My assignment for my Social Welfare and Diversity class this week was to create a culture chest. The idea was to decorate a container with how you perceived the world saw you in terms of three of the following: Race, Nationality, Gender, Ability, Sexual Orientation, Social Class or Age. Inside, you had to place three items which you felt represented those three identities for yourself.
When I first read about this assignment, I thought, "Awesome. No writing!" I thought it would be a show and tell with everybody playing the I'm-less-privileged-than-you game. However, it turned out to be more difficult than most of the writing assignments I've been given.
The three issues I chose to represent were gender, ability and sexual orientation. For gender, I used an old Crimethinc poster which nicely criticizes the binary gender roles since I don't subscribe to a lot of typical guy behavior. For ability, I chose to use my old contact lense case, illustrating me not wanting to be "disabled" at all and the privileges I therefore have. My sexual orientation was actually one of the more difficult items to illustrate. I don't have rainbow pins and the only triangle I have is tattooed on me. Instead, I used a pin that I got shortly after moving to Portland which says, "I'm a gay, liberal vegetarian and I want your gun." When I first moved here, I used the pin to advertise my sexual preference.
The outside of my 'chest' (which was actually a tin my friend Josie gave me a while ago) was decorated with blue paper (for my gender), business cards (because jobs are often how people define others) and pictures of me as Robin (to illustrate how people can assign me more power than I deserve based upon my 30 something white maleness), a picture of me hiking (to illustrate my ableness to do so) and the picture of me in Europe in front of the "FAG" graffiti. However, after talking with a classmate in my policy class, it dawned on me that most people would not perceive me as being gay so I put a hetero symbol over it.
Putting it all together and trying to think of how others saw me was challenging. Presenting it all in class though was so much more difficult than I had imagined. There are a few guys in class that I like and get along with. While I do not ever deny my sexuality, I don't always bring it up either. It's usually a difficult subject to approach casually. I wasn't sure how these guys (or the other 19 people in the class) would react to my declaring my sexuality openly. I wasn't really prepared to ostracize myself from everyone else or force an alliance with the other queers in class who I didn't feel as drawn to. It's odd because I've danced in the middle of the street in downtown in a pink skirt and spoken to a room full of punk strangers about queer rights but I was finding this difficult, mainly because I knew that these were the people I was going to be seeing for the next few years.
I think I was flushed the whole time and I found it hard to look anyone but the professor in the eye while doing it. I was the first person to out themselves but it was okay. Both of the guys who I have taken to talking to talked to me later without any awkwardness. Also there was a handful of other queers in the room. One person said that they had the same problem with people assuming they were straight. It was really a beautiful moment and nothing like I imagined it would be. People are really complex and will surprise you every time. Emotions were running high during presentations but people were all very well supported and now I feel totally comfortable and honest there and it's so damn liberating. I am so glad I am doing this.
1 comment:
"People are really complex and will surprise you every time." -- Does that mean yr becoming less of a misanthrope?
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