"Hello, Cruel Bullies.
Bullies can make life miserable. And I'm not just talking about kids, because bullies don't stop being bullies once they've grown up, they just get more sophisticated. The very act of reading this book is brave and transgressive in part because most systems we're developed as a culture to classify ourselves-- systems like sexuality, gender, race, class, and age-- are not typically questioned all that much. Those in political power these days actively discourage questions that challenge their bully culture. But they don't hesitate to ask some pretty scary questions of their own about who we are as citizens of the world at the start of the twenty-first century.
Are you a terrorist, or aren't you?
Do you support terrorist activities, or don't you?
And the most deeply probing question of our time:
Are you with us, or against us?
If trying to answer these questions make you feel at all uncomfortable, you're in good company. These questions are designed to make you uncomfortable. They are designed to make you not want to be the complex person that you are. Either/or questions are, for the most part, asked by bullies or by these who've been beaten down by bullies and have joined their ranks.
That's why George W. Bush continues to ask the question, "Are you with us or against us?" The United Stats has become a real bully in the world, and Bush is the archetypal American bully asking bully questions that aren't really questions at all. Either/or questions-- every single one of them-- are another way of saying, "It's my way or the highway."
Many either/or questions seem reasonable.
Are you drunk or sober?
Are you young or old?
Are you black or white?
Are you a man or a woman?
Are you happy or sad?
Do you want to kill yourself or keep yourself alive?
One or the other. Simple. You don't need to think about it. You don't need to use your imagination, because the questions itself dictates your only options.
In 1996, poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt addressed the Out Write Conference of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writers with this chiding observation:
"Our imaginations are in thrall to the institutions of oppression."
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WHAT'S IN THE NAME?
I have this idea that naming ourselves beyond the either/or just might be the first step in freeing ourselves from the thralldom in which we're held by so many oppressive institutions.
I have this idea that those of us who question any aspect of our identities...
those of us who are asking ourselves, "Who am I,really?"
those of us who don't quite fit in, whether we can fool others about that or not...
I think we ought to be able to name ourselves, apart from the troublesome either/or language of the institutions that oppress us.
And I have this idea that whatever we name ourselves had better not play into the hands of those oppressive institutions, those institutions that insist we're this or that, one or the other, young or old, black or white, queer or straight, virgin or whore, hawk or dove, gendered or transgender.
I have this idea that every time we discover that the names we're being called are somehow keeping us less than free, we need to come up with new names for ourselves, and that the names we give ourselves must no longer reflect a fear of being labeled outsiders, must no longer bind us to a system that would rather see us dead.
Outsiders should call themselves outsiders, and we are mostly all outsiders in this world, so we should welcome one another's company.
Are you good or evil, male or female, black or white, rich or poor? Are you cool or are you a geek? Are you fat or skinny? Are you a God-fearing Christian or are you a servant of the Devil?
Can we begin to question the questions? Can we begin to question our slavery to an archaic, oppressive system? Can we call ourselves more than either/or?
If those of us who are struggling to discover who we are can't call ourselves more than either/or, who will?
If those of us who are struggling to discover the true nature of our love--and how we can freely express our love in the world-- can't call ourselves more than either/or, who will?
And what about those of us who are still trying to figure out who we wanna be when we grow up? And those of us who are working to discover how we might fit into, and help heal, our world? If we don't call ourselves more than either/or, who will?
Neither/nor has become an increasingly present and visible identity in today's world. Those of us who are living it are faced with the life challenge of coming out of one closet or another and calling ourselves neither/nor whenever we safely can. Which is a hell of a lot easier said than done. Because of bullies, it's a lot easier to stay in a closet. It's a lot easier to shut ourselves down or eat a lot or eat nothing at all or cut on ourselves or take drugs. Because of bullies-- people who insist that we be one thing or another--their way or the highway-- we think we might be better off dead."
-[Pd]-
