Author: mariposas

This is a bit different than a normal blog post, less academic and more reflective.

“Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. … In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks that I would not take, to share in any way that I would not share.”

It’s Spring semester of 2022. There’s an oppressive stillness in the air. The news had come last night, that Roe v Wade is likely to be overturned. I didn’t know how to get out of bed, I didn’t know how to take in the information. It was an expected turn of events, but even as a political scientist, I felt in shock. I couldn’t process it.

I go to my class on autopilot. It’s class of 20 women and a professor who identifies as a woman. None of us say anything. How do we process a loss like this? My professor begins the class, opening up space to talk about the news. No one speaks. I’m not sure if there’s anything to say.

Then, my professor begins to cry. I’ve been in a lot of classrooms—I even got kicked out once for crying while watching Trump being inaugurated. But I’ve never had a professor cry in front of a class before. It was a moment of vulnerability, one that I think about a lot when I try to imagine the type of professor I want to be.

bell hooks’ words reminded me of this moment and the empowerment I felt as a woman in that moment. I felt seen and heard, an expression of emotion that I was feeling but couldn’t put into words. I saw in those moments what bell hooks means by ‘the classroom is a place where teachers grow’ – to share an emotion with a class is an act of strength empowering not only the professor, but those who attended class that day.

None of the students said anything, but the moment bridged the divide between teacher and student—humanizing both of us in our collective pain. bell hooks is right in that a teacher must be willing to take risks that she expects of her students and I felt that that day. As a classroom, that vulnerability was acknowledged and cherished.

The engaged pedagogy that bell hooks described is a way to create a classroom that moves both of us (teacher and student) towards liberation, learning from each other, and in some cases, leaning on each other for support. I didn’t know a name for it until reading this excerpt, but I have a feeling that as I get my own classroom, bell hooks words will not leave me and that moment last spring will not leave me either.

 

“A Note about Gender, or Why Is This White Guy Writing about Being a Lesbian? … Today I live in the world as a man, even while my internal sense of gender is as a genderqueer, neither man nor woman. At the same time, I have no desire to abandon or disown my long history as a girl, a tomboy, a dyke, a woman, a butch” (Clare xxvii).

tatiana de la tierra was a latina lesbian poet. While she wrote many shorter pieces, one of her main works was For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology, a collection of poems—both in Spanish and English, giving a dual translation of each poem. I could write hundreds of pages on her work, but there is one poem in particular that connects to Clare’s words, “The ‘Others’ of Us”.

–

The “Others” of Us

there are “women” who were born “female” who are “lesbian” “women”.

there are “women” who were born “female” who are non-“feminine” “lesbians”.

there are “women” who were born not- “women” who became “women” and are “lesbians”.

there are “lesbians” who were born “female” who became not-“woman” (and continue being “lesbians”).

there are “women” who baptize themselves as “lesbians” who are also non-“lesbians”.

there are “women” who are almost “lesbians” –they fantasize about being with “women” and they experiment, to no avail;

they are not capable of being “lesbians”.

there are “lesbians” who are Lesbians.

–

(de la tierra 49)

tatiana de la tierra’s work functions as a theory about what lesbianism is and who it is for. Her general argument is that: whoever wants to be a “lesbian” can be—there is no binary, no definition. Her thesis for the entire work (not just this poem) is that lesbianism is created by those that identify as lesbians, forming a collective identity that is inclusive and open. Specifically in this poem, the Spanish name for it is, “L@s otr@s de nosotr@s: Entre comillas”  — in English… The others of us: between quotation marks. “entre comillas” is important because it draws the reader’s eye to the quotation marks used around “women” “lesbians” “female”  “feminine”. The use of these quotation marks is where I am drawing the connection to Clare.

The quotes act as a remind to the heteropatriarchal definitions of these words—both Clare and tatiana refute these definitions and seek to create their own. I think an analysis of the works cannot be one way, one cannot be used solely as a lens for another, because they work in equal conversation. Clare defines gender within his own framework, saying “Today I live in the world as a man”—he speaks from his own transition experience as a genderqueer person (xxvii). And tatiana speaks of all those who identify as lesbians—including Clare.

Importantly, tatiana never uses the word genderqueer—instead, she defines gender through “not-‘woman’”. I believe there is a power in creating a definition based on separation rather than identity. Let me explain further, to say “not-‘woman’” means to define yourself as something you are not, and not necessarily define yourself as what you are. Clare echoes this when he discusses genderqueerness— “[I am] neither man nor woman” (xxvii), but something else—what he goes further to define as being genderqueer.  Clare, like tatiana writes, “continues being ‘lesbian’” because that is how he wants to live (de la tierra 49).

The rules and definition of gender that are immediate in most peoples’ minds, are “shaped by misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, and shaped again by white supremacy, capitalism, and ableism” (Clare xxviii). Both Clare and tatiana “yearn for the day when all the rules” that create and define exclude gender—“come crashing down” (Clare xxviii). Their works in combination offer new definitions, new ways of knowing and living—Clare focuses on smashing these interlocking power structures and in the same way, tatiana focuses on Lesbians (note the uppercase). Their fight is the same.

“I—like all of us—am practicing my politics during a protracted time of war. … There is no foreseeable end to the war on terror, the war on drugs, the many wars of occupation funded by the United States. We live in a time of unrelenting war. … creating lasting peace with justice requires a fundamental commitment to multi-issue organizing” (Clare xxiv).

—

Clare discusses “war” in his preface for the 2009 edition of exile & pride. I believe that war can be a framework for understanding the argument Clare makes, as well as the connection to the class.

War, for Clare, is not just about the unrelenting unjust war on terror fought abroad but also the wars fought against people at home—the war on terror/drugs. (I have purposefully included the war on terror within domestic wars because of how the United States treats its own citizens). War is about the daily lived experience of everyone that war touches and the war touches everyone—albeit in different ways (Clare xxiv).

To “practice politics” is a decision one makes, and those of us who live outside ‘normalcy’ are forced to live a political life—our bodies are political (Clare xxiii) For Clare, a queer and disabled theorist–his decision to practice multi-issue politics is in opposition to the current construction of the state and its definitions of disability and ‘normalcy’ (Clare xxiv). Thus, “practicing politics during a time of protracted war” (emphasis mine) illuminates that war is not just fighting ‘an enemy’ but conceptualizing the larger framework that war operates in (Clare xxv).

In other words, by living in a state of constant protracted war, war becomes a fundamental part of living in the United States—as well as being affected by the interlocking systems of war, “white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, and ableism [that] work in concert” (Clare xxv). For Clare, the just and political life is to be anti-war. And since being anti-war also entails being against all the interlocking power structures a broader construction of who we are fighting by being political is formed. To fight, Clare states, is to “[create] lasting peace with justice,” with “a fundamental commitment to multi-issue organizing” (Clare xxiv). To do this, we must understand these power structures and how they affect each part of our lived experience—gender, race, religion, sexuality, and disability. War and its power structures create a politics of us and them and the only way to unite and fight is to have multi-issue organizing.

To state plainly the connection to the larger issues at play, in order to stop the war on our bodies—we must identify and dismantle the “interlocking power structures” that we have been talking about in class and realize how war, capitalism, ableism, and homophobia build off of each other to create a hostile world. Clare’s works offer a roadmap to understanding how to address and dismantle each structure.

“I bought a bicycle to cover the twenty miles that separated the bar from my rented hovel. I wanted to be too exhausted to think. Still every turn of the wheel was Louise” (107).

For me, this passage encapsulates the novel itself for two reasons: First, the tension and contradiction created within the narrator’s own mind and second, the thread of cyclical inevitability throughout the novel. The first part of the passage illuminates the guilt the narrator feels, “I wanted to be too exhausted to think” they write, referring to leaving Louise without saying goodbye (107). If they do not think about what they did to Louise then they cannot feel guilty about it, further, if they do not think about Louise at all, then they can’t feel guilty about it. Looking at this scene by itself, is an example of how the narrator keeps themselves very compartmentalized and almost a cold distance away from their lovers—they break up after six months, date mostly taken women, don’t feel much sadness when getting broken up or breaking up with someone—thus, everyone is kept at a distance, even themselves.

But like Louise is a contradiction for the narrator, the next line is a contradiction of their earlier goal. “Still,” Gives the impression to the reader that even though they are trying their best to not think of Louise, it’s inevitable that they will (107). “Every turn of the wheel was Louise” emphasizes the spinning of the wheel of the bicycle, the RPMs repeating over and over as the wheel spins. The fate of the wheel is to spin, just as it feels like fate for the narrator to continue to think of Louise. Further, the connection between the inevitableness of the fate of the wheel to spin connects to Louise by writing, “…the wheel was Louise” (107). The wheel and Louise have become the same for the narrator—no matter what they do, pedaling their bike to forget about Louise just serves to remind them of Louise.

This small passage illuminates the narrator’s internal monologue and battle with themselves and for me, allows to see the humanity and faults in the narrator. The internal battle within the narrator resonates with the reader, especially in the context of queerness, this push-pull between fate and force. The fate of the wheel, fate of thinking of Louise and force of their own will, and force of their own guilt about Louise. It’s one of the points in the novel where the narrator admits to their own emotions, conflictual as they may be.