` The Queer Foundation Scholarqueerfoundation.org/docs/newsletterwinter18.pdfastray: Catherine Ryan...
Transcript of ` The Queer Foundation Scholarqueerfoundation.org/docs/newsletterwinter18.pdfastray: Catherine Ryan...
` The Queer Foundation Scholar
Joe Dial, Ph.D.Executive Director, Ravensdale WA
Ray Verzasconi, Ph.D.Editor, Portland OR
Winter 2018
From the Desk of the Executive Director
Queer Scholars
are out, proud, and activist,
have a social conscience,
will fight discrimination against queers,
are committed to social change,
believe in organization,
are of good will.
Welcome to 2018, in Which We Celebrate Fourteen Years of The QF Volunteers!
At this time we celebrate the more than fifty members of our amazing team of volunteers, almost all ofwhom have been at it year in and year out since our beginnings in 2004. As many readers of The QueerFoundation Scholar know, The QF, as we affectionally refer to our organization, has no paid staff. Allwork—from setting up the legal structure as a nonprofit corporation to running the annual essaycontest, awarding the scholarships, and guiding and encouraging students to continue writing—is doneby The QF volunteers, for zero compensation other than the opportunity to be a part of this good work,helping the many students whose lives they have touched and who have in turn touched theirs.
Volunteers devote untold hours of their personal time each year to The QF’s essay contest givingacademically talented LGBTQA students another means and reason to be out and proud members oftheir communities—small or large—and to recognize that sexual minority status is seen as a plus.Essays are read by a team of volunteers consisting of six members of the Genders and SexualitiesEquality Alliance (an Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English) and by eight publishedLGBTQA authors.
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Fifteen other individuals donate freely and generously the funds for the actual scholarship awards andfor additional expenses such as travel to conferences and office supplies. Secretary-Treasurer KennethShulman makes sure that the funds are properly accounted for.
The Queer Foundation Scholar editor Ray Verzasconi works who knows how many hours with studentswho continue writing and wish to have their pieces published in the newsletter. Six additionalindividuals, including former QF Scholars, serve as the editorial board that recommends whichsubmissions are selected for Publication Awards. Ray also coordinates the activities of the mentoringteam and is himself the model of a conscientious mentor to many.
The nine members of the Advisory Board function as our conscience, reminding us all of theimportance of The QF’s work and guiding us back onto track when we might otherwise have goneastray: Catherine Ryan Hyde, Kevin Jennings, Carolyn Laub, Robyn Ochs, Rachel Pepper, ChandanReddy, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Ritch Savin-Williams, and Judy Shepard.
To the more than fifty QF Volunteers, we express our heartfelt gratitude for your wonderful energy,amazing creativity, self-sacrificing generosity, and just plain hard work without which none of thiswould happen. I extend to you our best wishes for continued success in this, our fourteenth year.
Joseph Dial
Joseph Dial, Ph.D.
Queer Foundation Executive Director
P.S. Please write me with any suggestions or to find out how you can be a part of The QF Volunteers.
Also in this issue .....
! Elijah Punzal, sophomore at the University of California, Irvine, interviews torrin a. greathouse, transgender woman poeton the same campus. As significant as torrin’s comments are regarding the treatment of transgender women on the UC,Irvine, campus, is Punzal’s own introspective as he prepares for and then embarks on the interview.
! Zoe Bauer, sophomore at Pomona College, delves into the issue of language and gender, relevant as they are to heracademic and career interests: French and linguistics.
! From the editor’s desk.
Forthcoming in the spring issue ...
! Pieces by three recipients of QF Publication Awards from the Upper-midwest. Transgender and genderqueer. ! Excerptsfrom Out & About with Winsor French (Kent State University Press) by James M. Wood.
Ray Verzasconi, Ph.D., editorPortland OR [email protected]
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“An Interview with a Poet”
By Elijah Punzal
University of California, Irvine
I amble along a carpeted hallway I traverse through almost every day. I stare at the
reflection of myself in the window, growing larger and larger until I swerve right into an
opening through a propped door. Evening creeps in and the windows are dim though the white
lights illuminate the space as if darkness is kept at bay. Laughter reverberates through the walls
of the back room, and while curious, I make my way inside a smaller, quieter room. The space is
familiar; inventory boxes piled behind pride flags sit directly across from the wall painted to
match. I only take a step in before I invite my interviewee into the space, and together we walk
into the room. I make adjustments to the space, moving tables and chairs and that one movable
seat to accommodate my interviewee. She leans her cane on the side of her chair, and she does
not prop her feet. I end up sitting on the moveable seat. The room is cold. Well, temperate for
some, but I find it a tad chilly. My interviewee sits comfortably, almost poised, in her floral
dress.
Elijah: Hi.
torrin: Hello.
My nervousness expresses itself in the clutter I create; papers, forms, a laptop, and my
phone consume the table before me. I shuffle through the papers, rambling my way the rules and
regulations of the interview. I push up my glasses, and so does my interviewee. Her smile is
warm; wise, even. Yet intimidation creeps upon me. Or is it anxiety, or shame? Who knows. My
pen twirls in my right hand, phone heavy in my left. I contemplate the abstracts of this
interview: Where will it go? What will become of this? Will my questions be too vague? Are
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they too complex? Or are they too simplistic?
Elijah: Given the subject of queer poetry, do you have any thoughts on the subject before
the interview?
torrin: No, I’d just like to see what kind of questions you have, and see what thoughts
those spur.
I shuffle through more and more papers. My tongue feels foreign in my mouth, my
words too formal for this casual interaction. Suddenly the room feels chaffy, and I remove my
jacket. My interviewee still sits poised, leaning forward in anticipation. I try to remind myself of
all of my acting training, but alas, I ooze out awkwardness as much as I smile to move past it.
We do a round of introductions.
torrin: I’m torrin a. greathouse. And I am a trans poet—a trans disabled poet—living in
Southern California.
I’m taken aback, just a bit. I have known her for a decent amount of time already yet
unfiltered thoughts bombard me and I don’t really know what to feel. Abstract realities of the
next thirty minutes of my life flow in and out and I feel like I have already done something
wrong.
My interviewee looks at me dead on. She can tell I am nervous, though she’s not sure
why. The slight singe of ghastly embers stings my chest as I formulate something to say,
something to do. I breathe. What will these questions do? What will they reveal?
Will I hurt her?
I try to relax. The thoughts are not quelled but I move
along anyways.
Elijah: In a sense, what do you write about?
torrin: Gender identity, sexual identity, trauma, sex, and sort
of what it is to live in a trans body in a nation that has
essentially made that almost tantamount to crime...
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Elijah: Hmm.
torrin: When, to live in America means that if you are killed, particularly as a trans
feminine person, it is possible for your death to be excused by your own body.
I nod throughout this account, these words not unfamiliar to me. My interviewee speaks
almost casually, though I know that this is a formality. Her face is composed; not necessarily
hardened, but controlled. I know her enough to know the impact of these words, though I can
never know what these words truly mean to her. The word “killed” sits upon the tip of my pen
as I jot down notes. The fact that roughly eight or ten trans women of color have already
died—rather, have been murdered—flashes briefly in my mind. A heaviness hampers down on
the room and I find it hard to concentrate. I look to my interviewee, her face still composed yet
eyes engaged as if they were seeing into me. Our gaze holds a feeling of solidarity, though in
her eyes I sense something else within—they hold a pain I may never know.
Elijah: Would you agree that there is an element of pain within your poetry?
torrin: I think… it ties into the idea of universality in poetry… But the idea of universality
is an extremely sort of cishetero patriarchal ableist idea which is really focused on very
small set of identities.
If I could snap encouragingly in my mind, I would have in that very moment. Quick shift
in feeling, I know. Interviews are like that sometimes.
My interviewee catches the drift and we share that moment with a quick smile,
acknowledging that we share that mutual understanding. While our stories are different, our
history is intertwined. We share pain, we share triumph, and we share criticism of the society
around us. Curiously, my interviewee suddenly weaves into our discussion a collective of many,
many poems written by many individuals. It’s quite endearing, and I smile alongside her.
The space envelops us, comforts us, and suddenly I’m aware that the room has become
almost temperate. Then we resume track of the discussion.
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torrin: Why should we write towards a version of reality that we don’t get to belong in?
Why should we write poems that don’t have our own faces?
I nod, resonating with her words as if I am hearing my own thoughts said back to me.
torrin: I believe it was Frederick Douglass that said, “The act of writing as a black man in
America is inherently political.” And by that, he meant the ways in which his identity was
placed at odds with his abilities to be a well spoken, intelligent person who could express
ideas. It became inherently political for him to write because he was opposing everything
that the world said he could be.
Stunning. I can’t take my attention away from her.
torrin: I believe that identity based work often creates resistance in that exact way. Uh, I
like to call it “the activism of empathy.”
Her hands become more animated, weaving in and out as if conducting her argument
with eloquence and passion. Her breath almost trembles as her dictation, her liturgy, becomes a
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wellspring of thoughts and ideas. I hear the words just fine, yet what the words mean carry so
much more.
I continue to nod.
torrin: The idea that even when my work does not directly engage with politics, it is
political in that if a person who does not share my identity reads my work and can take
something away from that and can understand what I was feeling and can understand the
ways that I have suffered or experienced pain or experienced discomfort in a society that
creates those things, if my fear of death becomes palpable to a cis person when they read
my poem, I have caused them to empathize, and you create enough empathy in people
unlike you—that will create change.
There is a brief yet comfortable silence only broken by my pen furiously writing down
fragments and ideas onto my now blue ink-stained sheet of paper. When it’s my turn to speak, I
find that I am still at a loss for words. My tongue urges the thoughts in my brain to flow out yet
wisdom radiates from my interviewee and I surrender to her presence. My growing curiosity for
what my interviewee has to say inspires me; I forget that poets speak so well. The next set of
questions situate themselves upon the impact of empire on poetry, and I eagerly listen in on her
response.
torrin: I think particularly in current political climates…suddenly we’re developing much
stronger, very conservative governments that are obsessed with strong governmental
power that is not serving the people, and in that way, it mirrors the idea of ancient empire
where all of the riches go to the rich, go the royalty.
Well, we don’t have royalty, but what we do have is a
system of democracy highly inflected by oligarchy.
Suddenly, her eyes lock in on me with an
intenseness I haven’t seen before. Her voice is clearer as
if demanding; her tambor is warmer as if emboldened.
She’s stating fact.
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torrin: Where in the rich will always maintain power and because systematically, queer
folks, trans folks, folks of color, disabled people, people with mental illness are pushed out
of position where we can obtain monetary power and wealth, we are systematically
marginalized in a financial sense meaning that we can never obtain power to adjust the
system. If we can never adjust the system from a position of power, we’ll never be able to
free ourselves.
Liberation.
It is word not unfamiliar to me; I have read it and studied it and practiced it and wished
for it and prayed for it and loved it.
And then it hits me.
torrin: I think it’s difficult to believe in progress.
I take in the tattoos decorating the arms and legs of my interviewee,
how each is so saliently different
yet
weave together almost like battle armor or
protective wards against evil.
torrin: Particularly, when you exist as someone in one of the identities that Zoe Leonard
brought up there1 when you are disenfranchised, when you are—You know, I can list off
the things.
I take in how her glasses are large and
round
in a sense where her gaze is a gaze that has seen
too much but
is still constantly looking.
1 “Mykki Blanco Recites ‘I Want A Dyke For President’ - a film by Adinah Dancyger.” Youtube,uploaded 4 October 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6DgawQdSlQ
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torrin: I’ve been held in solitary confinement, in jail. I am disabled. I’m queer. I’m trans.
I’m all of these things that makes a person like that repulsive to the mainstream of
America.
I take in the cane that leans to her left that acts
not as a crutch but as a
tool for cultivating life,
for cultivating humanity
and poise
and elegance
where society deems it shouldn’t exist.
torrin: My politics as a disabled person are less, my politics as a trans person are less, your
politics as a person of color: less.
I take in her dress and I take in her makeup.
I take in what is supposed to be different,
what is supposed to be wrong or
irrational or
not normal.
torrin: Yeah, I mean, it can literally move from the level of…The phrase “identity
politics.” Which is to say the politics of anyone who is not a straight, white, cis, male can be
systematically lessened by the fact that they are connected to our identity.
I take in the femininity
she wields against the world that deems that
she cannot have it, for it is different,
it is other,
torrin: And it can get that subtle down to that small linguistic level upon which simply
because we differ from those in power, our voices are less important.
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it is weird,
it is strange,
torrin: And then it can go all the way up to the level of the unchecked murder of black
men and women across America by the police.
it is not normal,
torrin: It can go to the level of Flint still not having clean water.
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it is disgusting,
torrin: Of people having their skin blasted off by water cannons defending the ground that
the Dakota Access Pipeline is supposed to cross…
it is shameful,
torrin: Empire is: I walk from my apartment to class, I get dirty looks from everyone I
pass, and I wonder how many people, if I were passed through a dark alley and they and I
were the only person there, wouldn’t go for it.
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it is wrong.
torrin: Empire is the fact that it’s dangerous, some days, for people like us to walk outside
our front door.
When our tattoos, our glasses,
our canes, our dresses,
our femininity
are wrong.
How can we be anyone
except who we are?
When we strive to live authentically,
they strike us down.
How can we be free
when all we hear is
wrong?
When we try to breathe
they wish for us to drown.
How can we make them know
we are
anything
but
wrong?
Or rather
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How can we make them know
we are
everything
that’s
right?
[Photographs and poetry reprinted with permission of torrin a. greathouse. Editor’s note.]
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I am a man/woman who: Gender and identity in language
By Zoe Bauer
Pomona College
When my friend Alex was eighteen,
he suddenly started feeling more confident.
He spoke up more in conversations, he
asserted his opinions, and he even stood up
straighter. This wasn’t because he had
ingested a magic potion or had some sort of
divine inspiration; instead, he started using
male pronouns to describe himself. Alex is
transgender, and at eighteen he declared his
gender identity and started speaking as his
true self. Now, he uses language—both
pronouns and patterns of speech—to
perform his identity as a man. Using the
language that feels most comfortable to him
has given him a glow, and he seems to be
more comfortable in his own skin. By
speaking “like a man” and using male
pronouns, he’s able to construct an identity
for himself in his community as a man,
which people can react to by responding to
him and speaking about him as a man.
Gender, the social construct of male and
female identity, is performative, and
according to Butler (1990), “the various
acts of gender create the idea of gender” (p.
190). These “acts of gender” are behaviors
that people exhibit which combine to
project an image that aligns, to a certain
extent, with societal ideas about specific
genders; this behavior includes language.
Language is a way that Alex, and most of
us, perform our genders in the context of all
of our other identities.
Speakers use language to assert their
gender identities, either by purposefully
sending a statement about their gender, as
is the case with Alex, or by using language
that society thinks of as belonging to a
certain gender and letting that suffice.
When Alex introduces himself, he always
gives his pronouns. He goes to a women’s
college, where students are usually
assumed to be female, so his
announcement of his pronouns is a way for
him to explicitly assert his identity and
make sure that his interlocutors know to
think of him and refer to him as a man.
Many speakers whose genders can
reasonably be assumed, on the other hand,
can play more passively into their gendered
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roles by using language styles that
correspond with societal norms for their
gender. Such is the case with the
predominantly male subjects that Keisling
(2004) studies in his article “Dude.” The
men in his article use the term “dude” to
index cool masculinity, helping them
perform their identities by using this
commonplace term that lets hearers know
that they’re projecting a male identity (p.
291). Their performance of their gender
isn’t made of explicit statements about their
identities, instead using a term that is
generally associated with male speakers.
Their statements about being men are
implicit and are indexed in their language
use.
However, while gender might be a
contributing factor leading to how people
speak, it isn’t the only reason why people
speak in the ways that they do. Tannen
(1990) is a culprit of this sort of simplistic
analysis when she states that men and
women exist on “different planets” and that
they communicate differently because of
how they were socialized and because of
their differing roles in society (p. 43). Her
idea, that men use a competitive speaking
style and women use a cooperative
speaking style, reduces speakers to their
gender and nothing more, using their
genders to explain away any differences
between them. However, as Cameron
(2009) asserts, there is more variation
among speakers of one gender than there is
difference between speakers of different
genders (p. 44). There’s not a singular
“male way to communicate” and a “female
way to communicate,” as Tannen believes.
One reason why gender isn’t the
only reason why speakers speak in a certain
way is because gender isn’t their only
identity. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s
interwoven with other facets of identity,
and speakers therefore use language to
project their gender as well as other
identities in styles that feel right for them.
A better way to describe language and
gender would be that speakers are gendered
beings who (and then one would fill in an
identity trait here). Such is the case with
Kiesling’s men who use “dude,” since the
term indexes coolness and male
homosociality in addition to masculinity.
“Dude” suggests that they are men who are
casual, men who are cool, men who are
straight. This idea of language presenting
myriad other facets of speakers’ identities,
in addition to their genders, is also present
in the straight men that Cameron (1997)
studies. They use language to express
themselves as men, but more importantly
as men who are interested in displaying
their group identity as straight. When one
of the speakers states that a person in his
class is “the antithesis of man,” he isn’t
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only commenting on another person’s
appearance (p. 54). He is performing his
identity as a man who conforms to the usual
image of a straight man, as a man who is
knowledgeable about what makes a man
“manly” enough, as a man who is part of a
group of straight male friends. He performs
his gender through his speech, but it also
performs his gender in the context of all of
his other identities. Similarly, in Barrett’s
(1999) study of drag queens, he finds that
they use language to assert their genders
along with other aspects of their identity.
They insert words and statements into their
drag performances that are incongruous
with the flawless, hyper-feminine drag
queen persona, thereby reinforcing their
identities as gay men who are performing
femininity, not actually being women (p.
327). They are making sure that the
audience is aware of their identities as men,
even as they perform as women. Their
identities as men are the base of their
performances, no matter how flawless they
are, and they make sure to refer to that.
One speaker whose language (in the
form of lyrics) illuminates many facets of
personality in the context of gender is Nicki
Minaj. A female rap artist, she has made a
name for herself in the male-dominated,
often-sexist rap world. In her song
“Anaconda” (2014), she states “Boy toy
named Troy… / Bought me Alexander
McQueen, he was keeping me stylish /
now that’s real, real, real / gun in my
purse, bitch, I came dressed to kill / Who
wanna go first? I had ‘em pushing
daffodils” (0:08-0:32). In her lyrics, she
describes actions that are based in being a
powerful, straight-acting woman: first, she
mentions her “boy toy,” insinuating that
she is the dominant party in a sexual
relationship with a man who buys her fancy
designer clothes (i.e. Alexander McQueen).
Then, she describes her dominance over
others, mentioning her “gun in [her]
purse,” which is an item that symbolizes
power (a gun) literally encased in a symbol
of women and femininity (a purse). Her
lyrics portray her identity as a woman, but
they also do so as a woman who is proud of
herself, as a woman who is interested in sex,
as a woman who isn’t interested in being
nice. She layers her ideas about identity on
top of one another, all seen through the
lens of gender, in order to create a story of
confidence and dominance which would be
commonplace for a male rapper but is rare
coming from a female one. She is an
empowered woman who embraces her
gender, performing as a woman who has
desires and agency and adding elements of
material wealth and confidence to her
language. Her language shows that she is
not just a woman; she is a woman who.
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Gender is closely intertwined with
language, but it’s not some all-
encompassing identity that absolutely
determines how people speak. Gender is
one of many central identities, with others
building on top of it and layering to create
unique personalities for each speaker. My
friend Alex uses language to assert himself
as a man, but also as a man who loves
music, as a man who does theater, as a man
who cares about other people. Our language
encompasses our gender, but also so many
other identities, including race, socio-
economic status, hometown, and more.
Language is a tool that lets us both
explicitly and implicitly express ourselves,
based in gender and building out to all parts
of identity.
References:
Barrett, R. (1999). Indexing polyphonousidentity in the speech of African-American Drag Queens. In M.Bucholtz, A. C. Liang, & L. A.Sutton (Eds.), Reinventing Identities(pp. 313-331). Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble. NewYork: Routledge.
Cameron, D. (2009). The Myth of Mars andVenus: Do Men and Women ReallySpeak Different Languages? Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Cameron, D. (1997). Performing genderidentity: Young men’s talk and theconstruction of heterosexualmasculinity. In S. Johnson & U. H.Meinhof (Eds.), Language andMasculinity (pp. 47-64). New York:Routledge.
Kiesling, S. F. (2004). Dude. AmericanSpeech, 79(3), 281-305.
Maraj, O. (2014). Anaconda [Recorded byNicki Minaj]. On The Pinkprint[Electronic recording] . NewOrleans, LA: Young MoneyEntertainment.
Tannen, D. (1990/2007). You Just Don’tUnderstand: Women and Men inConversation. New York: WilliamMorrow. (pp. 23-95)
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From the editor’s desk .... THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLYFOR LGBTQ IN 2017
! An essay by Michelangelo Signorili https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2017-queer-political-moments_us_5a3e8b4be4b0b0e5a7a27bdf?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
! If you wonder why roughly 80% of evangelicalsstill support Trump, this video by FrancescaFiorentini may help you understand. https://www.facebook.com/newsbroke/videos/174779376269704/
! More serious and more powerful is this piece byBaptist minister Miguel de la Torre.
https://baptistnews.com/article/death-christianity-u-s/#.Wm-MCuRy6J1
De la Torre’s piece won’t change the mindsof many of the people he addresses, but it mighthelp other people in the faith community who arestruggling to reconcile their beliefs with politicalreality. I encourage you to share de la Torre’s essaywith family and friends in the faith community.
! A recent study by GLSEN reveals that sevenstates have “No homo promo” laws: Alabama,Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina,Tennessee, and Texas. In varying degrees, theselaws prevent public school employees from sayinganything positive about LGBTQA people or fromproviding students with useful LGBTQA resources.
Unless they have supportive parents orfriends, queer youth from these states are at a realdisadvantage. Middle and high school librariesrarely can carry even resource materials for LGBTQyouth. Yes, we’ve had QF Scholars from Arizona,Oklahoma, and Texas. Two of them hadsupportive parents; the third had an after-school and
weekend job in a public library and found asupportive librarian. ! The Anti-Defamation League reports that thedistribution of hate literature on college anduniversities during fall term 2017 increased overfall term 2016 by 258 percent. The literatureconsisted of posters and flyers bv various alt-right facist groups, some of which couch theirhatred of Jews, Blacks, immigrants of color,and LBGTQ individuals by focusing on the“preservation” of white culture and the white“race,” while others are blatant in their hatredof those they consider “undesireables.”
One of the latter is the AtomwaffenDivision whose members worship Hitler andCharles Manson and who make no bones abouttheir desire to start a race war and to overthrowthe U.S. government. Along the way they hopeto destroy American colleges and universitieswhich they consider responsible for thedestruction of the white “race.” Using racistlanguage, they openly threaten to kill all theirenemies.
Members of the Atomwaffen Division,young white men who see themselves asalienated and disaffected, are also allegedlyresponsible for five murders in the past eightmonths. In investigating one of the murders,police uncovered evidence that anotherAtomwaffen member planned to blow upsynagogues and an electric power plant. In thelatest case, Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year–oldstudent at Penn State, visiting his parents inOrange County, California, was found buriedin a shallow grave in a park. Bernstein wasgay, Jewish, and further hampered by beingvery short in stature. Samuel Woodward, whoknew Bernstein, has been charged with stabbingBernstein some 20 times. It’s not yet known ifWoodward lured Bernstein to his death, or ifBernstein first made contact with Woodward. The two may have been outliers in high school,and it’s not unusual for youth to get drawn into
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right-wing hate groups after they graduate. Woodward claims that Bernstein tried to kiss himwhen they were sitting together in a car, but friendshave told ProPublica that Woodward very muchhated Jews.
A lesson here to our young readers. Forgiveme if I sound like a concerned father. If you aremeeting someone you knew in high school and theywere an outlier, see if you can find out somethingabout them since they graduated. Your generationknows about social media. Yes, many of themembers of the alt-right were outliers in school, buteven if they secretly knew of hate groups and visitedtheir websites and blogs, they often kept that tothemselves, and it wasn’t until after they graduatedthat they became full-fledged members.
Then keep a few rules of dating anyone metonline in mind: (1) meet only in a public place,preferably in the daytime, and do so until you areabsolutely certain about the person and you reallylike them; (2) keep the first meeting short, no morethan an hour, and have a definite reason for leaving;and (3) provide your own transportation and don’tget into a car with the person.
In terms of human relationships, two thingscan cloud our judgment no matter how young orold we are. One is lust; the other, loneliness. Yes,many other things can cloud our judgment, but noteveryone is given to greed or envy and so on and soforth.
Caution is not paranoia. We live infrightening times. Blaze Bernstein no doubtconsidered Samuel Woodward a friend from highschool days. Why else would he meet with him andget in his car where they allegedly sat and talked? As yet, we don’t know if Woodward first contractedBernstein and lured him to his death, or if Bernstein,home for winter break, contacted Woodward whohe thought was a friend.
What is most frightening to me is knowingthat Hitler used alienated and disengaged youth asthe base of the National Socialist Party. Most weremiddle class males who, in the worsening economyof post WW I Germany, saw themselves with fewopportunities for employment or advancement.
Their scapegoats became Jews, homosexuals,Roma, and Pentecostles: people who wereeconomically successful or simply different. The Social Democrats ignored them, just asDemocrats ignored white, lowerclass youthafter 1964 and those youth became fodder forrightwing hate groups.
Hitler did not personally create thescapegoats for the alienated and disengagedGerman youth in the 1920s, but he officiallyvalidated their discontent and their hate, whichis exactly what Trump has done for the alt-right, and with similar results. Individual actsof violence in Germany against Jews,homosexuals, Roma, and Pentecostlesincreased sharply after 1925; individual acts ofviolence against Jews, LGBTQ individuals,Blacks, and immigrants of color have soared in2017 in comparison to 2016, and they willcontinue to do so as long as a Republican is inthe White House.
What’s different now is that manymembers of the alt-right are college students orcollege graduates. We’re no longer dealingwith unemployed or underemployed highschool dropouts. We’re dealng with white,middle class men faced with daunting studentloans and, like all millennials, decreasedprospects of meaningful employment. It’seasier for them to believe that Jews, blacks,queers, and immigrants of color are the sourceof their problems, and not corporate Americathat has gained control of the political system.
For a century or more, public collegesand universities in 14 Western states pridedthemselves in providing free higher educationto the sons and daughters of the middle class. As the child of peasant immigrants, I attendedUC, Berkeley, for four years, and theUniversity of Washington for three and a halfwhen there were no tuition or fees. Even my$100 scholarship at Berkeley (about $916 today)more than covered a semester’s room andboard, and a minimum-wage summer job morethan covered the rest of the year’s expenses. Even parents earning $40-$50K in 2018 dollarscould provide their children with modest
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financial support without going into debt. That’s nolonger true.
The “new” Republicans first appeared inCalifornia, in the state that had produced HiramJohnson and Earl Warren (who today’s Republicansdespise). To thwart the Civil Rights Act of 1964,they invented “user fees,” an idea that spreadrapidly throughout the U.S. If segregation wasillegal under federal law, user fees could keep blacksand other minorities (the majority of whom werepoor) from using the local public library, the localmunicipal swimming pool, and the public college oruniversity system. It also kept the children of manypoor and lower middle-class whites from accessingthese public services, but the new Republicans werealready out among poorer whites explaining thatliberals and Jews and people of color were thecause. And liberals were dismissive of poorerwhites. Is there any wonder that many whiteworking-class Democrats voted for Reagan andTrump? Exactly what happened in the WeimarRepublic.
Ronald Reagan became governor ofCalifornia in 1964, and he hastened the spread ofuser fees. The student revolt at UC, Berkeley, and toa lesser extent at the other UC system campuses,gave him the excuse to decimate the budgets of bothCalifornia public university systems, forcing both toimpose tuition. Few people noticed (or cared) thatthe imposition of tuition and fees made itincreasingly difficult for their own children to attenduniversity, regardless of the color of their skin. Itdidn’t matter. Those rebellious students at Berkeleyneeded to be punished. Nothing much haschanged. College and university students have beenat the forefront of most protest movements since the1950s.
As I write this, students at Oregon StateUniversity are facing a recall effort. A doctoralcandidate in chemistry, elected to the StudentCouncil last spring, has been exposed as a memberof the alt-right. He’s been charged, among otherthings, with distributing hate literature in Corvallis,violating both the city’s and the county’s hate crimelaws. He’s currently in jail with a $250,000 bail. Two months ago, he was just another conservativeOSU student on a campus whose students are
generally conservative (with a predominantlyliberal faculty and staff, in a predominantlyliberal community and county). Apparently noone suspected the depth of his hatred for Jews,blacks, immigrants of color, and queers.
All of which suggests we all need to bevigilant, but not paranoid. And if you findyourself fighting depression, let your friendsknow, connect with a local communityLGBTQ organization, or find help online.
Stay healthy. Stay strong.
Ray Verzasconi, [email protected]
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