{"id":865,"date":"2022-09-29T23:05:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T03:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=865"},"modified":"2022-09-29T23:05:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T03:05:16","slug":"the-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2022\/09\/29\/the-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"the mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the hardest parts of identifying as queer, or any other minority, is the burden placed on you to educate everyone outside of that group. From allies to bigots, it is a constant upward battle of explanations and justifications for something as simple as your mere existence. Eli Clare sums up this harsh struggle in the first chapter of his book \u201cExile and Pride\u201d using the metaphor of climbing a mountain. In this passage of his novel, Clare states that \u201cwe hear from the summit that the world is grand from up there, that we live down here at the bottom because we are lazy, stupid, weak, and ugly\u201d (Clare pg 1), this is extremely reminiscent of how that outside of minority communities always push for those being oppressed to take a stand against their oppressors even if it comes at a great personal cost to them. Clare even gives an example of his own experiences facing these unrealistic expectations. He details a story of trying and failing to hike up a mountain due to his disability, and hoe in response to this his able-bodied friends responded by telling \u201chim with the right gear and enough practice you could climb Mount Adams\u201d (Clare pg 9). On the surface, this seems like a very encouraging platitude, but in reality, it is shortsighted and placating. Clare\u2019s friends and acquaintances should not have expected him to do something that would put him in harm\u2019s way to feed into their underdog fantasies. Similarly, people who claim an LGBTQ+ identity should not be expected by cis straight people to always put themselves in harm’s way to fight for the recognition they should have by right. Queer people do not owe the rest of the world their lives. It is brave to go out of one\u2019s way to fight for the lives of oneself and others, it does not always constitute a risk to one\u2019s safety. Clare upped my sentiments on this issue when he wrote that he wishes someone had told him “you made the right choice when you turned around” (Clare pg 10). <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the hardest parts of identifying as queer, or any other minority, is the burden placed on you to educate everyone outside of that group. From allies to bigots, it is a constant upward battle of explanations and justifications for something as simple as your mere existence. Eli Clare sums up this harsh struggle … Continue reading the mountain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5025,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}