Old thoughts new thoughts

Here's the problem with blogs and evolving political critiques: At the time of writing, something seems life-changing, revolutionary, or at least note-worthy. Then, a week or a month later, you're someone else and writing from someplace else, ideologically or physically. And what you wrote before looks stupid, underdeveloped, or obvious. You think (I think), "how was discovering social construction and intersectionality so revolutionary? how didn't I see all of this before?"

My mom is a freelance writer. My senior year, she wrote a piece about me in Newsweek called "My Daughter's Search for a Gay-Friendly College." It's the first thing that comes up on Google for my name. It's ridiculously embarrassing. At the time it didn't seem like a bad idea. Ann Arbor high schools were tolerant, but not much else can be said for them. At parties I had to figure out if I'd grind with the guys anyway or if it was inappropriate to dance with the straight girls, who danced with each other "platonically." My body didn't know quite where to go or how to feel. On our prom night party bus, everyone was passing around water bottles full of liquor, the boys were sitting down and most of the girls were trying to dance on the rickety bus poles but falling drunkenly on everyone else. I texted my gay "mentor" at the University of Michigan asking her to please tell me that things got better. She responded that they most certainly did. I thought college would be my out; a place I could finally be a part of a queer community, not be led on by questioning straight girls. The piece was accurate - I felt sorry for myself; I wanted the next place I went to be different.

This, of course, happened way before I went to Oberlin. It happened way before I developed a political analysis to understand that not everyone has the privilege to deal with homophobia by leaving their communities and going somewhere else, much less a ridiculously expensive liberal arts college. In the article, my mom quotes me about an LGBT conference I went to: "For once, I wasn't a deviant from the norm."

Now, that quote makes me want to vomit. I don't like norms. I don't think anybody can achieve them. I think attempts to approximate them only serve white people with money, etc. The quote is loaded with dangerous homonormativity.

I guess the whole point of this, though, is to say that, emotionally, that's where I was. I was doing activism in the Ann Arbor high schools to improve the climate around queer stuff, but I wanted out, and I wanted to be able to be free of the subtle tolerant bullshit in the schools, in which my little sister in 8th grade hasn't heard about Stonewall, much less a critique of the state.

Right, so, how does this relate to my winter term with Generation FIVE? I've been thinking a lot, as always, about emotions and intent. How can my family and friends and I talk about issues concerning social justice in ways that challenge ourselves but also meet each other where we're at? When I'm in bad moods, I get angry at my parents for making comments that I interpret as offensive and that they haven't given a thought about. I address things without tact and as quickly as possible. I don't think about their long-term social justice journeys. This happens mostly when I've been living at home for a little too long, like now.

Generation FIVE, from what I understand so far, focuses on how we can't transform society unless we are able to transform ourselves as individuals. They understand that, unless we address emotion, and knee-jerk reactions to our triggers, oppressions and privileges, we can't think beyond what we have to something better. Essentially, if we're not treating ourselves and the people around us well, we're not going to achieve liberation. It's an idea activists often let slide, partially because our society tells us that the only way we can achieve self-actualization is through consumerism, marriage and children. Individual transformation is seen as self-indulgent, when in fact, it's crucial.

Ugh, this is long, disorganized and doesn't say exactly what I set out to say. Essentially, in this acknowledgment of the self, it's important not to knock our former thoughts and feelings. Last year's posts are old. This year's posts will eventually be old. My senior-in-high-school self is well-intentioned, too. Now, I can offer up a queer critique of Dan Savage's homonormative "It Gets Better" campaign, and that's good too.

Thoughts about leaving tomorrow/transformative justice (to be elaborated upon in detail later)/generation five:
-laundry/doing it
- how do we deal with individual violence without relying on the state's oppressive incarceration practices?/we need to
- speaking of racist state systems, TSA will be obnoxious
- wonder what my co-op will be like...

Ok, well, last-minute Ann Arbor things call. All for now!