. I wish we weren't psychologically tattooed with the pains and fears of our ancestors.

I wish there were a way to rip away all that divides us in this life. A way to rip away the meaning from every "ism" and "archy" that separates us. I wish that when I met people in the street, I could meet their essences. I wish I didn't constantly think about how to best present myself through my social labels. I wish I could revisit a world without self-consciousness. The world of the child. I wish we lived in a world where right and wrong were clearer, but allowed for a diverse humanity.

People, love, hatred, power, history, genocide, oppression, resilience.....and unfulfilled wishes.

How can I come to love, through all of this?

How do you love those who perpetuate a system that misunderstands, fears, hates, and oppresses YOU?

Agape is such a simple and profound concept. Why is the practice of agape so difficult?