i write this knowing it could potentially be seen by those about whom i’ve written, or people close to them. i am sorry that this is the only forum in which i felt comfortable airing these grievances. i would have much preferred to have listened and been listened to in turn, but it wasn’t happening. If you feel like doing that after reading, i am always available. i will always be available for honest, vulnerable discourse. i would love to discuss this with you.

edit: i was asked after by a woman who’d been part of this group but not of the problem, and i thought “fuckit she has been nothing but open, imma tell her.” And she heard me, y’all. She heard and she responded and she apologized for not speaking up.

Those that wanna have a real discourse will (and it can be amazing and i will be so glad!) and those that don’t won’t. i’m gonna live my truth even when it hurts.

– – – – –

One aspect of which there is a particular dearth in the bucolic world is variety of socialization. The kind of socialization that hones a person, helps one truly understand diversity as a path rather than an amorphous concept. Idyllic, homogeneous life seems to lean toward slower talk, an excess of gossip, and less ferocity and passion overall. People are unhurried and less sharp, take everything much less personally, make a lot more room for each other’s faults, and forgive more easily, even if they’ll talk about a person in their absence ad nauseam. i found this all fascinating at first, especially that folks would be so willing to divulge each other’s secrets. And so, streetwise, i kept me to myself, and my wits about me.

In the countryside of Maine i learned that keeping my own counsel would actually never be enough. People seem to have a habit of talking over everything you say, not listening to you at all, then telling you they love you. Stories about you will be told, but you will not recognize the main character.

One person is as afraid of Trump signs on lawns as she is Biden signs. i am hardly able to confusedly utter “kids in cages” before being talked over. Another doesn’t “believe” in cultural appropriation. These women speak from above the fray, as if that is a better position than among those fighting to live. It certainly is better in some ways, and that privilege is horrifically clear in these moments. They do not say “the n-word” but use the word itself, in context of course. They spout AAVE like they’ve known a harder world, and it hits my ears each time like a fist to my skull. It is this kind of privilege that startles me most as the reality of it all sinks into my naïve awareness.

Anger is not welcome. Neither is discourse. You can agree or be talked over—these are your choices. Perhaps you would like to offer a different idea on how we might achieve the unity among people that some profess to pine for. i try to suggest “listening”. The continued refusal to do so makes it seem like what they really want is to skip the understanding part and go straight to the part where people on the margins stop making trouble. We have to unify! But nobody here plans to work for it.

“I don’t engage in that fear,” they say.

i realize along the way that i have code-switched. In an effort to say my small piece, carefully, not to offend but perhaps, if i say it just right, i can be heard. You already know: i will not be heard. In fact, despite my best efforts to speak clearly and directly about my own personal feelings about my own personal life, i am told exactly what these feelings are (incorrectly, claro). And now i know, better and more painfully than ever, what being marginalized truly feels like.

Despite spending an excess of time listening carefully to these new perspectives, i have been pushed aside routinely, both culturally and philosophically. There is only room for theories professed by and for their own people about the future of humanity and the future we might hope for. i watch as these folks reach deep into themselves, and their pockets, to discover their new world. My world, also what i think is the real world—the one that is burning, that chokes my tender heart and breaks me open with every death of the marginalized at the hands of the many—is wholly ignored. So too are my values. We don’t discuss any of them—revolution, reparative justice, feminism, nonmonogamy, queerness, anarchism, etc—unless it’s to hear the opinion of anyone not me. It starts to sink in that in this space, nothing is free from colonization. i am heartbroken.

There is a prevailing seriousness about aliens, as in extra terrestrials, that cuts deeper than expected. i am beyond nonplussed and fundamentally bewildered by people who can want to connect with creatures from other worlds but not their own. There is actual work being done in “Becoming Supernatural” but nobody is learning anything about the aliens of Earth. The human beings here suffering do so precisely because they continue to be ignored. In this place, that includes me.

i am also surprised to hear that people who put up BLM signs are ignorant and just following as they are told. Suddenly i feel closer to those strangers than to the group of people i’ve spent this time trying so hard to understand.

“They’re just widening the divisions among us.”

After some weeks of this i reach out to my most beloved firecrackers of friends and make sure they are still revolutionary. i bounce all of the new-to-me ideas i’ve learned off of all the heads and hearts i most trust. i thank fellow white folks for staying the course, for being safe harbor in a storm of misinformation. i start to recognize the very real pain i’ve been stifling in this situation in which i was continuously unseen, ignored, unaccepted. And told i was loved.

In the end i am simply so sad. My heart aches to know of these well-meaning people who so readily talk over marginalized people to tell them about themselves. i am immeasurably disappointed in people who describe their paths as healers, spiritual, woke, aware, free-thinking, enlightened… yet listen not at all, hold space only for themselves and anyone in agreement. Oh wow am i devastated to learn i cannot address this, have had no effect in all these many hours, days, weeks. And bonus distress: i realize that so many of my loves know this story. So many hearts i hold dear know this feeling all too well. This is far from new, though i have only just experienced it. If nothing else, i’ve learned.