I think I chose to audit this class because I understand why so angry, and i believe there is a lot to learn from the anger. I understand that your ability to be an individual suffers, and that a lot of you must choose between being true to yourself, and the life and people you have come to love. I understand that showing yourself for who you are is a risk. You risk a lot. I understand. I dont understand who this anger should be directed toward. If you direct your anger toward purely your social opposite, you make the same mistake they make, and you judge purely based on a single pre-requisite that in no way defines everything about you. This could also lead to an increase of focus on you as a bad person; an angry person. If you judge based on only those who hurt you, it takes someone close to you to hurt you, and you are now judging someone that you once found qualified to be close to you solely based on one aspect of their lives that the two of you differ. But if you choose not to direct your gaze toward either group, I fear it is directed toward yourself. None of these three seem to be the right way to go, but it seems right to feel anger, and anger more than any other emotion knows how to manifest itself. The problem is that there is all of this anger and powerful emotion, with no way to express itself without hurting the one who bears it.
My problem is that i see this, and i still have no idea.
4 comments:
While reading "Queers Read This: I Hate Straights," I felt, I think, the same way you felt, that the anger was directed at an easy target, straights (the social opposite). I understand why she is so angry, but to generalize that she hates straight people, she is performing the same act of violence that is inflicted onto LGBT people onto straight people, and I don't think that it is the best tactic.
I have to disagree. To "perform the same act of violence" onto straight people seems to be an amazing tactic. At least in the written form. I would never suggest it in reality, but to allow those who have not experienced such violence, to feel it through an essay... is a perfect and safe tactic. There is no physical or real crime occurring.
The author writes so well that you can feel that violence run through the readers veins. And to allow an insider, or even a semi-outsider... to know what that violence feels like to a true outside.. pisses people off. It inflicted and drew the exact emotion it was shooting for.
I think her tactic for the essay itself was something along the lines of "showing them exactly what they show us", just to let them know what they are doing. The essay may have made the marginalized feel powerful, righteous in their anger, but then where does the reader go to vent? The author had a medium to express himself in a sophisticated fashion, but the reader all of a sudden has these emotions and is totally engaged in the world, what would you have them do?
beautiful, and so true. i think you managed to successfully write down exactly what i feel being an ally as well, and it was so... contradictory in a wonderful way that i seriously knew exactly what you were talking about, but still havent the answers! great job, no joke. :)
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