10 Tips for Conversations about Race and White Supremacy

“One's response... has to depend, in effect, 
on where you find yourself in the world... 
what your system of reality is.”

James Baldwin
James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr.

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Over the last fifteen weeks of our seminar on "Racism and Human Diversity: Medieval Narratives of Blackness," the students in the seminar became practiced in arguing and listening to arguments centered around the history of white supremacy in the west and the ongoing systems of racism that govern our world. At the start of the seminar, the students drafted a "Class Covenant" that served as the guiding rules of engagement when entering into these conversations. The students drafted the agreement and voted for it. Having practiced these methods of debate and discourse over a semester within the protected space of the classroom, on the last day of classes the students drafted a new list. This list would be addressed to the world they are about to enter back into where conversations on racism and white supremacy don't always play by the same guidelines as an arbitrated academic classroom. Ten tips were listed that could be adapted to scenarios such as season family gatherings, holiday parties, online comment sections, or future seminars where topics of racism and white supremacy arise. While hardly exhaustive, these are samples of the advice the Racism and Human Diversity seminar would suggest as significant to active and respectful engagement:

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Baldwin and Buckley debated racism and white supremacy 

at Cambridge University in 1965

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10 Guidelines for Debates 

on Racism and White Supremacy

1. Think of Counter-Arguments

If one does not try to imagine alternative points of view, even for the purpose of refuting them, then "argumentation" is not possible. What arises without the conscious consideration of other perspectives is a shouting match between set "opinions" which neither side wish to nuance or surrender.

2. Sympathize

Because arguments occur among flesh and blood humans, not between logical automatons, arguments are bound to be informed by emotion as well as experience. Being able to sympathize, even with someone who disagrees with you, makes you a better debater because it gives you access not just to the ideas but the feelings that fuel the counter-argument. Also, sympathy allows for a better process and outcome among people who have long embodied certain points of view.

3. Be Open-Minded

Arguments are like battles and competitions, you shouldn't enter into one if you don't plan on the possibility of losing. This means being open-minded and allowing for the potential that another point of view might have information that can nuance or reform certain parts of your understanding. Arguments need not be 0-Sum games but if one enters into a debate without allowing that one's position might be partially changed or surrendered, then one is not entering fully into an argument.

4. Listen

Too many arguments break down because those engaged are not actually listening to the points being made. If you are spending your time thinking of your next point rather than listening, you might miss out of important information or potential common grounds. Without active listening, you cannot walk away more well informed and you will be unable to learn critical points of access into someone else's position.

5. Be Aware of Motives

All information if it is gathered by humans and communicated by humans will show some trace of perspective and/or prejudice. Don't assume that information presented in a form, abstract way is necessarily true nor necessarily unbiased. Be aware of what a person or persons may have to gain by presenting data in particular ways. This may not mean the information is wrong but will give insight into the sources from which the information is coming.

6. Don't Assume

To "assume" makes an "ass-" out of "-u-" and "-me." Going into a conversation, while one can assume that certain situations and perspectives are not within the person's immediate life experience, people may surprise you with what they think and feel. If you go in assuming that a person will be one the other side of all your positions and experiences, then you may miss out on important common grounds that might serve as the foundations for other differences to be negotiated and even changed. There may be a friend somewhere in a person who might otherwise seem to be an opponent.

7. Define terms

So many arguments break down because people realize that participants were speaking past each other, using different definitions and understandings of words that both sides were using. By defining terms, one may find the difference in position may stem from a difference in understanding or context rather than a difference in opinion. 

8. Inform

The goal of most arguments should - in part - be to inform. Arguments are not always able to conclude with all parties in agreement or with an evident winner or loser. As such, if one seeks to provide others with information that they can understand and emotionally process, then the seeds of change may be planted in otherwise confrontational soil. Approaching arguments in this way seeks the betterment of all parties rather than the mere defeat.

9. Assume "Good" Intentions

When certain positions result in dangerous and damaging consequences it can be easy (and understandable) for those engaging with persons holding such positions to assume that the other's intentions are as bad as their effects; or that intentions are inconsequential. While preventing harm caused by bad consequences should be a priority, when time comes to engage those who support these ideologies, it is helpful to assume that the bad actions were done for the best possible intentions. This may not be the same as "good" intentions because it may stem from ignorance and hate. Yet by assuming the alternative position is the "best possible" version of itself, then one prepares for an argument looking for common grounds and with the best possible responses. If one assumes an opponent is merely evil and operating on the weakest of arguments, then the arguments one brings to task against them will also be weaker. The goal is to elevate a conversation not engage on lowest common denominators.

10. Patience

Unlike opinion screaming matches which are often over before they begin, arguments take time. Arguments take time because they are about enacting change. Change does not occur all at once. Thus, arguments may take many sessions to conclude. If one gives into frustration, the hard fought changes and common grounds may be unnecessarily lost. Sometimes building or maintaining lines of communication may be the best possible outcome for any particular argument because they allow for the possibility of change and for the power of time to take effect.

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America's Racism Translator: A Lesson Plan in Code-Switching

“Part of what he talked about was a 'war on crime' 
but that was one of those code-words... 
which really was referring to the black political movements of the day...
the anti-war movement, 
the movements for women's liberation and gay liberation”

James Kilgore
Ava DuVernay dir., 13th

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The Presentations

Scenario: 

You are pitching a sketch based on the popularity of Obama's Anger Translator and adapted to address the way in which media as well as politicians often speak in code on issues that reflect or deepen racial inequalities in order to make them more palatable to an audience sensitive to overt racism. Your overall premise has been approved but the producers need a pilot that demonstrates how the new show "Racial Translations" would work. Together, you and your teach of four will research, write, and perform the short sketch for a test audience.

Task:

For this pilot sketch, in 6-8 minutes, your team of four will present a back and forth between two sides, one using language and rhetoric that strategically de-emphasizes racist components of the programs and one side translating that language to demonstrate how the message and systems presented participate in racial divides and inequality. While the inspiration, "Obama's Anger Translator," is intentionally comedic, this program may choose to move in a more measured and serious tone. In any case, avoid yelling racist language even for comedic effect.

Requirements:

In order to communicate the translation clearly, the translation should be broken down into two main points. Point 1 will be presented in code and then the same point will be code-switched by another presenter. Then Point 2 will be presented in code, followed likewise by a translation. All the points should connect in some way to the code-switching exemplified in the documentary, 13th, which the audience will all be familiar with and which will serve as a common point of comparison. Because this is a test audience and pilot, it is important that viewers can understand the sketch and its purpose. To make the connections and goals clear, bring in print out with names, time stamps where the points relate to the film 13th, and a script or list of main points. In response, the test audience will provide feedback at the rate of at least one comment from each of the other teams presenting pilots on the same day.

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The Example

In the film, 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay in 2016, offers numerous examples of how media and politicians make statements as well as laws that avoid language connected with overt racial inequalities but could be translated to demonstrate how they drive wedges between peoples to the seeming benefit of white communities but at the expense of people of color. Being able to translate such code-speech is critical to see through the ways in which racism has been enacted covertly, avoiding specific terms that signal the intent and effects that come into making such laws.

A key example of this code-switching occurs in a scene that samples President Nixon's former aid, John Ehrlichman, admitting to Dan Baum from Harper's Magazine how they employed "Law and Order" or "Anti-Drug" language and laws aimed at isolating and undermining progressive movements and people of color.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

In this interview, the campaign director effectively acts of his own racial translator. He demonstrates how code-switching racist laws and prejudiced practices into "law and order" language would bring communities on board without having to admit to the racial inequalities being enacted.

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The Outcome

Overall the code-switching exercise was a success across numerous pedagogical lines. Because students were modeling their translations off of the information presented in the film 13th, student's work demonstrated a higher level of engagement and close-reading. While there was some overlap, with some more startling or easy to translate points being picked up by multiple grounds, each group had to do their own digging beneath the surface and research. The result was more of the film 13th was covered than would have been possible within a single collective series of close-readings.

Second, the project forced students to apply critical thinking when close-reading. Because code-switching is as much about what is NOT being said as it is about what words are being used, students had to think creatively and critically to logically fill in the blanks. The ability to understand the multiple meanings of words and rhetorical moves is key to any close-reading exercise whether the text is a poem, a film, or a piece of legislation.

Third, to fill in the blanks students were forced to do additional research beyond what was explicitly presented in the film 13th. Students looked into specific laws as well as the different ways they have been interpreted by lawyers, politicians, and civil rights groups. The ability to transfer the knowledge in class and bring these insights to the outside world is an essential part of any seminar but especially one concerned with critiquing racism and white supremacy. Such massive and long standing networks exist beyond what can be covered in one semester, so students need to become skilled at doing research and seeing the code-switching going on all around them.

Finally, it may seem like a very particular element of the wider lesson but forcing students to deal with the problems in claiming or seeking to be "color-blind" and unable to see race or racism. Just because explicit racial and/or racist thought may not be used does not mean that various assumptions and systematic inequities are not still being enacted. By the end of the exercise, students came to appreciate the need to be able to identify and translate racism even in instances where there has been an intention effort to obfuscate issues of race in the classroom or government.

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White Supremacy and Medieval Studies: A Lesson Plan

“This is a watershed moment that, if used productively, 

will make medieval studies home to an intellectual environment 

that is sustainable and innovative, promotes risk-taking, 

and leverages an ever greater number of experiences 

and scholarly lenses in order to build the most comprehensive body 

of knowledge about the Middle Ages possible”

Collective Statement by the Medievalists of Color

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The Presentations

Scenario:

You work at the University of Virginia. Over the weekend, a collection of white supremacist groups (including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, and White Nationalists) hold a large scale demonstration at which various medieval symbols, weapons and armor, chivalric romances, slogans, stories and histories are presented in support of the claims of the demonstration. Significant public outcry, including investors and alumni of the university, demand a public response from the university. Key members of the university administration invite you and your cohort of scholars in as experts to advise them, specifically on the role of medieval history, literature, religion, and art in issues of race and white supremacy.

Task:

The head of your department has charged you to give a 15-minute presentation to the classroom of administrators in which you articulate an argument that answers the question, “what is the role of medieval studies in regards to white supremacy?” They have made it clear that “no role” is not an answer the university can give to the public or its big donors.

Requirements:

To make your point clear, you are advised to use every member of your group, each speaking for 2 minutes; although different experts may focus on a different part of the presentation.

Together you will present a clear argument which states what the problem is, how medieval studies may be used to answer the problem, and a clear rationale for how this may be done.

Resources and Course Engagement:

To legitimize and illustrate your position, you will use a total offour quotations taken from a stack of books your department head believes will be useful. As a fan of John Mandeville, the department head insists you use two quotations from his book of travels. The other two quotations must then be taken from one of the remaining books (The King of Tars: Introduction, The Aryan Myth, or selections from Arthurian Romances). While the administrators are educated and well read, you are told that they would benefit from these passages being clearly explained and their context in the text given. You have been warned that there may be skeptics and people unfamiliar with the issue, so your department head has insisted that you spend 5-7 minutes of your allotted time to engage the room of administrators in a wider discussion. The goal is to get people to think critically and passionately about the issue on the table and the proposed role of medieval studies in dealing with the stated problem. While you may take a variety of methods to spur discussion, you are advised to prompt dialog about how personal experiences affirm and inform the argument at hand or perhaps engage the room in a game or task which will make them think more critically about the topic at hand and see the value of the proposed position.

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The Readings 

In preparation for the lesson, students will have read a variety of texts, drawn from historical, literary, and pedagogical studies, related to the long history of white supremacy. Uniting all of these divergent readings was the statement by the Medievalists of Color in response to how simmering white supremacist trends in Medieval Studies have been flaring up in recent months amidst a national rash of overt calls for white nationalism and historicism. This statement situated the importance of the exercise and seminar by relating course discussions to current and real conflicts in the professional world. While scholarship by medievalists of color informed the readings of the other texts on the syllabus, the statement presented a key example of the important perspectives and contributions of medievalists of color in the work of medieval studies and debates on/with white supremacy.

Some of these texts demonstrate how history has been constructed in ways that present a white supremacist narrative about how European/Aryan/Frank communities formed in response to threats from people that became marked by color (especially blackness). Framing these texts, an overview of the Crusades demonstrates the myriad of ways that a unified identity (white, Christian, Latin, Frankish) emerged out of a discordant collective of national and class interests in response to propaganda that identified the various Muslim states in the Middle East as a single "enemy" that demands a unified response in order to keep at bay and push back. Individual local accounts of alliances and peaceful relations between and within diverse religious communities before, during, and after the Crusades further complicates the problematic belief that the Crusades represent a single monolithic white Christianity in opposition to a single monolithic black Muslim force. Within the context of the Crusades, students begin to see how dialectic forces of conflict work to construct identity through the division and manipulation of history.

The King of Tars

Selections of medieval literature, including the King of Tars and Arthurian Chivalric Romances featuring the Knight Sir Palamedes, show how the construction of white Christian identity against the "black knights" of Islam in the late era of the Crusades was frought with contradictions and patterns of arbitrary and problematic associations. Students were struck by how the King of Tars tells the story of a growing non-Christian neighbor seeking to claim white Christian women and land but who are turned back and transformed by a conversion from black to white and Muslim to Christian. By close reading the text and the useful Introduction, students immediately began commenting how attributes that are overtly associated with blackness (non-Christian identity, deception, madness, hyper-sexuality, greed, violence and changeability) are all attributes that the white Christians exhibit throughout the Tale. They wondered if the text intentionally told one narrative through overt statements and another contradictory narrative through the subtle details, or if the text unintentionally tries to assert a racial and religious identity by arbitrarily dividing attributes which are otherwise ubiquitous across these supposedly essential differences. 

Sir Palamedes

By reading the earliest account of Sir Palamedes, students begin to see how the "Saracen" is defined as a point of contrast for the white Christian knight, Sir Tristan. Not only do the two knights find themselves often in literal battle, but Palamedes primarily functions in the early texts as competition in the pursuit of Lady Iseult. As such, white identity becomes defined as a defense of white Christian women from the over-sexualized threat by black men. Interestingly, almost immediately after the creation of Sir Palamedes as a non-Christian character in the Arthurian mythos, a storyteller develops a tale of Palamedes conversion to Christianity. Despite this anxiety about Palamede's faith identity, later authors tended to focus on the Saracen knight as a non-Christian. An example of how Palamedes was more interesting to medieval authors as a foil to the white Christian knight, Tristan, occurs in the Death of Arthur, where the white and black knights engage in a game of exchanging clothing. Throughout a tournament, Tristan and Palamedes change the colors of their armors, therefore swapping identities several times, confusing expectations. The effect of these exchanges is that readers have their associations between color, race, and faith identity undermined. Like the drag ball performances we would later watch in Paris is Burning, this shell-game of clothing demonstrate how the associations that contribute to racial and faith identities are culture constructs with contradicting histories and trajectories.

The Aryan Myth by Leon Poliakov

The Aryan Myth is one such historical investigation that demonstrates the many successive attempts by historians to locate an origin for white nationalism, often competing with other cultures and histories for who get to claim authentic "whiteness," contrasting the Franks and the Gallic people, the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. The author, Leon Poliakov, demonstrates through the waves of historicism how the writing of history changed alongside political and national identities currently under construction in ascendant politics. At certain moments, the Frankish identity was hailed as the root of white civilization amidst a savage Gaul. Other years, Gallic identity rose as a rallying point for nativistic nationalism that resisted Roman and later Frankish foreign conquest. The meta-narrative of these "Myths of Origin" goes further than mere play of thesis and antithesis to push towards a synthesis that discredits the goal of discovering a single white national heritage by acknowledging the arbitrariness of the features identified as constituting these peoples as racially distinct as well as the inability to full distinguish one people from another amidst a region that was always already intermixed and interconnected.

The Book of John Mandeville

Trying all these texts together, because students were also reading the Book of John Mandeville during the week of presentations, the travels of this imagined pilgrim seemed to respond to and weave together many of their themes. Overall, students seemed to interpret Mandeville either as a positive counter-example, citing the many places that the author seems to praise non-Christians, or as a synthetic compromise, focusing on sections where the author insists on his Christian construction of identity yet also acknowledges that these peoples he visits may also have perspectives of their own that undermine the stability that either position is the absolute objective truth. In particular, students tended to quote the selection of the Book where Mandeville observes that for these non-Christians, blackness is not evil but good because as people of color they do not regard their comparatively dark complexion as a negative. Indeed, Mandeville notes, from such a perspective angels would be black and devils would be white. Of course, what does not occur to Mandeville in this section is that non-Christians might not be engaging in the same racializing rhetoric as them that emphasizes color in order to assert divisions. He assumes the game of color and racial difference are a common agreed upon conflict.

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The Outcomes

Every class has its own dynamics, leading to a variety of outcomes from this lesson plan. Following recent white supremacist events, students began the semester shaken and less than confident in their ability to discuss issues of racism. Questions posed in class would frequently be responded to with equivocation, as epitomized by the statement, "I don't want to say the wrong thing." Over time, students became more comfortable talking with me as the mediator in a conversation which would pop-corn/ping-pong back and forth. Yet they remained taciturn towards each other. Even in small groups, there was a tension between randomly assigned sets. Going into this lesson plan, a central goal was to get the students comfortable with teaching each other and listening to each other. Overall, the lesson plan follows the "reverse-classroom" format of teaching that does just this. The stated outcomes of the lesson was then focused on engagement: everyone's voice being heard, argumentative stances being taken, active listening to and responding to other groups, and an evidentiary approach to the topic which grounds these encounters within the wider parameters of the course and the specific section on the role of medieval studies in dealing with the new and old traditions of white supremacy.

In the case of my seminar, the lesson plan was effective at prompting engagement. Voices were given center stage that had been silent for most the semester. In a seminar on race and white supremacy, there can be tensions in the classroom between students that can lead to white men doing more of the talking and women of color doing more of the listening. For our class, the lesson shook up many of the class's dynamics. Furthermore, students were pushed to take an ethical stance and get over their instinct to "not say anything wrong." This reflected on how students had grown more connected to the subject, breaking some out of an expressed apathy on the subject matter. When challenged to find a way to feel invested in the subject, participants in the reverse-classroom rose to the occasion. Students built their confidence and cases by close reading the texts in interesting and sometimes surprising ways. The diverse ways people read John Mandeville as proto-colonial, post-Crusader, or as a compromise between extreme positions sparked discussions between groups. While tensions in the class remain, the dynamics have shifted. Not everyone in the class is yet comfortable speaking up to everyone else but everyone is now doing more of the talking as well as the listening. Overall, a sense of "responsibility" and the "role" of participants in academic discussions has moved from a background frame to function more as an active ethos of the seminar.

In the end, this lesson plan may just be a jumping off point for other classes. Your seminars may have different dynamics and challenges. Certainly, other course readings and discussions would change the content of the discussions. Likewise, contexts other than those of Fall 2017 would prompt other questions and places of emphasis. Yet overall, I hope these lesson notes prove helpful as you organize your own classroom discussions on white supremacy and medieval studies!

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Racism and Human Diversity: Medieval Narratives of Blackness

“History has its eyes on you”

Hamilton

An American Musical

Lin-Manuel Miranda

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Course Description and Outcomes

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards were founded in 1935 by Cleveland philanthropist and poet, Edith Anisfield-Wolf. Her desire was to establish an award for books that promoted social justice and tolerance by addressing cultural and racial diversity. Since its foundation, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards have honored the best fiction and non-fiction that exemplify these principals. Winners of the award include the novelist Toni Morrison, the literary critic Edward Said, and the historian David Blight.

In this seminar, we will read selections of poetry and books by winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards alongside other films and texts from the Middle Ages to the modern day which offer contextual and historical insights into the wider framework of social issues, social justice and diversity that undergird the selected award books. Additionally, students will get the chance to attend the 2017 Awards ceremony and visit to the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award collection at the Cleveland Public Library.

Course Objectives (Reflecting SAGES Learning Outcomes)
By the end of the course you will be able to

• Sympathize across multiple perspectives in academic conversations
• Analyze ethical debates and offer critical inquiries
• Research relevant historical contexts and scholarship 
• Argue in written and oral forms according to the dialectic method
• Help others to understand racism through clear verbal communication

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Selections from the Reading List

Racism and Human Diversity centers its reading and discussion around four winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Additional readings and in class viewings serve to offer historical context which augment the four focal texts. The goal of the readings is to draw out the major themes and historical contexts which run through and around the four texts, what come to be identified as "Medieval Narratives of Blackness." These narratives includes ideas of Nation and Religion, White Supremacy and the Role of Medievalism/Historians, The Stonewall Riots and Intersections of Race & Sex, and finally, Poetry and the Prison Industrial Complex. 

Primary Texts (drawn from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards)

• Leon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth 
• Toni Morrison, Beloved (film adaptation)
• Lillian Faderman, The Gay Revolution
• R. Phillips, Heaven

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Medieval Context for the Aryan Myth

• The King of Tars 
• Selections from Arthurian Romance, "On Sir. Palamedes"
• John Mandeville, Book of Marvels & Travels

"Neo-Medieval" Film Context for Beloved

• D.W. Griffith (dir.), Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Ron Clements and John Musker (dir.), The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Queer/Trans People of Color Context for The Gay Revolution

• Jennie Livingston, Paris is Burning
• Janet Mock, Redefining Realness

BLM/Law Enforcement Context for Heaven

• Ava DuVernay, 13th (2016)
• Sam Miller, Luke Cage 

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Environments of Hate: The Anti-Transgender Politics of Bathrooms

“The Anti-Trans Bathroom Nightmare 
Has Its Roots in Racial Segregation"

Gillian Frank

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Transgender Bathroom Laws

On November 3rd, 2015, Houston Texas voted over the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) that would protect transgender persons' rights to use public bathrooms that coordinate to their gender identities. It has been variously described by conservative news outlets as, "the LGBT 'Equal Rights' Ordinance" (TexasValues). Such political editorializing stresses the LGBT aspect of the bill and putting 'equal rights' in quotations begs the question that anti-transgender politicians are expressing: among socially progressive politics, transgender activism is a step too far. Across Texas, anti-trans politics reframed the protection of transgender persons by redefining their identities. Such political punditry claimed that trans women in the women's bathroom is nothing other than "men in the women's bathroom." Describing transgender protections as allowing "men who wear women’s clothes — and sexual predators — to use public women’s bathrooms," Erin Owens lauds those who voted down the ordinance (DailyCaller). As in the picture shown above, the groups pictured trans women as men glaring at women and little girls, suggesting the threat of rape. The outright claims or moves to paint trans persons as rapists and pedophiles follows a long tradition in white male supremacy of picturing threats to the patriarchy as sexual aggressors and the patriarchs as the saviors of vulnerable women. 

"Blacks, Jews, and even gays do not require or even seek separate restrooms or other different treatment; they ask simply to be treated like everyone else,” said Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson. “But transgender people demand a special accommodation, not available to others, because of how they feel." Following a tactic often employed against disability justice activism (with whom they are often conflated), anti-transgender parties claim that transgender rights are too expensive and ask too much. This marks a continued attempt to isolate transgender politics and trans persons from their communities of support and alliance. This trajectory is furthered by claims to physically separate trans people away from the general population because they make others feel uncomfortable. Calling for a special transgender bathroom, Carson's critique that trans people seeking to use the bathroom according to their gender identity is a demand for special treatment inverts the very grounds on which the criticism stands. "How about we create a transgender bathroom?" asks Carson. The solution Carson suggests is the addition of a new place for trans people, while the HERO bill works with existing structures to make them more accessible. Again, the patriarchal move becomes to enact aggression and then blame the victims of the violence.

These comments ignore how closely anti-trans bathroom politics replay old white supremacy narratives targeting racial integration. In an excellent article for Slate.com, Gillian Frank writes, "the conservative idea that civil rights protections sexually endanger women and children in public bathrooms is not new. In fact, conservative sexual thought has been in the toilet since the 1940s. During the World War II era, conservatives began employing the idea that social equality for African-Americans would lead to sexual danger for white women in bathrooms. In the decades since, conservatives used this trope to negate the civil rights claims of women and sexual minorities. Placing Houston’s rejection of HERO within the history of discrimination against racial minorities, sexual minorities, and women reveals a broader pattern: When previously marginalized groups demanded access to public accommodations, conservatives responded with toilet talk to stall these groups’ aspirations for social equality." This is the narrative given despite a continual lack of evidence. As the National Center for Transgender Equality reports, to record there has not been one confirmed case of “a transgender person harassing a non-transgender person in a public restroom.” Such narratives seem to invert the flow of aggression as a way of excusing the patriarchy's violence after the fact by painting their victims as aggressors. Evidence of cisgender attacks (especially by men against trans women) are plentiful. Just in my own backyard, DC and Baltimore, where a trans women was beaten in a McDonald's ladies room (Salon.com) and another sexually assaulted in a Dupont Circle bathroom (NBC). Indeed, the premise that women are weak and need men to protect them from trans women (qua "other men") is a narrative that reinforces female subjugation to a male supremacy that gets to play both abuser and savior, oppressor and liberator.

Without evidence and pragmatism on their side, the patriarchy falls back on its narrative of female dependence and need for subjugation to men. “It is not fair for them to make everybody else uncomfortable,” Carson said after suggesting that there be a separate bathroom for trans people, away from the general public. “It’s one of the things that I don’t particularly like about the movement." Rather than taking the position of the trans women at risk in the men's room, Carson speaks for cisgender women, claiming that trans women are inconsiderate of the discomfort they cause the traditionally sexist environment they are reforming, "how typical women might feel about a person with a penis sharing their restroom.” The comfort defense is one that is particularly insideous of what I call, "polite hate." "Uncomfortable" has long been a word I've witnessed people use as a way to enact "polite transphobia," "polite homophobia," or "polite racism." Once you unpack what that means, it is a way of excluding others, shaming, and excusing oppression. It is an attempt to turn privilege into a right, the oppressor into a victim, yet if one takes it seriously it severely underestimates the discomforted person. It assumes that they have no intelligence, no stamina, no empathy with which to overcome their own ignorance and hatred. Polite racism instills in its proponents a kind of passivity and deniability. Male supremacy comes to function by using people as tools to create environments of hate then convincing those who built it that they are trapped. It breeds dependency, not so much to particular patriarchs, but to an ideology of weakness and dependency on the patriarch, whoever he is, who has the superior power to summon the monsters of difference and slay them. In the "15/"16 presidential climate, various Republican candidates make clear that they will become the country's paterfamilias by slaying the current threat to the patriarchy: transgender. 

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 Environments of Hate

The most recent debates in Houston are hardly the first or most dreadful time that transgender bathroom legislation that has been moved on by hate groups. While anti-trans politicians paint themselves as victims, the environment of hate that they espouse is the tradition rather than the innovation. The tide of legislative attacks on trans persons around bathrooms and locker-rooms have been big conversations this year. Back in April 2015, Florida lawmakers were pushing through a bill that would punish any trans person using the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity with a fines of up to thousands of dollars or up to a year in prison - all for peeing in "the wrong toilet." Many activists, including myself, traveled to Florida to oppose the law through public acts of civil disobedience - simply by using the bathroom. Twitter photos in both bathrooms (#occupottty & #wejustneedtopee) and a few demonstrations with toilets put outside of either men or women's restrooms were publicized as "shit-ins" to draw attention to the extraordinary level of invasive legislative power the government was trying to exercise. Unlike in Houston, the protection of trans bathroom rights were upheld. Beyond the laws themselves, however, which despite the posturing are very difficult to enforce, the real danger is the rhetoric and environment of hate the anti-trans politics create.

There is a malicious irony to the sentiment that transitions and accommodations for transgender youths are too dangerous and uncomfortable to pursue: this assumes that the sexist cis-gender structures that currently exist are not already dangerous and uncomfortable. Or rather it excuses the violence and alienation as only affecting the trans students, a population it passively, if not actively, quietly, if not vocally, politely, if not overtly, wishes to eliminate, humiliate, and subjugate. Women, disability, transgender, are all targets where society polices our bodies and even takes away our control and access to our bodies. This is the essence of hate. If the heart of gluttony is the statement, "I have the overruling right to consume you" and the heart of greed, "I have the overruling right to own you," then what we see here is nothing better than wrath, "I have the overruling right to act against your body." We can hide behind fear and phobias but these are just the rationalization of ingrained, systematic traditions of rage against difference and otherness.  In the end, the wrathful (however polite) rhetoric is probably more damaging than the bathroom laws themselves. It is a toxic discourse that turns the world into an unlivable environment for trans persons. I fear most how this poison gets internalized by trans youths, causing them to despair; to give up fighting for their lives. We need to denaturalize hate, call this the war that it is. We don't always fight because we think we can win, we fight because we can't not fight. In the words of Lorde, "It feels better biting down"

As I sat in the nurses office of my Junior High-School, the hallways were quiet except for the distant sound of children panting and shouting in gym class. I tried to mumble a "thank you" (which came out more like "'ank 'ou") when the nurse handed me a new icepack to press against my swollen black and blue cheek. Across the hall, a fellow student was in the Vice Principles Office recounting what had happened. Although I was not told the exact words the boy used, I was given to know that the story matched exactly with my version of events. About twenty minutes earlier, I was in the locker room changing for gym. I was a feminine, nerdy, slender child known for hanging out with a strange crowd of girls and a few boys (half of whom would come out as queer or trans years later). Although it was years before I would publicly transition, in this pre- and early puberty my body enjoyed a kind of androgyny that made the physical differences between myself and other girls minimal - except for those who had begun to change more quickly and fuller than most. Because I was assigned male at birth and channelled through the men's track in school, I had to go through the frustrating and isolating exercise of daily being separated from the girls and made to share a locker room only with boys. Consequently, I was a target for many of the boys to perform childhood shows of male dominance without my friends to surround me. 

In this way, the gender dysphoria in the environment, which we might also call sexism, or perhaps even more accurately, male supremacy, set up this boy and myself to play out a narrative that is too common for trans youths. Gym class offered some respite from a raw, emerging, yet competitive male culture in the form of mixed activities. Even when the boys and girls were separated into two groups - the boys to learn wrestling (as a way of dominating other bodies) and the girls to learn self-defense (as a way of avoiding the domination of boys) - some thoughtful group of parents caused the creation of a third gender neutral group who could practice dance aerobics. Yet each class would be framed by the breaking into the highly gendered spaces where I would have to walk the gambit of young boys vying to gain ascendancy in a culture of male power. As had been the case in other circumstances, the pre-transitioned trans girl became the easy low-risk target for this boy to prove his masculine superiority and work his way up the ranks. These assertions of power came in various ways but mostly through the twice daily (at the start and end of class) shoving me aside and slamming my locker closed. He would take his little bow, showing that he could assault me without consequence - besides reports which I would give to the gym instructor who was neither present in the locker-room nor particularly interested in policing; after all, "boys will be boys."

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"Who is watching you pee? Forcing #transgender women to use mens rooms is systematic abuse #occupotty #wejustneedtopee"

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Punched in the Face by the Patriarchy

On this day, however, I decided that if the environment and systems of authority were not going to protect me by merely speaking back to power, I would offer physical resistance to the harassment. I was mostly changed (I tried to get in and out of the locker-room quickly) and my locker door was open. Then I heard the laughter from behind me that signaled that I was about to be shoved. Waiting for it, I felt him press his shoulder against me but instead of following the force of his thrust, I pivoted instead so I would be facing him. Grabbing him by the scruff of his neck (the closest target beside his shoulder and head) I held him at arms length away from my locker and, importantly as I began to consider the choice I had made, away from my body. "Stop," I commanded in rough monosyllabic clarity, like I would to our pet dogs when we found them scratching the couch or about to piss on the carpet. He didn't respond except for a kind of growl and big bulging eyes that read both surprise and fury. He bared his teeth at me and grabbed my arm. Without looking away from my aggressor, momentarily checked, I could notice that no help or escape would be offered for me as his friends surrounded us. Ears pounding with blood, reading the situation, I acknowledged that I knew what would come from whenever I let him go - which I eventually would. 

Closing my eyes slightly, I released him, dropped my arms to my side and stood firm waiting for what came next. Lightning raced through my jaw as bone hit bone, cushioned only slightly by the padding that a boy's knuckles and my cheek afforded. Tasting iron as my mouth filled with blood I don't remember much until I found myself sitting in the nurse's office with an icepack on my face waiting for my mother to pick me up and take me to the dentist. As it turned out, he had, in fact, broken one of my teeth. After my mother showed up, the boy came out of the office. He came over to me and apologized. I believe he faced temporary suspension. I did not hear much more about it. I didn't ask. Even now, I don't feel much personal contempt towards the boy who caused me to have my third in a line of bully-inflicted broken bones. He was a boy, not even very big for his age, looking to prove himself in a culture that maintained a quiet, polite form of male supremacy. This was a community mixed between working class industrial workers and those who have made their way, proudly, into middle management. The abuse of girls, women, queers, crips, and trannies would be allowed to happen - but there would be a formal apology afterwards and the individual actor would take the fall. I was a trans girl, a feminine target for abuse and subjugation, stranded alone in an epicenter of young, rough, competitive manhood. 

Neither of us created this system or its rules. He wanted power among his male community and I was his way to get it. I had my feminine community and power taken from me, leaving me with the choices of quiet submission or painful resistance. We made our choices as they were given to us. These are the consequences and dangers of forcing trans girls to stay in gender segregated bathrooms and locker-rooms with boys - either by not offering alternatives or else by ignoring the demands for systematic changes and protections. These are also the consequences of long-held systems of gender that define manhood by power and power through the subjugation of the feminine. This is what comes of cleaning up, making politically correct, and offering sacrificial candidates to male supremacy and violence so the inheritance of male privilege will go only to those who will enact its violences or pay the consequences - risking becoming one of those the ascendent abuse. Here we see the irony of claiming that gender transition or trans accommodations for the youth are dangerous: this assumes that the cis-gender segregation of the sexes (based on centuries of male supremacy and abuses) is safer. By refusing these changes, the system clearly states that it would rather put trans youths at risk of assault than make their oppressors uncomfortable. In the end, it was the plans of male supremacy that punched me in the face and gave me this partially prosthetic tooth - more than it was the conscious intents of a hormone raging tween looking for male approval.

A brief note on ethics: In this post, I work hard to reframe the moral debate towards corporate violences and away from personal faults - be they the hateful words of a Republican candidate for the presidency or the fist of a bully. This is an important move in social constructionist theory because it places the focus where bipolitics can be reformed to do the most good. The punishment of individuals rarely solves many problems, either for the victims, society, or the punished. Often, systems of hate and oppression want the conversation to focus on the indiscretions of its agents who screw up and get themselves caught. Indeed, the system may even want to add to the person's punishment as a way to sooth the outrage for justice and distracting it away from the larger violences. Let the individual take the fall to protect the patriarchal super-structures. So long as we are debating whether the abuser took extraordinary liberties or whether the victim somehow "asked for" the abuse, the wider systems of violence that created the environments of hate can continue to chug along unnoticed. I like to say (in a half-truth) that for this kind of ethical debate, it is not about intent or feelings. Hate, racism, sexism, are not feelings but actions and systems of power. You can have the best intentions and do the most violent acts. Nonetheless, as I finish writing this articles, I am still angry, and sad, and hurt. Looking back, it's not only a personal pain I feel but almost as though I am looking at someone else, because I am an adult weathered in taking abuse and this child doesn't know the things I know and isn't prepared to handle them like I am. This child could be any number of children today. And the stories only get worse. The half-truth is, ethics are not about personal feelings but systems of abuse. The other half of the truth is, ethics are all about the vulnerable lives made to feel powerless, alone, and unlovable. Ethics has to do both. It has too be exactly big enough to see the monolithic forest that is male supremacy and exactly small enough to see the twelve year old lost in it.

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"Governments bully too. Transgender persons need protection from transphobic bathoom laws #occupotty #wejustneedtopee"

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"#transgender women like me could spend half a year in prison for using this Florida women's bathroom #ijustneedtopee"

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