Glisten Up!

Cross-posted on my Tumblr!

*Trigger warning for discussion of ableist and queerphobic language*

NOTE: This is sort of an Oppression 103 post—perhaps confusing for the very beginners, and dull for the old-timers. Sowwy! ❤

Tonight, while having dinner with two of my best friends and my favorite teacher from high school, a former student of said teacher came over to our table to strike up some conversation about the good ol’ days and what’s become of the other students in his class. One, he said, is engaged, though he can’t imagine why, as you’d have to be “blind, deaf, and retarded” to want to marry him.

Rather needless to say, I was perturbed. This is an extreme example of the ableism that permeates our daily discourse, which goes all the way from “love is blind” and the “paralyzing snowstorm” to “you’re crazy” and “how idiotic.” All these mobilizations of disability in the service of things unrelated to disability (whether purportedly ‘negative’ or ‘positive’) are harmful to people with disabilities and mask the omnipresent ableism of our society.

Of course, it’s not only ableist language that’s damaging. Racist, misogynist, and queer- and transphobic language (for starters) also remain large challenges for anti-oppression activists to address. GLSEN—the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network—gets this, to some extent or other. That’s why they launched their campaign “Think B4 You Speak” a few years ago, with the goal of eliminating phrases and words such as “that’s so gay,” “fag,” and “dyke” (their examples) from the lexicon of high schoolers. Focusing particularly on “that’s so gay,” they seem to be taking aim at the casual denigration of non-heterosexual identities that many believe don’t truly have any negative impact.

While I want to applaud them for all of this, of course I can’t. When they encourage you to “sign the pledge” to stop saying “that’s so gay,” they give you the opportunity to offer alternative suggestions following “that’s so…” While most of these suggestions aren’t overly condemnatory (“that’s so fetch,” “that’s so salty,” “that’s so spendiferous,”), which ones are? What’s an appropriate alternative to a homophobic slur? Ableism, duh! “That’s so lame.” (‘Madness,’ ‘quackers,’ ‘wacky,’ etc.) Although I might not blame high schoolers for reproducing the ableism of the ableist society they’ve been raised in, GLSEN definitely has no excuse. In combatting one oppression, they make no efforts to fight another fully enmeshed with it, and thereby perpetuate that other oppression.

Not to mention the obvious: I might be talking about ‘queerphobia’ and ‘transphobia,’ but GLSEN definitely is not. As always, they invoke the horrible horrible horrible ‘LGBT’ acronym in this campaign, even though they make no effort to educate anyone around the many additional forms of verbal harassment experienced by queer and trans folk. Furthermore, they perpetuate cissexism in their definitions of ‘gender identity’ and ‘transgender’ (“a person whose gender identity does not correspond to their biological sex”), naturally make no effort to actually make the concept of ‘queer’ more accurate or accessible, and erase all sorts of non-heterogender identities with their very name and calls for high schools to form “Gay-Straight Alliances.” (Note that the straight folk are never left out, and are invited to be allies to “LGBT students”—because, you know, the LGB and T people are already on the same terms of total and mutual understanding, and can be treated identically by the straight [and cisgender, not that we can label them with such a scary word!] people.)

Did I really just state the obvious for five paragraphs? Maybe. But it’s out of love—momentarily setting aside my own identification as a pansy faggot, etc., I think it’s important to acknowledge that the language GLSEN targets really does perpetuate oppression and marginalization, making the goals of their campaign important ones. And that’s just another reason it’s so important we unite against all the many entangled oppressions keeping us down, instead of replicating them each against the other.

Because that? Is sooooo spendiferous.

Are the Cleveland Indians for Real?

It is no secret that Cleveland sport teams have always been looked down upon. It has been 46 years since one of their sports teams has brought home a major championship. The last team to do it was the Browns who won the NFL Championship (pre-Super Bowl era) in 1964. The Indians last championship was in 1948 which would be a 63 year drought. The Cavaliers have never won a championship in the history of the organization. ESPN in 2004, voted that Cleveland was the most tortured city in America.