Alan Ball Definitely Read this Book

I'm reading Jessica Mitford's book The American Way of Death Revisited. I suspect I will have more to say about it after I've finished, but so far one passage has really stood out to me:

When, in the early eighties, the outbreak of AIDS became a matter of public anxiety, there was panic on the part of funeral directors and embalmers for their own safety. Most mortuaries refused to accept cases where it was believed that the deceased had been exposed to the HIV virus; those who did accept AIDS victims refused to wash, dress, or embalm the victim.
The New York State Funeral Directors Association (NYSFDA), on June 17, 1983, advised members to institute a moratorium on the embalming of AIDS victims. Reaction was quick.
Pete Slocum, a spokesman for the State Department of Health, said that funeral directors had previously been advised to handle the bodies of victims of AIDS as they handle victims of hepatitis B---that is, to wear latex gloves, a procedure that had already been prescribed to prevent spread of any contagious disease and required for health care workers under all circumstances when working with dead bodies. "We have not seen anything that suggests that there needs to be any precautions beyond that."

Threatened with a state bill that would force funeral directors to embalm AIDS victims or risk losing their license, the NYSFDA "lifted it's moratorium on embalming."

This, however, is by no means the ends of the story. It is now cash-in time. The mortuaries that did take AIDS cases began charging healthy "AIDS handling fees," usually $200 to $500. Others used subcontractors to do the embalming, covertly adding the cost by inflating the basic service fee. When the problem began to reach crisis proportions in New York City, the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), with the help of volunteers, surveyed the city's five-hundred-odd licensed funeral homes to identify their AIDS policies. With that information in hand, it put together a guide recommending only forty-two of the five hundred mortuaries to the thousands of friends and relatives of people with AIDS.

I was born in 1982 and I can remember the first time I became aware of the concept of "gayness" was as a young girl watching a television commercial for safe sex practices. (I didn't know what gay meant [I barely knew what sex meant] and I had to ask my mom for an explanation.) I grew up in an era where children were taught the ways that AIDS could and could not be transmitted. (I remember a particular presentation in high school where a women demonstrated how much of someone else's saliva one would have to drink to get AIDS by drinking 16 oz of water [which even accounting for messy teenage kissing was clearly way too much].)

It's passages like this that remind me how much previous generations had to endure and just how recent some of our progress is. I know that people with AIDS and HIV still face discrimination in both America and internationally. I know that gay men and women still face discrimination (in both America and internationally), but I think that if I fail to acknowledge the progress that has been made then I am failing to honor the people who came before me and fought for that progress.

My first thought upon reading this was, I really can't imagine much worse than losing a family member to a disease (a disease that marked them as a stigmatized person in life) and then being turned away from a funeral home. I suspect there's a lot that has happened (that is happening right at this moment) that I simply "cannot imagine." But I'm going to do my best to try to imagine it, to try to listen and learn; that really is the absolute least that one can do.

Edit: Weirdly enough, this week Dan Savage brought in some HIV-educators to answer someone's question about getting HIV from kissing.

Insert slogan here

Yesterday NPR's Morning Edition began with this segment about a poll that had been conducted regarding perceptions of the black community in the United States. The article expands on a lot of information in the poll, but the radio segment focuses on the conclusion that the poll draws that black people in America no longer see themselves "as one race." Steve Inskeep (the host) and Juan Williams clarify that in the poll "not seeing themselves as one race" is akin to seeing themselves as not having the same economics or same values, rather than not having the same skin color.

It was really strange for me to hear this on NPR. Is it really news that all black people are not the same in their values and economics? The article does a better job of framing the poll, saying that television and popular culture portrays black people as having only one set of values, but black people do not see themselves this way. I was really upset, however, when Inskeep asked (something like) "So do middle and upper class blacks seem to get closer to whites in their values?"

Just as black people are not a homogeneous group of people, white people are also divided in their values and along class lines. Inskeep's question implies that all whites are middle and upper-class, which erases a large portion of white people in America who are poor.

According to the article,

72 percent of whites, 54 percent of blacks, and 60 percent of Hispanics agree that in the last 10 years, "values held by black people and the values held by white people (have) become more similar."

I think that this perception is wrong, not because there are not shared values between people of different races, but because, like Inskeep's question, this perception rests on that there is such a thing as "white people values" (or "black people values").

Many historians have written about the Jim Crow laws in the south as not only a reflection of racist attitudes of the time, but an attempt to maintain and fuel racist attitudes particularly in poor white people. These historians argue that poor white people and emancipated slaves had much in common, namely the conditions of poverty, and that people in power were afraid of unity between the two groups erupting into a class war.

It's a good step to recognize that there are class divisions within the African American community (as obvious as I think this is, I'm still glad it's being said). An even better step would be to recognize that those same class divides exist throughout the country, regardless of race.

*
In more local news from yesterday, first-year Alex Cortes had a piece in the UVA newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, in support of shouting "not gay" during The Good Old Song at football games. For those of you who aren't from Charlottesville, when UVA scores a touchdown, the fans sing The Good Old Song in celebration. There is a verse about everything being bright and gay at Virginia, after which some people (fewer and fewer, I hear) shout "not gay."

My sister Caitlin sent me Cortes' opinion piece this morning explaining how hilarious and sad it was all at once, and it really has to be read to be believed.

Anyway, here is my little response (which I may or may not send to him; you can vote! But I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter because he seems the type to google his name on a regular basis [see last paragraph of his article]).

Dear Alex,
You want to shout "Not Gay" at football games during the good old song? Fine, whatever, I don't really care. But you're going to have to accept that in shouting "not gay" you are aligning yourself with idiots and assholes. And do you want to know the reason that is the case? Because as much as you might want it to be, shouting a catch phrase is not an intellectual argument. I don't care if "not gay" is supposed to stand for "I am against the homosexual "lifestyle" for religious reason and I also am against sex between a man and woman before marriage." This is akin to saying that screaming "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you" to your parents at the age of 14 is an intellectual argument that is meant to convey "The differences between our ages makes it almost impossible for us to relate to one another. I am becoming an adult and I need more space and freedom."

However, I whole-heartedly invite you flesh out your "not gay" chant. At the next football game, try hysterically shrieking, "I am not gay because it says it's wrong in the bible and I also believe that men and women should only use the act of intercourse for procreation" if that is what you are really trying to say. I am sure all those people who have been staring at you and saying negative things at past football games will be completely won over by this "intellectual" argument.

Lifestylely yours,
Rachel

Can't stop, won't stop

Yesterday the House passed the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA). (Bad news for the New York Post maybe.) I am very happy that we are one step closer to protection LGB people from discrimination in the workplace, but you'll notice the T is absent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered acronym. Some Democrats decided that ditching protection against workplace discrimination for transgendered people was the best way the ensure the bills passage. Understandably some people feel betrayed and pissed. And some people are arguing that transgendered people and their allies just need to be patient and their time will come.

I do believe that eventually transgendered people will be protected from workplace discrimination and I'm willing to hear the counsel "be patient," but not if being patient is supposed to mean, "shut up, sit still, and wait."

As Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail,

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We cannot stop agitating for the things we believe in. If you want to do some agitating in letter-writing form, here's how to find your US House Rep and Senator.

But what does it all MEAN?

After reading this post on Finally a Feminist 101 Blog, about the relationship between lesbianism and feminism, I began to think about a certain scenario that I have seen/experienced.

Picture this: Guy approaches girl (or group of girls) in a social setting. Guy makes his move. Girl or (group of girls) rejects guy. Guy says, "What are you, a (bunch of) lesbian(s)?!"

Having been on the receiving end of this insult (which is how I'm going to refer to it, since that is what the speaker intends, even though I don't feel that being identified as lesbian is insulting), I've done a little bit of thinking about what the speaker intends to convey. I've come up with a few different things.

(1) It is a warning. It says, either find me attractive or risk being categorizes as sexual unavailable/attractive (which is how the speaker sees lesbians). This would only an be effective threat in a setting/society that values women based on their sexual availability/attractiveness to men. It's also a little strange considering that the guy has already let on that he finds the woman/women he is hitting on to be desirable.

(2) In the same vein, it is some sort of bizarre reverse psychology. The guy is hoping that upon hearing the above threat, the girl will go out of her way to prove that she is straight, namely, by responding positively to his come ons.

(3) It is the only explanation that the guy can grasp for why he would be rejected. As in, if you reject me, then you must be rejecting all of men everywhere...and if this is the case, man, how fragile can an ego be?

(4) It is a very strange rejection in return (kind of like number 1). The equivalent of a kid's "fine, I don't like you either." (Although this could also be achieved through any kind of name calling so I don't think it really explains why the guy chooses "lesbian".)

(5) The guy decides that if he can't actually have the woman/women he has hit on, he is going to appropriate her through the common male fantasy of girl on girl action (this one works better when it's a group of girls rejecting the guy).

What do you think it is? Why do you think "lesbian" or "dyke" are still used as insults? Do you think it's different when they are used in a sexualized context?

National Coming Out Day

I didn't get around to posting on Monday, Columbus Day, and I have something I'd like to post about that, but before I do there's something going on tomorrow that I'd like to alert people about.

Tomorrow (Oct 11, 2007) is National Coming Out Day and the twenty year anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, accompanied by the AIDs Quilt's first display. The AIDs Quilt is a giant memorial to individuals who have AIDs/HIV or have died from it. In addition to being a memorial, the Quilt is also used to raise money for AIDs service organizations.

This year for National Coming Out Day, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is inviting LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) people to make videos about coming out and straight people to make videos about being inspired by others coming out. You can check out their website to watch their introductory video and to get information about how to make a video. Also, please check out their Getting Involved/Take Action tab for some information about the HRC's current advocacy campaigns.

***
On to (or back to) Columbus Day:

Howard Zinn tell us that when Columbus landed in the Bahamas, he was

met by the Arawark Indians, who swam out to greet them. The Arawark lived in village communes, had developed agriculture of corn, yams, cassava. They could spin and weave, but they had no horses or work animals. They had no iron, but they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears.
This was to have enormous consequence: it led to Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold."

These were just the first of Columbus' prisoners. According to Zinn, when Columbus realized that there was not as much gold in America as he had originally presumed and that he would have to send some merchandise back home he and his men

went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spanairds and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route."

Zinn goes on to say

My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress...that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."

For some interesting history about the Monacan tribe of Native Americans, who Thomas Jefferson once saw passing through Monticello to visit a burial ground of their ancestors, please check this out.

Without a paddle

Today my friend Jake sent me this post about the hostile (towards gay people and it sounds like towards women too) work environment at the New York Post. This sent me digging around on the current state of federal discrimination laws.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 (ENDA) (which would include sexual orientation and gender identity in the categories that the government protects from work place discrimination) was introduced to the House in late April of 2007. A couple weeks ago, the House held subcommittee hearings on ENDA; supporters of the bill are hoping to pass the ENDA before the end of the year.

The ENDA is intended to protect gays/lesbians/transgendered people from workplace discrimination in the same way that the the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) protects workers from discrimination based on race, color, religion, or sex. The CRA also created the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which identifies harassment in the work place as a form of discrimination that violates the CRA. The EEOC says,

Harassment becomes unlawful where 1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.

and

Petty slights, annoyances, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not rise to the level of illegality. To be unlawful, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to reasonable people.

The Federal Communications Commissions breaks it down for us a little more, with examples of harassment here.


However, the CRA does not explicitly state that harassment is a form of discrimination (and neither does the ENDA). In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court held

A claim of "hostile environment" sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that is actionable under Title VII [of the CDA]

(Sidenote: I really think that it should be a requirement that every Supreme Court opinion has a numbered list right at the beginning of whatever the Court is holding in that case. It would save us a lot of trouble.)

Although I think that were the question to come up (and were the court to follow precedent and legislative intent), courts would be forced to hold that the ENDA protects gays/lesbians/transgendered people from a hostile work environment, I think we can't be sure because it's not explicitly stated in the legislation. (If there are any lawyers/law students out there who think/know otherwise, please correct me.)

I hope it passes. And I hope gays/lesbians/transgendered people are protected from a hostile work environment. In other words, I hope New York Post winds up floating up shit creek.