What Are You? A Personal Intersection of Race, Identity and Queerness

"So... What are you?"

It's an innocuous enough question in most circumstances, awkwardly phrased with downturned eyes, like the person asking doesn't know if they're allowed to ask. Sometimes it's worded differently: "What's your ethnicity?" or "Where are you from?"

If you're not white and living in the United States, you're familiar with this song and dance. You may even get it often enough to be annoyed, perhaps even offended. It is, after all, one of those microaggressions continually reminding you of your non-whiteness, branding you as Other. You are not white, therefore you are not really of here. However innocent, it's an interrogation based in our American cultural obsessions with race and identity.

But this post is only partly about that. Call this post a confession and an answer. See, I struggle to answer these questions.

I was raised just outside a small city in Washington called Puyallup. It was the suburbs; a pleasant - if homogenously bland - existence where everyone needed a car to get around. The area was mostly white and grew dramatically through my childhood and adolescence with the housing boom of the late-nineties and early-noughts.

My parents both grew up in West Seattle. My mother raised by an immigrant who gave me her dimples, my father by the kind of straight-laced couple who have lived in the same house for decades, who seem more a part of the landscape than the characters passing through.

A week after I graduated high school, my mom pulled me aside.

Russell isn't your father, she told me. Your brother is actually your half-brother. Your biological father is actually a man named Joseph.

It was a shock, but not world shattering. Call it the weary resilience of a child of divorce combined with the stability that comes from a strong sense of community and selfhood. I carry the name of my father but do not share his blood.

"So... What are you?"

Well, through my mom I'm a quarter Japanese and a quarter German-American. On my dad's side... I don't know.

I'm clearly not white. I'm what a self-aware sitcom might jokingly refer to as "vaguely ethnic." I have olive skin that ripens under the summer sun into a glowing brown. My eyes slant just enough to give me away. I could be mixed Hispanic, or maybe Philipino, or Persian. I'm a mutt of indeterminate origin, the beautiful bowl of soup poured straight from the melting pot. I'm the beige future that racist white folk whisper about in fear when discussing interracial relationships.

Here's an excellent study in contrast of me dancing with my friend Gabe.

I've seen pictures of my biological father. Volunteered to me without request, but have never had an interest in seeking out contact. Who would this stranger with his own family and life be to me? What would I be to him, an adult son with a life already his own?

I don't need another father.

Still, it leaves me at an impasse. I do not know my roots. I do not have a tidy little pedigree to present on command. I am mixed unknown, American as individually-wrapped sliced cheese product.

As a result, like many mixed race kids, I've rarely felt like I belong -- at least when it comes to matters of race. Despite my upbringing, I've never been white. The social studies teacher in junior high who tried to call me Mr. Miyagi more than proved that point. If I'm curious, I could always do one of those genealogy tests. Swab my mouth and send it to a lab, receive a chart and map in the mail. But without a connection to culture, I've never felt comfortable partaking in many of the social safe spaces for my POC peers (welcoming as they may be).

I’ve studied the language and history and culture of my maternal grandmother and even visited Japan once long ago, but as much as I ache for cherry blossoms in the spring, I will always be a foreigner.

It took a trip to Boston to finally see my first spring sakura in New England.

And I guess this is all a part of what makes me queer, really.

LGBTQ-folk in America have a long narrative history of the “adopted” or “chosen” family because so many of us are still getting disowned and cast out by our birth families. So we surround ourselves with people who will love and support us.

I have my birth family: My mother and brother and step-father who I don’t call as often as I should. My partner’s amazing extended family who are so happy to see that I make him happy.

I also have my chosen families: My Charlie-sis who took me to my first concerts and dragged me to my first dance lesson. The expansive Power of Hope community that has nurtured my heArtistry for years. All the Poets who stare at the moon. My QTs (Meow). And everyone else who holds me accountable and pushes me to grow and love.

I have a tattoo of the symbol for mercury on my right forearm.

It’s there as a reminder of my own liminality, that someone has to fill in the blanks, read between the lines, exist in spaces between. Despite what American misconceptions may force on me, I am more than my race. I am more than my skin tone. You don’t need to know what I am to know who I am.

Shit, when did this become almost 1300 words?

So this blog post is partially inspired by this lovely list of questions posted by my friend Eli after attending a facilitators gathering, partially inspired by some of my own experiences, and partially inspired by some critical self-reflection.

And I want to preface this post by saying that as an able-bodied, mixed/white, queer man there are certain privileges that I have that allow me to think about and discuss issues of privilege and oppression work in such a way that I am not triggered because it does not personally affect my life. I am able to mentally or physically walk away from a given situation/conversation if I don't like it and the repercussions I will face will be having to deal with one upset person at a later time. This is a privilege I have because of my identities.

Which brings me to today's topic. I've been thinking about the nature of friendship and connection between myself and my communities. I'm what you call... well-networked. I'm highly extroverted and motivated to maintain relationships with people. I have a policy that if I think of someone more than twice in a day no matter how long it's been, I will reach out and contact them in some way.

My Strengths Quest profile shows that my top trait is Woo, which means that I excel at winning people over and making strangers like me, that in essence I'm the opposite of shy (quite the turnaround from the kindergartner who hid behind his mother and cried when she had to leave). It's a strength of my personality that I long ago learned to use to my advantage.

Which means I have a lot of friends, and even more acquaintances. Which can be draining for some people. People see that I have 1100+ Facebook friends and balk, and admittedly, I probably couldn't tell you who some of the quieter ones are. Does that mean I don't care? I don't think so. To me, it means that at some point I cared about you enough professionally, academically, personally, by extension of my relationship with someone we know in common, that I got to know you. So even if you stop me on the street and I have no idea who you are, you're still important enough to me that I will make the time to reconnect with you. You're worth that time. You will always be worth that time.

Now, as is often the case with someone as widely connected as I am, there are many people I know who I don't necessarily agree with politically, socially, either in base belief or way of approaching the world.

I believe strongly in an anti-oppression framework that seeks to dismantle the social structures (ideologies) that cause and support racial, gender and other inequalities. I'm not always super forward about this, but I make no attempts to hide it. Some of the people I know (and thankfully this group is fairly small) disagree outright. I consider these people ignorant to reality. Some of the people I know are the kinds of people who introduced me to this and continue to educate me through their words, actions, and experiences. I consider these people an inspiration. Some of the people I know don't know about any of this and are happy to live their lives within the status quo. I consider these people lucky to live in such ignorant bliss and it's beautifully painful for me every time I have to disturb that happy little bubble. Some of the people I know at base agree with the long term goals of anti-oppression work, but disagree with the language and the route such activism has taken. I often call these people problematic because while we agree on outcomes, the kinds of statements these people make can be extremely hurtful to the safe space of individuals and communities of marginalized identities. The way they express their views often comes across as polarizing to those doing the kind of anti-oppression work I'm involved in.

This often gets them labelled as racist or misogynistic or otherwise ostracizes them from the work towards equality that they do believe in. I've seen them on the internet labelled as such things like "liberal dude bros" and "fedoras" and "_______-apologists" because they usually fit under the demographic of college-educated, liberal, straight, cishet men.

I often find myself in positions where I can understand the logic that they're coming from. I don't agree with their points outright because while they may be true in the philosophical sense, they are often at odds with the lived experience being brought up. Which given the way that the discourse around marginalized identities values experience creates a fundamental ideological difference of opinion that no amount of explaining or argumentation can bridge beyond a surface intellectual level where you end the conversation by saying "I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree."

Because the difference is one of experience and you cannot teach experience, you can only ever teach ways of respecting the differences that those varied experiences create. And since my default is to side with marginalized identities, sometimes the way to respect those differences is to know when to shut up and leave. Is that always helpful? No. Will it prevent you from further alienating those whom, at base, you agree with? Yes.

And yes, I'm biased and I apologize if the description above fits the kind of interaction we've had together. This is post is not meant as an attack, merely an exploration of the ways I interact with people.

The point that I've been working toward this entire post is that sometimes I find myself asking (or being asked) how I can be friends with such people? If I find their way of interacting with issues and communities that I care about deeply intensely problematic, how do I call such people my friend?

I think part of it is that I always try to approach situations and people non-judgmentally. Quite frankly, it takes a lot to elicit a strong emotional reaction out of me. Usually you have to build up a history of fairly toxic interactions for me to dislike you. I have a very high tolerance for a lot of bullshit. Which is not the same as not recognizing it as bullshit.

But I also find myself separating people from their actions. I can dislike, even hate what you do. If you're flaky or rude or intentionally mean, then I dislike your behavior. Sometimes even enough where I feel it warrants removing myself from any and all situations where I will encounter such behavior from you. If that means removing myself from your life, so be it.

What I'm realizing in myself though is that if I actually stop and think about it, I can never actually dislike a person as a person who has selfhood and I think that's something important to recognize. It's not necessarily something to advocate for everyone; sometimes bad experiences or behaviors from someone are inseparable from them as a person and where I have a high enough tolerance that I have yet to be unable to distinguish a difference between the two, not everyone has that ability or can afford to have that ability and simultaneously ensure their own safety.

We may disagree on everything. I may hate your views for being poisonous to the communities of which I am a part. But I will never let that mean I hate you as a person.

I don't really know if I was going anywhere beyond this, but for now, the ideas are out there.

Why does my racial identity matter?

Or: What Being Multiracial Means to Me

TW: mild homophobia, trans*phobia and racism, mild language

Race isn't something I usually talk about on this blog. It's partly because I had a white suburban middle-class upbringing and identify primarily with (most) of our dominant white culture. In part because of this upbringing, I don't feel a strong tie to any one racial culture enough that I would identify as a person of color (or as having much of "a race" to begin with, which if I'm being honest, is a white privilege). That's a huge part of my experience.

At the same time, I'm often perceived as a person of color. I get the "What kind of asian are you?" questions (since it's well known that I'm a quarter Japanese) and the "I'm so jealous of your perma-tan" (because even at my palest in late-February, I'm still darker than most of my peers) and the "Look at you, little Filipino ladyboy" (because just because I'm kinda brown and gay and dabble in drag apparently means I fit into a whole subset of trans* identities). And, yes, technically by blood I'm mixed race. As my mother revealed to me the weekend after I graduated high school, the white man I grew up knowing as my father wasn't my biological father. My middle-namesake, some man in a grainy  2x2 photograph whom I'd never met or even knew existed until that moment was my father, and he most definitely wasn't white.

Does this mean I have an answer for what kind of not-white I am? No, it means that anything you arbitrarily decide to label me is a viable guess, but since those aspects of my race aren't something I have experienced, that I have lived my life completely divorced from, I literally cannot answer you because I don't know. And I know, that's troubling for some people. The only reason I'm not having some kind of racial identity crisis as I write this post is because I've created other spaces for myself and grounded my sense of identity in other intersections. I can afford to not worry about my race because I've already established my identity as a gay, atheist, queer, English major, artist/poet, runner, leader with a flair for making odd choices in outfit work (to give a few examples).

This is also a huge part of my experience.

When I see friends and activists stand on stage and talk about not belonging, of not being enough one or another, of forever existing between, they're telling part of my story. I see the need for the anti-racist projects in the United States and they're something I care about and am constantly thinking about how I can be a better ally and stand in solidarity with, but I also don't feel comfortable taking up active space in communities of color because the way I experience oppression is primarily as a gay male and not as a person of color. To use some of the language I've been gifted through academia (another privilege of my background, and an opportunity I'm grateful for), my racial being is situated in a liminal space that reifies me as both a POC and as not. Or if you prefer, I'm a bit of a walking , fucking contradiction.

I bring this up because I recently read a Jezebel article about this Cheerios commercial:



In my opinion, it's pretty innocuous and exactly what I'd expect from a Cheerios commercial. There's the innocent child who doesn't know anything about heard disease, but is highly concerned with it because our media does a poor job educating us about the realities of cardiac disease, and there's the parents who are there to explain things only to realize they themselves are the objects of their child's concern. Which, when you put it like that is kind of a bittersweet, fucked up narrative and points out a troubling reality of our culture. But of course, that's not what people are up in arms over. Apparently it's the whole bit about this being a biracial family.

Which is ridiculous because how does the representation of a family in a cereal commercial affect any of us other than potentially showing that there are a variety of valid family experiences? If you're afraid of or offended by that, get out from under your rock.

And I guess the question that it comes down to is: Why does this matter?

Why does my racial identity matter? Why does the racial identity of a fictional television family on a cereal commercial matter?

It matters because our race is part of our story. For many of us, it's integral and (in most cases) inseparable from our experience as a human being because as an American society, it's part of the underlying social narrative we create about people's lives. Even if I don't identify as brown in the majority of circumstances, the fact that other people read me as such means that it still has a concrete effect on my life.

Videos like this one that made the social networking rounds:



Shouldn't ring so painfully (and humorously) true.

I accept my place with the unique set of privileges and oppressions that come with being multiracial while socialized white, and do my best to use my autonomy as a human being to not let these preconceived conditions dictate who or what I will be.

For me, my racial identity will always be complicated. I have no history except those that I have adopted as my own and have adopted me in turn. That's part of what makes me so wonderfully (and problematically) American in the most Melting Pot of ways, and I will do my best to make sure that my experience doesn't impede on or co-opt (see appropriate) the identities and experiences of others.

And it matters because I've asked told you it matters. This, too, is part of my experience, and I am not alone. And if you respect me, or anyone like me who has had similar experiences (and trust me, we've all had similar experiences), as a human being, you will listen to what I say matters.

As if I don't Post About Sexuality Often Enough

The more I think about it, the less I think I'm gay. As far as I can remember, I've avoided choosing that except as a matter of convenience. It's far easier as a man who pretty exclusively has sex with men to tell people I'm gay than to give them a three hour lecture on sexual fluidity and the false premise of identity construction when equating sexual acts with sexual identity. Or to use the language of straight-guy seduction porn, “No, bro, even if you have my dick in your mouth, that doesn't make you gay. It's just one guy helping another guy out.”

See, I don't know what gay is. If it's men who like having sex with men, then why is craigslist littered with ads for guys looking for “straight-acting” or “masc only.” It seems to me that this desire for straight-acting implicates that non-masculine, non-straight-acting people aren't “real” men. Which would mean “gay-acting” men aren't men. And if they aren't men and they're interested in having sex with men, then that definition of gay doesn't work.

There's complicated reasons for all this. General confusion on the differences between gender and sexuality for one. There are books written on how the effeminate male and homosexuality became linked. This idea that homosexuality is innately feminine and a lesser form of sexuality for that fact is essentialist, misogynistic bullshit.

And if it sounds like I'm verbally gay-bashing, I apologize. More than anything I'm bashing this idea of identity and self. Yes, social constructivism is just as problematic as social essentialism (formal academic language for nurture vs nature to use the oversimplified, binary-inducing idiom). In a queer praxis, it's a combination of a constructed performativity and essentialist innateness that form who we are, and creating identity categories or labels for everything only serves to grossly oversimplify and homogenize the beautiful, detailed complexities of the human experience.

I'm frustrated by identity politics because I'm trying to reconcile the social activist part of me that actively teaches and educates that identity is a rallying point for community building with this deep seated need to move beyond identity.

Personal and social identity are important to people and respecting those different identities is necessary for social change. It's why worldviews espousing that we're all human, that we're all the same, can't work. They at best ignore and at worst erase difference in ways that can be harmful, especially in situations of a privilege/oppression dynamic where there is a real and tangible unequal distribution of power/resources.

At the same time, at some point we need to move beyond identity to truly move forward, or at least find new language in this activism. Equality itself is problematic to me because it creates this binary of potential outcomes where either everything is treated the same or everything is separate but equal. How can I fight for equality when neither outcome really solves the problem?

As long as there are separate, differentiated identities, enforced and policed, it's that much harder to integrate. And for some communities, because of the history leading to differences and physical differences, integration isn't going to be possible as readily. Class and race and age (and to some degree gender) will never stop being problems in some form or another. But if this movement toward a more fluid view of sexuality is allowed to continue though, sexual identity through a postmodern context of situational plurality has the potential to transcend strict identity categories. Or at least that is what I'd like to see.

 Nirvana, Enlightenment and in some Western Christian teachings, attaining oneness with God through Christ, all require a sacrifice of the Ego. In spiritual teachings the world over we must let go of the Self in order to reach the next step, whatever that may be. If this holds true on the personal level, why not on the community level as well? I am not defined by my identity. My identity is defined by who I am as well as by the world around me. Why must my chosen community insist on defining itself through limiting, restrictive formations of identity that further enforce and marginalize themselves and others in society?

I don't have an answer. I don't have a solution. I just know I can't get behind gay. I also recognize that because of my sexual practices I'm never going to escape it. Which is maybe for the best, maybe people like me are the solution simply by being living examples that each of us is unlimited, that no matter what we're identified and labeled, no matter what we choose for ourselves or others choose for us, there is possibility for change.

Guess this means I'm officially PoMoSexual.

Consider this a story of Coming Out

I remember in 1st grade one day having a conversation about tomboys in my class, the teacher, her name now long forgotten (Ms. Quinn or something similar?), nowhere in sight. It was recess, perhaps, or lunch.

I wasn't familiar with the term, so someone explained it to me.

"A tomboy is a girl who acts like a boy."

I remember thinking about this for a moment before declaring that I must be some kind of tomgirl then because I was a boy who often acted like a girl and preferred doing "girl" things out on the playground.

Everyone laughed at me. But I didn't quite know why.

It's been a few plus years since this incident. I've grown up, learned a few things and for the most part lost touch with pretty much anybody I knew back in that period of elementary school.

I wonder sometimes how much of me is still that goofy 7-year-old running around with all the girls, proudly making up words to fit me because nothing else quite works and then I look at myself and my life and I realize I never stopped doing this.

My English professor loves to quote the Marilyn Chin poem The Barbarians are Coming:

"If you call me a horse, I must be a horse.
If you call me a bison, I am equally as guilty."

Adam was a namer. Adam was of the earth, of the ground. His legacy in humanity is our naming because to name something is to describe it. To quantify it, to reduce it down to its constituent adams (atoms?) and know it from the inside out.

But names are shadows.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

A name is a part. To name me separates me, divides me into a Self and Others. But I have many names, many symbols that cannot be said.

I'm queer. I'm here.

But that's only a picture of a piece of the puzzle.

"I am that I am."

But before I make a statement worthy of boasting godhood, let me say I exist in relation. We say identity is a social construct. Race, gender, sexuality, etc. are byproducts of the perceptions created and maintained by everything around us, reinforced by ourselves, our surroundings, everything.

To illustrate with a gem from a conversation last night:

Imagine two "bros" walking down the street together. You're driving by and you see them, what are they doing? They're acting like stereotypical bros of course. But why? What if by some chance these two young men love each other but are unable to because of how they have been culturally inculcated as bros.

Which isn't to say they were raised this way, though that is a factor. But what's more important in this instance is the fact that they might not be able to act the way they may want to because of where they are, because of who they're with, because you're watching, because of what they're wearing, because of who's not there, because of how old they are, because they're male. It's a whole complicated mess of influences.

What then are we to do about this?

To exist outside this system of identity politics doesn't work unless the entirety of your culture actively works to exist as such. But unless you're ignorant to how the system works, it's an oppressive, hierarchical abuse that limits you from being who you truly are or want to be.

Armed with knowledge though, we can work from within to corrupt the system. To make an overly simplified analogy (because for a lot of the identities I talked about above, it's not a choice), if you suddenly decide to you hate clothes and think they're oppressive, you don't simply stop wearing them. It's not socially appropriate to do so. Instead what you do is you change the culture that surrounds you. You frequent nudist-friendly areas and teach the people around you that it's okay to not wear clothes. You start wearing short cuts and fewer layers. And yes, maybe you participate in "subversive" activities that bring attention to the oppression but you also take advantage of the system.

Why does gender-choice matter?

This was originally a response to Ben's note on Facebook about why gender-choice matters. Because my response got rather long, and arrives rather late in an ongoing conversation, I've decided to post it here on my blog rather than as a further comment.

Why is identity interpreted, reiterated and perpetuated through sex and gender?

It's a combination of factors. Identity as a social construct must rely on the historical influences that have shaped society to where it is today. If as Foucault postulates our current views (and here I feel I must express that I mean the predominant Western views in America or risk assuming that fact as a Eurocentric norm) of sexuality and gender identity are formed through eighteenth/nineteenth century psychoanalytical and psychological exploration of the sexologies that cropped up as an empirical response to primarily religious discourses naming, limiting, and persecuting people based on their sexual acts, then it is because of the focus put on sex and gender at that time that we still focus on identity through these lenses.

I agree with Jeff that Foucault did very little other than regurgitate history, but disagree that he didn't say anything new (for his time). The biggest argument that he made is that attempts to repress sexuality by empirically exploring each tangential "deviance" actually multiplied the tools (language/discourse) available. From these discourses stem identities. That's why Foucault is important to queer theory.

The short version of what I'm trying to say is that our culture focuses on those aspects because somewhere in the causal network of history, someone latched onto gender as a relationary model through which to explore sexual identity and it stuck.

In this respect though I also very much agree with what was implied in Jeff's initial assertion regarding identities as signifiers of personal pride in a shared heritage that this interpretation of identity is not static but must even now be looked at in current cultural contexts. In doing so, we see that contemporary sexual identities are not exclusively tied to gender and sexual acts anymore. To think of them as such is a limiting conceptualization of not only sexuality, but identity as well, which is I think why Ben seems to disagree with the idea so much.

The queer community as it currently stands is a spectrum of identity, as it has been from the start, but the expression and use of those identities is where we reach this critical mass of proliferation and differentiation away from sexuality as identities exclusively regarding sex. I would argue though that as it is perceived from outside the queer community, this may not be the case, and it is from this distinction that we see current political tension.

In the Weekly Night Series event I attended last night, "Twinks, Flamers and Bears, OH MY!" we discussed sub-identities within the overarching queer community: things like lipstick lesbian, twink, gaymer, et cetera. What these identities so beautifully illustrate is the intersections of the communities we (inter)act within and the formation of identities around these interactions.

Identity is not mutually exclusive. Identities are socio-cultural constructions around the intersections of a variety of political, historical, social (which I'm using here to include class, religion, and race), and geographical sources.

I don't feel like this adequately answers Ben's original question, but it's what I've got.

Socially Aware

‎"I saw a photo of a member of Maria in the Shower performing in Black face and feel hurt and dismayed by this image. I want to know why it is OK in 2010 for people to perpetuate stereotypes of blackness. It is hard for me to believe that this was done with the intention to harm, but it is a reflection of white privilege and the ability to not have to think about how we might be affecting our brothers and sisters." Khari

Photo credit to the Maria in the Shower facebook page

Privilege is it's own kind of oppression whether it be based in race, gender, sexuality or any of the other potentially minoritized aspects of a person's identity. One of my intentions after a Power of Hope camp earlier this year was to become more aware (and actively do something about) the privilege in my life.

A few of my friends and I joke about our 18th/19th Century American Lit class, calling it post-Revolutionary White Guilt because, well, it is. But I think there's a larger significance here. In class, we talk a lot about race and politics and how it's so horrible the way things were back in the Enlightenment era. It's progressive and forward thinking (though perhaps it's backward thinking since hindsight is 20-20), but I think it's missing that one step further, the critical level that looks not only at what we're reading, but our own reactions to it and why we react to it the way we do.

As a class of predominantly white, relatively well off (we are in college after all), educated college students, we know better than our predecessors, in fact most of us - and here I'm assuming rather a lot - were raised in what I imagine were pretty liberal environments and so at least have the rudimentary understanding of what it means to defy social norms or at the barest minimum be socially aware.

How then does it seem like we are ignorant of the very society we are creating in critiquing the discourse of a past age?

It would and should not be socially acceptable to use another group or culture's identity in jest, at the same time I would argue that it is equally wrong to put them on a pedestal as an ideal or a model. To critique a period is to risk creating a false sense of superiority that blinds us to our own created faults. This is the privilege of being able to see our own privilege, to see the oppression around us and choose to do something or to do nothing.


Being socially aware is not just about knowing, as is the case with all kinds of awareness, but using that knowledge. This is me using that knowledge to further educate others, to say that I don't think this is okay and change needs to happen.

I'm working on it, are you?

Of the Secret Identity

"Why did Superman consciously choose to disguise himself as the newspaper reporter, Clark Kent?... Superman, of all the great superheroes , is best positioned to defend or rescue anyone in his inner circle who might be threatened with harm of any kind. With super-senses and super-speed to go with his super-strength, he can track what's going on, get there, and deal with it like no one else. Perhaps part of the secrecy about this identity is meant just to cloak his background in mystery. After all, the less people know about him and his origin, the less access they can have to information that might be compromising to him, such as the fact that he's vulnerable to Kryptonite. Any less-than-omnipotent being has to be on the defensive, and part of any good defensive involves guarding information that might give an enemy an advantage. But I suspect there is even more going on than this.

Superman knows he is an alien. He feels like an alien. He is the ultimate outsider. But he has tasted enough of human life and the human condition to feel very attracted to it, and deeply drawn into it. Jonathan and Martha Kent were good and loving parents, and Clark grew up experiencing friendship, sadness, excitement, happiness, hope and all the normal emotions and relationships of a genuinely human life. At some level, it seems that he wants desperately to be human, or at least to know what it means to be human in the deepest, most intimate possible way. And he understands enough about human reactions to realize that this will not be feasible if he's perceived as being who he really is. He has to fit in. He can't stand out in the way that he would if the whole truth were known about him...

That's the difference the "other-ness" of celebrity can make... In the Bible, we are told that God the Son, a literally divine being, took on the form of a man, and the fullness of our condition, in order to experience what we experience, suffer what we suffer, and save us from the deepest consequences of our heedlessly selfish ways by transforming us, as one of us, and as more. But the New Testament is full of what theologians call "the messianic secret' -- the reluctance of Christ to reveal the fullness of what and who he really is until the people around him are ready to understand and accept it. These themes are reflected in various ways in many of the best Superman narratives over the decades. The greatest guardian, defender, and savior must be one of us, while also being more than us.

Superman doesn't aim to serve the world exactly as the alien Martian Man-Hunter might, or even as Alan Moore's Dr. Manhattan, in all his aloof other-ness, would. He doesn't want to be a nearly Aristotelian God, an unmoved mover of the world, isolated in his own autonomous independence. He craves an existential connection to us. He wants to serve us as really one of us. His secret identity as Clark Kent isn't just a normal superhero ploy, one more tool or weapon in the super-arsenal. It's a crucial part of a real quest to live the human adventure and guard humanity from within. And I can't help but believe that this desire is the result of the love he was given by his human parents, and even by some of his childhood friends. The transformative power of their total acceptance of him and commitment to him has elicited within him a desire to share mutual acceptance and commitment with more of the people of this world."

From The Secret of Secret Identities by Tom Morris in Superheroes and Philosophy an Open Court book, Chicago 2005

So what Morris here is saying is that for Supes to embody humanity and all that is good, he has to be an alien because only as an alien is Superman a source of the Other. But to turn this around, how do we create alterity for Superman? In that he is surrounded by us, we may not be the Intruder to his experience, but we are outside his alien origins.

"He [Patocka] speaks of a supreme being, of God as one who, holding me from within, in his hands and within his gaze, defines everything regarding me, and so rouses me to responsibility." - The Gift of Death by Jacques Derrida

Apply this thought to Superman and we see him in a new light. In placing himself above humanity, in this godlike position as a Super-man, he inspires humanity to be better. He is an example to which we aspire in his position as Superman, but he in turn is aspiring toward humanity, to live and experience a human existence. So we work to emulate this higher level of being that in turn is working to emulate us.

There's a paradox in that. There is a jump in desires in which we find that in reaching for the higher order, we are reaching for our own humanity. To emulate Superman is not to try to become Superman, but to reach the pinnacle of humanity that he has come to represent. We are reaching to become the best that we can be of ourselves.

In the realm of comics though, there is the potential for something other than the big blue boy scout, we find a dark underside that reflects this very same creation of identity from quite a different direction. And here I think of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

Here we find part of the core storyline revolving around one creature's search for self. As we begin the series, we find that he does not know who or what he is any more than we do. He has the mind and memories of the deceased Alec Holland, but he is not and never was Holland, and this revelation shatters him and sends him to a dark swamp land that he can only return from once he accepts that he can live despite this.

It is in this acceptance of a Self that is not himself, or not the Self he thought he was, in accepting the alterity of his very existence, Swamp Thing grows. He becomes a power beyond anything he could have achieved in his existence as Alec Holland.

"It is from the perspective of death as the place of my irreplaceability, that is, of my singularity, that I feel called to responsibility. In this sense only a mortal can be responsible."

For all intents and purposes, the Swamp Thing and Superman are immortal, and so it would seem they counter Derrida's argument by being responsible. But they are not Gods. They face their immortality and invulnerability as mortals and sacrifice their lives in a greater sense. They cannot live as mere mortals. By their very existence on earth they must submit to Godhood and a place above and beyond humanity. The must accept the death of their mortality and so gain responsibility.

And it is this unasked for quality that makes them Heroes. They did not want this and would be far happier to live without this power that has been thrust upon them, but they accept it and (often times grudgingly) incorporate it into their being.

Acelessthan3 Revisited (Part One)

I wrote once already about my existence as Acelessthan3 and later revisited this identity when I unveiled that I was thefoolofbubbles as well.

"Creating this identity allowed me to spin narratives on several fronts at the same time, and to produce persona as shareware." Rhythm Science - Paul D. Miller

But now I come to a kind of crossroads wherein it has become obvious that the lines of this identity are blurring. Among the parasites now, I respond to both Ace and Danny equally. My identities are blurring and overlapping and quite frankly, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

"I started DJ-ing as a conceptual art project, but as the Spooky persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social scripture coding a generative syntax for new languages of creativity." -RS

I started this pseudonym merely as a placeholder internet handle, but as the Ace persona took on a life of its own, I came to regard it as a social existence generative of its own interactions.

I've said before that Ace is not Danny and Danny is not Ace, but I don't think that necessarily holds true anymore. To make a metaphor, can we say that Superman is not Clark Kent? No. There is multiplexity in his existence, like Shrek's onion, there are layers. The layers are separate, but they are all the same onion.

In my third thought experiment, I started with an exposition on facets, but the onion or perhaps a Russian nesting doll make the more appropriate metaphor because it offers the possibility of containment. Unlike a cake, the layers are within each other and in developing these layers and creating that mulitplex relationship of self, we foster a transparency that allows these disparate identities to communicate amongst one another.

In other words, we open the door to the alterity of self.

I speak not about dissociative identity disorder, more commonly called multiple personality disorder or colloquially schizophrenia, but rather the complex and differentiated states of consciousness that in part we engender and develop based on the social and personal interactions and mental associations created as such. When I talk about "my" identity, am I talking about the "me" that is a rower and athlete? Am I talking about "me" the loud, boisterous dancer, constantly smiling and laughing? Or am I the quiet student typing away at his computer in the corner of the classroom?

It cannot be denied that me, "I" encompass all these identities but the cross-cutting influences between them, where they overlap, when someone else crosses that line and glimpses into a layer of what is "me" that they are not used to seeing effects that transparency between one layer and another. You remove one layer to find another underneath and there are an infinite number of layers underneath existing simultaneously on the same metaphorical level in the same metaphorical space.

"Stickers are like infinite multiples, small spots on a landscape that convey a brief message, a pun, an intent." - RS

All these stickers are the same sticker, but not the same physical sticker. The multiple, multiplex identity of a self is similar but in opposite. It is that oft quoted passage from Whitman's Song of Myself "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" Rather than the multitudes of one, they are the multitudes within one.

But in all this self-contradiction, there is chaos. When, in the course of DC comics history it came about that the proliferation of multiple alternate universes created a problem for the continuity of the DC Universe, they had to clean cup, reboot and solve the problem of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

In this plurkiverse where I exist as both Ace and Danny, however, I am also another. I am also thefoolofbubbles, or as has been the case recently, simply theFool.

There's something masturbatory about theFool's existence, something inherently dirty. Which makes sense if he is supposed to represent an id-like extension to balance Ace.

But there is another level here, another riding influence controlling theFool's identity. He has been adopted by others in the plurkiverse. They miss "him" when I as Danny neglect that account for too long.

To maintain it is a drain upon my personal reserves because I am playing a character that is not natural to my identity in the way I have made Ace. What I'm saying is that TheFool is Other and so to create and use him constantly is a fight and in fighting oneself there is only one loser.

And so I come to a Crisis of my own. Worlds are colliding.

"How does one give oneself death [se donner la mort]? How does one give it to oneself in the sense that putting oneself to death means dying while assuming responsibility for one's own death, committing suicide but also sacrificing oneself for another, dying for the other, thus perhaps giving one's life by giving oneself death, accepting the gift of death, such as Socrates, Christ, and others did in so many different ways."

This passage from Derrida's The Gift of Death made me think of nanotext who, admittedly, I hadn't really considered much since his death and replacement with the_author. But in as much as they both represent facets of Tony and his persona as a teacher, the question of death becomes relevant.

Within context of this passage though, there's also a level of control to that life and death. In "assuming responsibility for one's own death" and accepting that gift, you own it. It does not control you

Since I've been trying to read the collected graphic works of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (The Invisible, Swamp Thing, etc), this just reminded me of Sandman as well.



All of Dream's actions throughout the majority of Neil Gaiman's run on the series, pushed him towards this inevitable action of dying at the end of The Kindly Ones. There is no direct line of causality that makes this decision, but it is not merely by chance either, which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Dream's to die so he could be replaced by Daniel. Which is why we cannot say it was a decision of Tony's to kill nanotext so he could be replaced by the_author, or at least not fully. But it was not an accident.

As has become a theme in the classes I've had with Tony, when faced with alterity, we are at first faced with a dichotomy of options. To truly face the Other, we either destroy it (the path that leads to death) or we accept it and integrate it and somehow finding ways to peacefully coincide with that which is not. And there is danger inherent in either option.

It is this dichotomy, this binary nature of dealing with the Other that pushes us to such extremes. We are so ingrained in this binary that in even trying to push our way out of it is to confront and create a new one. To connect to an idea proposed in my GLBT Lit class Fall quarter, it is one of the key problems of identity. In choosing to represent an identity we also deny the other possibilities. To escape the box, to come out of the closet, frees us from a confined set of rules, but also enters us into a new set. You come out of a closet and into a room.

So we escape the binary into another and perhaps the best way to avoid this is to instead shift, to move sideways in such a way that allows us to see what lies between, to see the line connecting the two polarized points. The spectrum is the connection.



So in creating this character of theFool, to express and free those inhibited thoughts, I find myself trapped in another box. Because theFool is not who I consider myself to be. TheFool is not who I want to be. Insofar as I can tell, it is this box of being my own Other that has troubled my mind so much and in part inspired this post.

But where do I find the line connecting him to Ace, or rather to "myself?" I can reject it, suicide theFool's plurk account, I can blindly accept it and let it go as it is now, which would essentially end Ace or I can try to find this elusive middle ground that bridges the gap and narrate a new story, creates a new context by which they can more or less peacefully coexist. I'm out of the closet, into the room, let's try to open a window (though not, I might add, for defenestration).

The difference between being gay and *being* gay

Being gay is either something you’re born with or it’s a choice. It came up in the movies we watched repeatedly as a way of both reinforcing that separatist view, that in order to create a safe place for a gay identity, you must first establish that to be gay is something separate, something different from the normal in order to gain special protections and rights.

In "Mean Little Deaf Queer", I think Galloway puts it very succinctly when she states that it’s a matter of us and “them.” She’s mostly relating to her experience as being disabled/handicapped, but there are direct parallels between that simple statement and the ideology that being queer is something you’re born with or a choice. Like the little deaf queer that she was Galloway chose neither to be gay nor to be deaf. What she did choose was to live with those conditions on her life and push through them.

Queerness is not something people choose. I don’t know of any straight person who would choose to live their life as a gay/lesbian/bi/trans person if they weren’t. But if being queer is something that is innate, that you are born with it, then to go back to Gayle Rubin’s constructivist views, how you choose to live that life, how you express that sexuality or gender identity is a product of your upbringing.

In an upbringing that believes that being queer is somehow wrong, to be gay or rather I should say to live a gay lifestyle then must become a choice. Who you are constructed to be and what you are as a result of that does not allow for a gay identity so to have a gay identity is to choose not to be what you were born to in favor of being what you were born. To become what you were born and accept that is a choice.

So, is being gay something you’re born with or is it a choice? It depends on what you mean by being gay. It is at this junction that the religious institution and the queer community often reach an impasse because they both mean very different things and have very different views on this matter.

They equate being gay to living a gay lifestyle and accepting yourself as gay. These are not the same thing. Identity is a personal matter, and to call a thing an identity when a person does not identify as such is an assumption that devalues the identity of that person.

Acelessthan3

I'm pretty sure I set this one as a scheduled post for last Thursday. Dammit, blogger, quit doing this to my scheduled posts. I schedule them to post at a certain time, post them at that time, geez, is that so hard? Oh well, posting now.

Who is Acelessthan3?

I'm pretty sure that at his most basic level, Aceless is some extension of me. It's been my chosen pseudonym for over half a year now, the façade I hide behind whenever I need to come up with a new username.

I like to think though that Aceless is a little more and a little less than me. Aceless is me in a mask, the parapersonality through which escapes all the jokes and intelligence I don't let myself show, the elegant fool on stage. He is the Locke and Demosthenes to my Peter and Valentine (please get that book reference whether you love or hate the books). But at the same time, he's so much more superficial and surface level, lacking the depth and experience of his own identity, always sharing and drawing symbiotically upon my knowledge and experience.

Of course, it's getting hard to tell the two apart. It's not like Aceless is some exclusive avatar I use while gaming with a specific circle of friends, no, virtually all of my presence online has become or is in the process of becoming an annex to the construction that is Acelessthan3.

And to think, it all started with a deck of cards.

Origins

I was at summer camp up near Leavenworth (yes, Power of Hope, the same one I talk about all the time. You would too if you had the chance to experience it, which you do have the chance, I'm telling you that you do. Look them up: http://powerofhope.org) a little over a year ago. One of the youth there with me was a boy by the name of Cyrus.

Now, Cyrus was a bit of a clown and a thespian. He had a knack for taking your attention that made him a natural magician of the stage. It was really no surprise that he did card tricks. At the end of the week, he gave away his deck of cards. Pick a card, any card and it's yours to keep. I think you can guess which card I drew.

Well flash forward to I think it was around January 2009. I'm signing up for some internet site; I don't rightly remember which one, but the site's asking me to create a username and I want one that's unique to me. I flip through the pages of the journal I got at camp and still write in, and I stop on the page where I've taped the card.

That's it! I'll use the card. But to put as my username theaceofhearts is altogether too mundane and in all likelihood already taken. I need something original. So I look at the familiar ace of hearts shape and imagine how I would type that. Perhaps if I used the well-known emoticon for a heart: A<3? No, special characters aren't allowed. And then it hits me, spell out A<3. Acelessthan3 and my internet pseudonym is born. Incorporation

It was around this time that I started talking to a rather tech-savvy friend who convinced me to sign up for several more social networking and data storage sites, each requiring a username. By now I'd become fond of Acelessthan3. It's distinctive and with the creation of my plurk , thanks to my enrollment in a literature class called Nanotexts, and twitter accounts had gained a level of personality as I wrote through Aceless.

When I started designing and silk-screening my own t-shirts, A<3 became my signature so you would know it was an Acelessthan3 original print. When I make mix CDs for friends, I always take the time to create cover art to go with it and invariably sign the bottom with "An Acelessthan3 Original Mix." Hell, I've even begun to sign personal letters with Danny A heart (since I don't know the coding to make an actual heart appear there, with the heart being underneath the A in true card style). If I weren't so comfortable in my identity as Acelessthan3, I'd be worried about this overlap.