Being Amber Rhea

And if the last paragraph doesn’t drive home the definition of privilege, then I don’t know what will.

From Republic of T:

Add it all up, and inequality is expensive for black same-sex households. Cannick is right that there are too many Blacks living at or below the poverty line, or living just this side of it. For Black gay families, inequality adds another economic burden.

Inequality exacts a different price when a loved one dies unexpectedly.

Wesley Mercer, a gay Black man, died on September 11, 2001, while helping evacuate the World Trade Center. His partner of 26 years, Bill Randolph, also a Black gay man, struggled to get equal recognition for their relationship. Morgan Stanley, Mercer’s employer, gave him $700 to cover immediate expenses, and later a check for $10,000. Though Mercer supplied half the household income, Randolph does not receive Social Security benefits, workers’ compensation, or Mercer’s 25-year army pension. Only spouse are eligible.

Randolph has spoken up about what he faced as a gay, man losing a partner on 9/11, without the benefits and protections of marriage. I doubt he believes he or any of the Black gay couples who were plaintiffs in the state marriage lawsuits — Corey Davis & Andre LeJune (CA), Mikki Mozelle & Lisa Kebreau (MD), Alvin Williams & Nigel Simon (MD), Takia Foskey & Jo Rabb (MD), Alicia Heath-Toby & Saundra Toby-Heath (NJ) — would agree that that inequality is a “secondary issue.”

Sometimes the cost cannot be calculated in dollars and cents.

This weekend, while we were downtown, we ran into a friend of ours and his son. While the two boys played together, we chatted about the election, and he told us that he had spent election day volunteering, doing voter defense in Virginia.

We’ve known him for almost six years. We celebrated with him and his partner — a Black gay couple — when they adopted their son after several disappointments, and again when they married. Two years ago his husband — a healthy man by all appearances — collapsed at work, and was rushed to the hospital. Our friend arrived at the hospital only to be told that without proof of their relationship he could not see his husband or receive any information about his husband’s condition.

Without knowing what was wrong, or whether his husband would survive until he got back, he drove home, retrieved their legal documents, returned to the hospital and was allowed to see his husband, and had time to say goodbye. His husband died a few days later, of a brain aneurysm, without regaining consciousness.

I told that story to our white, heterosexual neighbor. She told me what happened when her husband was rushed to the hospital. She arrived at the hospital and only needed to say three words: “I’m his wife.” She got three words in response: “Right this way.”

(Via sex, art, and politics on Tumblr)

Now that it’s been a few days since the election, I want to mention a couple things that disappointed me. I didn’t want to go negative right away and kill the “OMG Obama awesome!!!!” buzz (which still lingers some for me; hell, ever since Wednesday my Tumblr has been mostly Obama pictures).

I was disappointed that California’s Prop 8 passed and San Francisco’s Prop K did not pass. Some of the news pundits were blaming black voters in California for passage of Prop 8, but I think that’s BS; my inclination is to think it has to do with low voter turnout in certain areas of the state.

One reason that amendments “defining marriage” are so disturbing to me is that you’re then using a state’s Constitution to restrict freedom of its citizens, rather than expand/protect their freedom.

Good posts about the outcome of Prop 8:

BlackGayBlogger: Finding the Words

The media would have you believe that the blame of the proposition’s passing lies squarely on the backs of Black Californians, which I find to not only be silly, but statistically impossible. I’m not sure of the exact number of Black voters who voted yes on Prop 8, but I can bet that there weren’t enough to make it a majority vote of just that ethnic group.

Sugarbutch Chronicles: post-election: on love

Despite that I do understand what people say about the threat of gay marriage, I don’t really understand. I just don’t. Why? Why why why are we so threatening? On bad days - like this one, when literally millions of people voted against my very personal right, my very personal decision to get married - my heart fills up with emotion and I feel like a little kid after another kid yells, “I HATE YOU!” My eyes well up. I didn’t do anything to you. Just - why?

As for Prop K, while I’m disappointed and frustrated that it didn’t pass, I am encouraged by the fact that it got 42% of the vote - not insignificant. But in the wake of Prop K not passing, Ren’s open letter is a must-read.

And what has your no vote done? Well, people: women, men, boys, girls, of all colors, of all sexual orientations, of all ages, cis and transgender, will still be involved in prostitution. In homes, in hotels, in cars, in massage parlors, in alleys, in clubs, everywhere. The sex trade will continue on, just as it always has. Whether there by choice, or by force, or because there are no other options, people of all kinds will still be selling sex, and people will still be buying it. You know it, and I know it. However, thanks to you, when a young woman is raped, when a young man is beaten, when any of these people get cut up, sodomized, violated, abused, mutilated, harassed, tortured or robbed, they will still have no where to go. They will still fear the law; they will still carry, along with the stigma of being a whore, the stigma of being a criminal. Their murders will still be written up with the tag NHI (No Humans Involved). You have not helped these people, why yes, real live human beings with thoughts, dreams and emotions just like you, at all. You’ve only hurt and marginalized them further.

Bound, Not Gagged also has a wealth of coverage, including this video from Margaret Prescod:

Most important take-away quote from the video, in my opinion: “Criminalization empowers pimp. I really want you to remember that.”

That’s probably all I’ll write about the election results for a while… I’ve got three other posts percolating, about 1) body image, 2) the value of blogging, and 3) pole dancing.

There’s a post at Feministe, linking to this CNN article, about women changing their last name when they get married. The title of the post is, “How about this? Don’t change your name.”

Now first of all, I want to be clear that I’m not saying the tradition of women “taking” their husband’s last name shouldn’t be questioned or challenged. Duh, of course it should - and no woman should do it because she feels like she has to, or because her husband/family/whoever is getting all bent out of shape about it. Likewise, people shouldn’t flip out if a man wants to change his name to his wife’s after marriage (the horror of bucking a traditional gender expectation!) - or if one or both of them want to hyphenate, or whatever else.

With all that being said… what I don’t like is how these conversations (like so many others) all too often take on that unmistakable air of judgment on individual women. People feel free to draw all kinds of conclusions about a woman based on one thing, when in fact they don’t have all the information and therefore, basically, they don’t know shit. It reminds me of the abstinence-only people who wring their hands about teenage girls taking birth control pills - as if the only reason anyone takes the pill is because they’re having sex. (I started taking the pill when I was 14, but didn’t have sex until I was 18. Obviously those intervening four years were just pointless, right?)

Believe it or not, a woman might have a reason other than conforming to patriarchal norms for changing her name. Now you might say, if that’s the case, why not do it independently of marriage? Again, there could be myriad reasons, one of which might be the easiness factor. If you’re getting married it’s easier to change your name, and look, a lot of us (myself included) are pragmatic and a little lazy with things that involve government bureaucracy.

As for me? Yes, I changed my name when I got married in December 2000. I’ve definitely gotten some raised eyebrows for it - not a ton, but enough for me to notice. (I remember in particular going to a presentation by the campus Women’s Studies group in college called “Confessions of a Married Feminist.” But that’s another story for another time.) Upon finding out that I’d changed my name, one of my ex’s friends who was a big-time conservative Christian and generally kind of an ass, said, “Wow, these feminists will surprise you!” I wanted to slap the stupid grin off his stupid face, but it was the day before his wedding and I figured it wouldn’t do for him to show up at the alter with a black eye.

Anyway, so I changed my name when I got married - and when I got divorced in September 2004, I didn’t change it back to my “maiden name” (can we also talk about how much I hate that term?). Whenever I got married again, I don’t plan to change my name again.

This might seem weird to people who, you know, aren’t me, but I don’t care. -And often when I say “I don’t care,” what I really mean is, “I actually do care on some level, and feel insecure and vulnerable, but if I tell myself and everyone else that I don’t care, maybe eventually it’ll be true. Fake it ’til you make it, right?” But in this case, I can say with 100% honesty that I really, truly Do Not Care what anyone else thinks of my decision on this matter. Frankly, it’s nobody’s business but mine, and I have my reasons. And they have nothing to do with traditional patriarchal norms.

Yesterday I began cleaning out my cube, since Friday is my last day at work here (more about that later). In the bottom of one of my desk drawers, I found a printout of the first 8 pages of some kind of Christian treatise entitled The Fruit of Her Hands; the first chapter is called “A Woman’s Orientation to Marriage.” I have no idea how it got there. If I printed it out, I don’t remember doing so - or why I would.

Anyway, it’s pretty entertaining stuff. Here’s an excerpt:

What are some of the lies [the American woman] has been told? Fruitfulness is bad; children wreck the budget and the figure. Marriage is a partnership; submission is for imbeciles. Being a homemaker is for airheads who can’t make it in the business world. Women are not designed with a unique purpose, but should and can compete with men on any level. The most important thing is to have a healthy self-image and to have your deepest needs met. If they are not being met by your husband, find someone else. The old femininity is outdated.

O, woe is me! I have been misled into thinking a healthy self-image is something to strive for!

There’s nothing worse than a blog by a suburban newlywed who harbors delusions that you actually want to read paragraph after paragraph about her new flower garden, or how she and her husband are making an effort to eat dinner together without the TV on (though sometimes hubby still wants to watch the game), or how she spends her day while hubby is at work, and so on. These blogs have entries with titles like “I Have the Best Hubby in the World!!!” - which usually detail how he graciously apologized after an argument, which she of course realized was her fault for being too controlling or over-analytical or hyper-sensitive. I found one yesterday that was particularly bad, but if I link to it that could be bad news. It is rife with exclamation points and co-dependence, I assure you. Some favorite quotes…

In reference to hubby’s sometime inability to, er, complete the transaction:

“Poor guy. I feel bad for him. I know I am a lot to blame for that.”

Awesome example of rationalization at its best:

“I have my husband, I have a family who cares for me… why do I need a ‘best’ or ‘intimate’ friend to share things with? She’ll probably end up telling someone my secrets or will move away or we’ll simply drift apart.”

Ain’t she a lucky gal! Her husband is a fully-functioning human being who knows how to use a mop!

“He is getting a taste of what being a house-husband is like, hehe. He has done surprisingly well, cleaning up and doing chores.”

Best all around:

“Damn you, stupid traumatic virginal sex honeymoon experience!”

Now, don’t get me wrong, people; I’m not against marriage. I mean, come on, I was married once myself, and with any luck I will be married again in the dim, distant future. So I’m not anti-marriage so much as I’m anti- boring married people. (Admittedly, most of the people who write these kinds of blogs were probably pretty damn boring before they got married; they just never saw fit to write about the agonizing minutiae of their day-to-day lives beforehand.)

It was junior (or maybe senior) year of high school; my then-friend Christina was telling me something about her mom asking if she’d had sex yet (I think that was the scenario) and she said no, and her mom said something along the lines of, “Good, because you’re not old enough yet” and she asked, “Well, when do you think I will be old enough?” And her mom said 25. So, apparently I am now old enough to have sex. Huh.

I missed my goal of reaching my 18th birthday sans virginity (a silly, archaic word) — but only by a few weeks. He wasn’t very bright, but I was just using him for sex. “I know you’re going to be Batman.” (Jenny and Niki will get that… freakin’ hilarious.) He was probably the youngest-ever manager of a Papa John’s, though.

Maybe it’s true, what they say about “getting married too young.” I prefer not to take a stance one way or the other; I’m wary of any such over-generalizations. And the other night, Sam (I’m back into the risky business of using co-workers’ real names online) made the point that it is only very recently in our history as a society that marriage is commonly seen as something you “hold off on.” Only a few decades ago, getting married was what you did when you turned 20 or 21. Or 18 or 19. Hell, a few centuries ago, people got married at age 13 and 14. So if any time period’s an anomaly, it’s this one.

[Tangent: Not that I think that's a bad thing. Quite the contrary. I like the fact that there's not so much pressure for marriage from all sides. I guess there still is if you move in certain fundamentalist circles. But fortunately, I do not. Regardless, though, society does much prefer couples to singles. Scoff if you will; I might've (stupidly) scoffed at such an observation when I was ½ of a couple. But I see now that it's true.]

I don’t have any regrets, though. I think back, and really, I can’t see how things could have happened any other way. “Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.” Ahh, my show tunes. And for the most part, I’m pretty damn happy in this, the now.

At the risk of sounding like the end of one of Ken’s (shout-out!) blog entries: Most of you don’t know what this is all about anyway.