In memoriam

Although the shocking news about Tyler Clementi's suicide broke last week, I've been feeling an overwhelming sense of anger and emotional draining over it. I did not know Mr. Clementi personally, nor did I know the other LGBT students who have taken their lives as a result of bullying. But as an ally and as a person who believes in the dignity of everybody, I feel compelled to write about it.

I can't get over how people seem to think that bullying and harrassment is somehow OK, as long as it's directed at certain individuals and groups. I just don't understand who decides which people somehow aren't deserving of basic human dignity, and I don't understand how that sort of nonsense just is perpetuated. What is it that marks one group an easy target and another off limits? What is it that gives people the feeling that they can do something this cruel?

Part of me feels it has to do with the de-humanizing of certain groups. If you mark certain people as somehow less than or not even human, it makes it a lot easier to perpetuate cruel acts against them. If you see your own group as the default or the "norm," it makes anyone else come across as different and less than. In my previous post, "Same Old Song and Dance," I described a heartless "fake prom" that was put on to discriminate against the LGBT and disabled students at a high school in Mississippi. Clearly, the cowardly and mean-spirited folks who hosted it saw this group as less than the rest of the student body and wanted them out.

What we need to do is NORMALIZE EQUALITY. We have come a long way, certainly, but we cannot stop. We need to make things like bullying a thing of the past by recognizing that EVERYONE is valuable and EVERYONE deserves respect. It doesn't matter what your political party or holy book or parents may say. We are all people and we all deserve respect.

How not to win friends or influence people

Some things of note...
When conversing with a progressive or ally type of crowd, here are some statements it might do you good to avoid using. If you recognized yourself from the previous entry, here are some simple solutions to avoid really messing up your friendships or alienating people:

• I have lots of [insert minority group of your choice here] friends!

We have already gone over this statement. Your little rainbow coalition of buddies does not give you a pass to make some small-minded comment, so keep the comment to yourself and stop using your friends as an excuse to pass along your own bigotry.

• But my [insert minority group] friend doesn't mind when I call her/him a [insert ugly slur for said minority group here]!

Your friend is not all members of that group. All members of that group are not him or her. Realize that the group is far more diverse than you may think and respect that. And realize that slurs are meant to hurt and that they probably are best left out of your vocabulary.

• I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I didn't mean it that way!

Okay, you didn't mean to. But you did, so realize that your statements were in the wrong and do what you can to fix them.

• You're too sensitive. Lighten up.

Why is this statement even used as a defense? It shifts the blame to the offended party than having the offending party admit wrong and change. Realize that the person you have offended probably has a very good reason for being so. A brief but sincere apology will do.

Friends are NOT accessories!!

Readers, I am going to draw your attention to a phrase I've been hearing quite often that is really starting to sound just like nails on a chalkboard. Have you ever heard someone make an unbelievably bigoted remark about [insert minority group of any sort here]? Sure, you have. Bigots are unfortunately everywhere. Then, when you call the bigot on the inappropriateness of that comment, his or her first response is pretty much universal:

I didn't mean it that way! I have lots of [insert minority group of any sort here] friends!

Honestly, it's just ridiculous! I have heard it so much that I have begun to take the first words someone says about their Black or Hispanic or female or LGBT or Asian (or any other group they were previously disparaging) "friends" as a warning sign that they might be a bigot. Because no one who is truly open-minded or an ally would say that. You know why? Because they wouldn't make disparaging comments in the first place, and they would have those friends around them in the first place. Those folks who talk about their little rainbow coalition of buddies? I highly doubt they even have one minority they consider a friend. If their attitude is so prejudiced, I don't think that (a) any member of that group could stand them and (b) they would want any member of that group around them. I just don't believe they do.

Friends are NOT accessories. They are NOT there for you to put on display of "proof" of how awesome and open-minded and tolerant you supposedly are, when your actions are say the exact opposite. Actions speak louder than words. They are NOT for you to show off because it's supposedly going to make you look good. Treating someone as an accessory, as something that's not even human, is just as bad as being outright against them for their identity. In both cases, you've denied their humanity and made them into what you assume them to be.

I have a lot of different kinds of friends. Many don't look, talk, or act anything like me. And I like that. But you know one of the many reasons why we are close? Because we don't treat each other like accessories! We don't act like those friendships are simply there to make us look good, and we know that a relationship is a give and take. I'm not saying that race or gender or orientation or religion is something I don't notice. I do notice aspects of someone's identity. In fact, I do think identity matters in my friendships in the sense that anyone who mistreats my friends because of their identity WILL be faced with my wrath! We treat each other like the awesome folks we are.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Well, with all those posts that were on the angry side, I figured that the best thing to do would be to write about something completely and totally different. So you will get a lesson from me about the wonderful Magic of Love! Yes, that's right! Loooove! So put away your Cosmopolitan magazine and ditch your old novels because the revel's gonna learn ya better than school in the arts of love.

Okay, you're probably wondering, "But why are you doing this?" or "What could an old, cold cynic like yourself know about love?" Good question! You're absolutely right, I have for the longest time been the biggest old cynic around. But now I will turn my act around and dedicate this post in all its entirety to LOVE. And that's not all! Any good academic (or grant manager) knows, you must absolutely cite your sources, so I will tell you the font of wisdom from whence I quaffed to get these pearls of wisdom.

So this is the revel's post about Love. As taught to me by the countless chick flicks and romantic comedies I have been forced to sit through by my friends and accomplices.

Revel's Guide to Finding Love
1. If someone creepy is stalking you, don't give him a restraining order, give him a chance at a relationship with you!
Think stalkers are scary and creepy? Think again! It's not stalking, it's romantic! That creeper is only so concerned about your well-being, so give the poor thing a chance. Never mind that it might be bad for your well-being to worry about being stalked. Look at Twilight. The pasty vampire dude with the fwoopy hair is always stalking his human love interest, Bella. And look where that gets him! Tons of teen girls thinking he's like the greatest thing ever, not to mention the love of Bella. So if you find yourself in that situation, consider yourself lucky!
2. You must be a middle-to-upper-class white, heterosexual female. Your wisecracking sidekicks don't have to be, though.
Look at all the leads in the chick flicks that have come out over the last five years. You'd be hard-pressed to find a minority woman as the lead role. You'd be even harder-pressed to find one that was either underemployed or had another woman as her love interest. It's all the same old, boy-meets-white-straight-girl story. Then take a look at the secondary roles. Wondering where all the gals who don't fit that category get to go?
3. You must also be conventionally thin and beautiful. If you're not, then you must become that way.
Observe how all the middle-to-upper class, white, hetero ladies who are cast as the leads are all conventionally attractive. Consider yourself average or geeky-looking? Well, don't worry, you can always get a makeover to show people that your outer beauty matches your inner beauty! Observe how the protagonists in The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding all shed their geeky image and wind up getting the love of their lives. Romance is for the pretty! Don't feel like going the distance? Don't worry, I hear that they might still have open slots for the wisecracking sidekick role.
4. There are only two kinds of guys that matter. The guy you are dating who turns out to be totally icky and the icky guy you wind up dating. The guy friend does not exist. Observe the countless films made with a sharp, motivated female lead and a total dunderhead of a date for her: Knocked Up, The Ugly Truth, and The Proposal. Think your guy is great for you? Don't be an idiot! He will soon will wind up having some awful personality flaw, and you can't have that! Now think about that icky guy who gave you some lame pickup line in the dive bar. THAT is your future husband. Go find him now before he passes out in his own vomit at the dive bar.
5. "Career Women" are total harpies.
Note how all the women in the films mentioned in #4 are strong and motivated and have jobs they like. Well, that's why they can't find a man and are thus utterly pathetic excuses for females! They might as well turn in their second X-chromosome! Oh wait, that's why there's the icky guys they must fall in love with to keep from turning into and staying total monsters! Don't believe me? Well, you don't have to read this post to hear it! See my 2008 post, "Why You Should Marry a Doormat" for added info.
6. You must be tamed. By that icky guy who can rescue you from the harpyness you are becoming.
This one goes without saying. And there are many ways to tame you, too! You can learn to love his ickiness and realize that he truly is, deep down, an icky guy worth loving. Or you can wind up accidentally getting pregnant by him and learning to love that. After all, isn't that what happens in these tales, otherwise there'd be no story. But hey, it's what people in love do, right?

That is all. Revel has spoken. Now follow those rules and you will have the mens eating out of your manicured hands! (And you might just find a ring on the left one in due time...)

Same old song and dance

So, by now I'm sure you've all heard the story about the fake prom that was held in Mississippi. After Constance McMillen, a senior at the Itawamba County High School, wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom, the school cancelled the prom altogether. She later was invited to a private prom with her girlfriend...and discovered that there were less than 10 students there (and some of those students had learning disabilities). The rest of the school went to a prom that was held in secret by the parents, and that the 10 students at the "fake prom" were not invited to.



The story's gone viral all over the blog community, and for good reason. Most people seem to get it for what it is--a really blatant and incredibly ugly display of discrimination. What really bothers me especially is that this fake prom was created to keep all the people who didn't fit in with the school's desired image out, like a way to remove anyone they didn't see as "worthy." (The original prom was cancelled on the grounds that a same-sex couple would be "distracting and disruptive"--but with a couple hundred kids at a prom, who's really going to be distracted by one couple??) Which is just so disgusting.



People may say that we as a nation may have come far, but in matters of civil rights, we still have a long way to go. As most of you know, I identify as mostly hetero (I use the term mostly because I don't think that anyone is exclusively one orientation or another but that we all fall into a continuum of sorts, like the Kinsey scale), but I am a HUGE ally. That's because I think freedom means freedom for everybody, not just a few.

And I am a huge history buff, especially with the history of social movements. What I have noticed, though, is that many of the same old excuses and the same old hate just keeps getting recycled. It's the same old prejudice, just in different hands. Think about how, as recently as the early twentieth century, interracial relationships were considered societally unacceptable. Many of you would find that archaic, and rightly so. Some states even had "racial integrity acts" (don't believe me? google it) that CRIMINALIZED an interracial marriage or relationsip on the grounds that it would lead to problems with the couple's children and later on, the entire human race. It wasn't until the 1960s, in a case called Loving Vs. Virginia that such laws were struck down once and for all. That's less than fifty years ago! Now imagine some of the opposition to marriage equality. A lot of folks who don't support same-sex marriage use the grounds that it will be harmful to their kids, and later on, to the entire human race. Same old excuses. (Although I know a LOT of same-sex couples with kids, and their kids seem fine to me. That's because it's more about how the couple parents than what gender the couple is.) Same old prejudice.

Some might say a prom might not mean a whole lot, since it's something that happens in high school, but this kind of exclusion is nothing less than discrimination and creating nothing less than a hostile educational environment. If a student is noticeably excluded from something because of their identity, what message does that send? What kind of environment does that create? Really, this kind of exclusion is just the cousin of that institutionalized prejudice I was discussing. Both should have no place in this world. At. All.

Well, I am hoping for the best for Ms. McMillen and for the other kids that apparantly weren't good enough to be at Itawamba County's "real" prom. My heart goes out to them.

The kids are all right

I'm the youngest person at my workplace, and even some of the interns are older than I am. I'm most often the youngest person at most of the conferences/convergences/committees that I'm a part of. As a recent college graduate, you'd probably expect that I would be among the youngest folks no matter what professional setting I'm in.

I don't necessarily mind that, since I can't change when I was born, and I'm pretty comfortable with most aspects of myself. The only thing that annoys me is when people make comments about it. I'm sure you know some of them, but here are some of them:
--"You sounded so much older on the phone/in your proposal/insert-situation-here."
--"You write/speak/present so well for your age."
--"You're a lot more mature for your years."

I know they are probably well-meaning, but does anyone besides me see the condescending nature of these comments?? What they're implying is that what a twentysomething writes or speaks about usually wouldn't have much merit, but I happen to be the exception. Or that twentysomethings usually aren't all that mature. And their comments really are not an observation about how young people act, but rather how they think young people act. I know that some folks may maintain that ageism is directed toward the older members of our society, but I don't think that it's any better or less harmful directed toward the younger members. In fact, it really underestimates and de-values their experiences for the same reason--age! It's equally awful, no matter who it's directed at.

Let me get this straight. I don't write well for my age. I write well. Period. My public speaking skills aren't good for my age. They're good. Period. Public speaking is something I like to do and really excel at. I'm not mature for my years. In most cases, I am just that, mature. (And in other cases, I'm quite the opposite, because, like everyone else, I'm human.) When talking to many funders, I would wager a guess that I'm a lot more knowledgable about crisis work than they are. It has nothing to do with age, but rather experience (which I have a lot of).

I think some of the deepest friendships and best professional relationships I've had with folks older than me (and by that I mean by at least a decade, not one or two years) have been with people who recognize the blessing that is their experiences and wisdom as well as recognizing that the young people have a good deal to share and contribute to the world as well. I think that's so important. It's one thing to realize the experience that comes with age, but it's also vital to recognize that experience and wisdom comes at all ages.

Six months...a revel's reflection

I haven't written in ever so long, mostly because I've been unbelievably busy and partly because I am not entirely sure how I could condense everything I've been feeling into a blog-ready, condensed entry. I've been at my job for six months.

Doesn't seem that long, does it?

I feel like I've grown a lot in that time. I'm still marvelling over the fact that I'm there. For those of you who don't know, I'm working at the rape crisis center where I interned a few years ago. I figured that when I entered the "Real World" it'd most likely be at a non-profit, preferably a women's organization like a crisis center but not necessarily this crisis center. I've learned so much in this short period of time: how to write grants and proposals, how to analyze budgets and audits, how to improve my public speaking skills (I was good at public speaking before, but I think I've really improved), and what it means to represent my cause. All that and more. I feel like I'm really making a difference in the lives of women and children.

Being at the flagship agency in the state also really has made me aware of everything that goes into being among the best. I remember that I studied the history of crisis intervention back during my senior year, and I had made the case that advocates needed to get back their grassroots approach to their work. I still agree with that, but I see the current state of crisis intervention as the next phase in that grassroots movement. No matter how much a center can be sophisticated and polished, the fact is that we still need to advocate for victims of violence. And the kinds of things that we do help bring advocacy and the horrifying subject of violence against women and children into the public consciousness. As much as some of our popular fundraisers may seem like a far cry from the grassroots days of yore, they represent the next stage on our journey because they show that anyone can advocate for a victim, in the largest or smallest of ways.

Being at such a big and multifaceted agency also has made me wonder how the small centers do everything they do and still stay strong. I remember during my days at Rape Crisis/RACES (they go by RACES now but are still as fantastic as ever), all the employees did direct service as well as all the administrative and fundraising tasks. I remember when I'd go there after hours, many of the staff members would be there until 7 or 8 PM. I know that there are agencies that are even smaller and more pared-down, and I really have gained a greater respect for the way that they can do all of that hard work and still stay on top of their game.

Well, I'm sorry I kept you all waiting to hear about my updates, but I think this sums it up well. Happy 2010, everybody!