The Way I Was Raised

by robert esposito, prose reader

On June fourteenth, I woke up at seven in the morning and told my parents I was going to a friend’s house. An hour later, I was in Philadelphia with a boy I had met on my college’s Facebook page. It went against everything I had been taught about safety, but as soon as we stepped onto the street of the Gayborhood – a section of Philadelphia that I did not know existed – I felt safer among the paint-slick people, who grinned and laughed and greeted us without self-consciousness or rest, than I ever had before. As dramatic as it sounds, that day will live in my memory for as long as I live. But this article is not about my pride experience. It is about marriage equality, and what we are to do next as a community. I hope that while I recount with my experience, one is able to ascertain the correlation.

This bacchanal revelry is something that I used to hate as a young queer person. It’s a phase I think almost every queer person goes through – the loathing of the rainbow trying to outshine the sun, of the people who scream so loudly they can be heard blocks away—when one believes there will be peace in being quiet and conforming. But nearing the end of pride, I could not help but think that I did dislike it, the cheers and the likes, to some extent. We were sitting in an amphitheater, listening to speeches that were meant to be inspiring and motivating; that were supposed to speak about the struggles of the queer community and overcoming them. Instead we were greeted by a man who told us we were all beautiful; by heterosexual and cisgender public servants who told us how proud they were to be there, but they spoke briefly – they did not want to get “too academic.” And the real kicker was Fran Drescher. I sometimes cannot process that she was really there, that I had really heard her speak, because it was just so ridiculous – I can’t even write about it formally.

When she was introduced, she was proclaimed as someone who traveled the world promoting feminism and queer rights. But she spoke to us about her ex-husband, a gay man; she told us that when she started dating again, she was looking specifically for a straight man (instead of a man who can love her; i.e.: a bisexual man, a pansexual man, etc.); she told us about how accepting she was, because she had a lesbian friend and gay producer and gay makeup artist and lesbian agent. And all the while people cheered and laughed for her, and I made eye contact with the others who were sitting with stoic expressions, trying to wrap my head around the situation. She did not speak once about her experience as an activist.

On the way out, someone tried to get us to donate to the Human Rights Campaign. He spoke to us like a salesman, as if we did not know our own struggles.

On the train back to New Jersey, I had time to consider if every pride was like that: meaningless jokes and empty proclamations of beauty; food venders and banks trying to get you to open an account with them. I felt safety and acceptance beyond anything I could hope, but I was expecting the speeches of the eighties that I had seen in documentaries: fury and flames; proclamations like seraphic trumpets calling for equality; a list of people to burn into our memory as we continued to progress in our activism. I found support, yes, but how much does that help if it is not complemented by actual activism (activism that is not merely tacked on at the end by someone trying to sell to us our own safety)?

And I think this is how I feel about marriage equality: people are laughing and cheering for something that means very little in the end. I see queer history in terms of Before and After: Before Stonewall, After ACT UP was established. But never will I see it in terms of Before and After marriage equality. Marriage equality is something that was coming about no matter what. There are obvious benefits, and there was an obvious fight for it, but to be blunt, marriage equality is a commodity. It does very little to mitigate ingrained prejudices; it does even less to prevent discrimination.

Please do not misinterpret me: I am extremely happy that marriage equality is finally nationwide in the United States, but I cannot help but wonder how many people will see this as true equality and stop fighting for beyond this. I cannot help but imagine queer people at lunch, listening to their employees banter about marriage equality; a queer child at dinner, listening to their parents and siblings; a queer child in school, unable to make any retort – or even having to defend themselves. This is why my Facebook profile is not rainbow-filtered; this is why I gave an awkward smile to each person that congratulated me (most of whom were straight and cisgender; most of my queer friends mentioned it only in passing, as if talking about what movie they saw on Netflix the night before). Discrimination is not something that merely makes one feel poorly – sometimes to depression, sometimes to suicide – it is something that ruins lives. It prevents openly queer people from obtaining jobs, from renting apartments or buying houses; it kicks queer children out of their homes and families; it physically harms and kills in cases of murder, some of which is police brutality, most of the victims being transgender people of color. Al Sharpton, the speaker for the 2014 Justice for All March in Washington, D.C. said something that has stuck in my mind for a year, and will not become unstuck for some time: “Until there is justice for all, there will be justice for none.” I will not celebrate something so superfluously when it is something that should already be given, something that does so little for the queer community. It is an extremely small, faltering step towards equality, and it does not help the majority of queer people that need help, especially children.

In this way, do not stop fighting for justice just because marriage equality has been achieved: it is a red herring, I promise you. True equality is far off, and it will not be gained unless everyone fights for it. Once one ascertains that something is wrong, it is their individual responsibility to determine how deep the infection goes – it is their responsibility to help in the fight against prejudice. The beginning step is to simply educate oneself with whatever resources are available; the second step is to disseminate that information to others. If this is as far as one can go, it is not optimal, but it is better than remaining ignorant and quiet. Beyond that, donating to organizations that support minority groups helps; volunteering at homeless shelters and the likes helps. If one is a creator, add more diverse representation to one’s work. As superficial as it may seem, adding queer people and persons of colors to works increases acceptance and normalizes diversity.

This is not something that can be completed in a day; this is not something that can be completed in even a year. But for decades, minority communities have been working towards equality, and over those decades, we have been drawing closer to it. Marriage equality is a tiny step, not even a stepping stone, on the path to queer equality. Attitudes must be changed, and that is done on an individual basis. Remain updated on situations, and persevere to change people’s malicious opinions. I am sure that many people will recognize this quote from Martin Luther King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail, but I will invoke it once more, for it is applicable to most minority struggles: “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

I will cheer when I am able to tell my parents that I went to a pride parade.

#robertesposito #misc