Heather in Paradise

I’ve written before about my friend Ehren and her myspace blog. After the recent failure of a majority of Californians to vote NO to the heinous Prop. 8 (and who are these YES voting people, I want to know? In my mind, they are scowling, bitter, uneducated and desperately miserable people), Ehren wrote a blog so important that I think everyone on the planet could benefit from reading it. She gave me permission to reprint it here.

HATERADE!
by Ehren O’Neal

this week, the cover of the advocate, looks like this:

people are pissed.

i personally have avoided trying to pin the same level of injustice that black americans have had to contend with on my experience of being a gay american. the cruelty on which this country was founded with was such that comparing anything else to it seems to be a further a front and injustice to the horrors those people endured. i always thought that gay people comparing themselves to black people was crossing a line and thought that it was a comparison best not made. in my mind, there was no comparison.

i have had a change of heart though. and allow me to tell you why.

about ten or so years ago, i thought that i would never have the chance to be married. i more than thought it, i firmly believed it. when the idea of domestic partnering was first becoming a reality, i was amazed but i was thankful. i thought that this was the best that things would ever be. a large part of the reason i was so willing to accept this and not even question why things had to be different for us was because deep down inside, i thought the idea of gay marriage was just the silliest thing ever. and i thought this because every gay person, growing up in america, has their own internalized homophobia to deal with. and this is some of mine.

i have been essentially out of the closet since i was about fifteen years old. while i have intellectually known that there is nothing wrong with being gay, i have lived most of my life with the nagging feeling that something was wrong with me for being gay. i have gotten this idea because i have been told that there is something wrong with being gay my entire life. it’s not because i’m gay that i feel this way, it’s because i have been told an naseum, that i am wrong for being this way.

have you ever thought you had an std? ever thought you were pregnant or had a cancer scare? maybe you have gotten a tattoo or hurt a part of your body? in these times, have you ever felt like whatever you situation is, it is being mentioned constantly around you? or in the case of your injured limb, you have never thought that anyone has touched you in that spot more than they did once you got a bandage put on it? it’s not that these things are happening more because of what you are going though, it is just that you are noticing something that normally does not apply to you. in a normal day, when you are not afraid you have the clap, you tune out how many times someone jokes about it, or mentions it. it doesn’t apply to you.

when you are growing up gay in america, you are surrounded by how other you are. it is constantly beating you on top of the head at every turn. you do not belong, you are unequivocally other and most certainly less than. you don’t grow up inside that world without internalizing it, it is impossible and because of this you accept a lot of things without question, no matter how self deprecating it may or may not be.

i grew up this way. even though i hated having to hide my relationship from any unfamiliar eye, i felt like this was the road i had to walk no matter what. in my mind, there was no other option. i would live in fear in my stupid suburban life until i was eighteen and i would immediately move to the gay ghetto of my choice so that i wouldn’t have to worry about being hurt by anyone ever again . i would forgo things in life that i wanted because if i was going to be gay, that was what the price i was going to have to pay.

as time went on and i got older, more of these notions started to fade away. i got more comfortable in my own skin as a person, i got more okay with my sexuality. and world around me started to get more okay with my sexuality. gay people started being recognized enough that most of middle america could and did say, “one of my friends happens to be gay. i don’t have a problem with gay people.” but, they did and a lot of people still do. and since so many people have found it in their hearts to be okay with us faggots, we in turn keep our mouths shut every time they say soemthing that reveals that maybe that okay isn’t really that okay after all. like when we get to listen to our straight guy friends talk about how okay they are with their sexuality and aren’t scared of gay guys, but then go camp it up at the parade acting like “nancy boys.”

so, why should i have to settle for a civil union? why can’t i be married? why do i need to wait to let other people get okay with the idea of things? where the fuck did i ever get the idea that it was okay to keep putting myself on the back burner for the good of everyone else all the time? oh that’s right, because of the institutionalized structure of society and how slow it is to change for anyone that is other. i keep forgetting.

now, the reason i am getting all soap boxy here, other than it being my nature, is because i watched this controversy bloom over the worn wood table on the view this morning. the idea of us getting the same rights as heterosexuals but not getting to call it marriage came up. well, see first it started that we were out of line for calling ourselves the new black. it’s not the same thing. i’ve heard this argument but over the last few years, it seems that most people don’t have that same connection with the civil rights movement and slavery that i do. and that you could talk about one, in theory at least, without having to consider the other, (that is provided you are smart enough to understand how one lead into the other enough in the first fucking place, if not then you are required by the law in my head to have to always consider both.)

so let us look at some facts here, shall we?

we aren’t allowed to join the military for the overall morale of the men and also, to keep gay solider safe.

didn’t i read something in history class about how black people were kept separate in school and in the military for their own protection?

we can’t have “marriage” because “marriage” is between an man and a woman.

but i seem to remember once upon a time, the definition of being black was being 3/5 of a man. and from what i read, people were very fucking resistant to change this holy definition of what a man and a black person was.

oh and then there is other things about how we don’t get lynched?

yea, sorry. looks like we do.

so you see, we are the new black. because you’ll be pretty hard pressed to find people to openly admit that black people aren’t as deserving as white people anymore. but you won’t have to look very hard at all for someone to say those faggots are an abomination. and the reason why people won’t say it’s different is because it is so fucked up that no one will dare.

it’s different because we can hide it. that is why it’s “different.”

now, you think about how fucked that shit is for about twenty or thirty minutes. go head, i’ll be over here having a drink.

no matter how you slice that shit, it is some undiluted hater magic.

well, i am done getting hated on and i fully intend on getting up in some faces about al this because i am getting so angry that my arms start shaking when i hear this bullshit. you see, we are the new black. sorry blacks i guess you get to be the new white woman.

either way, we’re all moving up the east side.. you know, eventually, in another couple of hundred years maybe.