Raising Hell
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Insights 20/14
I have really traveled a ton of
emotional distance this year and feel like I have a lot to be proud of. This reflection
is for me to put into words some of the things I learned. I am using the
practice of writing the things I learned down and reflecting on them to
solidify them in my mind and to retain these lessons and have them be permanent
learning that I continue to build on. I
enjoy the opportunity to share this with others, as it might spark
conversations, and it can help me be feel accountable to have let other people
in on what I’m up to.
I’ll be saying “I learned” but it
is more accurate to say “I am learning”, as this is all ongoing subject to
continual upkeep and monitoring.
I learned to identify some of my
interaction styles and behaviors as “codependent”**. I have read and reflected
a lot on my dynamics of past relationships and ongoing friendships. I find labeling my interaction defaults as “codependent”
to be 1. Extremely helpful and hopeful because it means it has a name; it’s a thing.
There are patterns of my childhood that fit with why I have developed this way
of interacting, and there are things to do to change it. 2. Kind of hilarious to be so TEXTBOOK of a
case 3. A bit humbling to realize my problems aren’t all that unique, special,
or mystifying—they are almost predictable.
I’ve made a lot of progress in
identifying codependent patterns and working to operate in reality and express
what I want from my relationships, to change dynamics with friends and to
insist on connections that are healthy and satisfying for me.
I learned that I distort things
in my mind and often don’t allow positive messages of love, attraction, or acceptance
to come in. I am totally relearning how to interact with my social environment and
to accept reality good or bad and to take peoples words and actions for the
truth instead of trying to make up meaning for it, whether I exaggerate it to
be more or less caring than it is.
I learned how to let people leave
from my life. I learned to let people go. I was honest and I didn’t say
anything I regret at all. I was compassionate towards others but equally
compassionate toward myself, insisting on keeping myself happy and safe.
I really, really learned A LOT
about valuing myself and letting people who aren’t valuing me leave and not
come back. I really absolutely had to love myself and for being me and not for
the role I play in other people’s lives or the things I give to them. I learned
to stop compulsively giving at the expense of myself.
I learned to stick up for myself
and say when I was hurt by other people.
I learned to say no in a lot of
ways. I learned to be compassionate toward people but not let them hurt me or
stay in my life if they were being destructive.
I learned to distance myself from
my parents and the feelings of guilt and wanting to do things for them or make
their lives better. I have been better at not feeling responsible for their happiness.
I learned how to listen to my
intuition and to recognize signs of people that are toxic and not good to me.
I learned to not bond with people
over suffering and low points and addictions and misery. I learned to demand
more out of my relationships than simply commiserating and being down in the
dirt with each other.
I learned to open up to people I
trust and to let people in a bit more than I usually would.
I am learning not to act preemptively
or reactively. I am learning how to stop trying to control my environment or do
detective work about what could be wrong or try to assume other peoples
intentions, desires, or needs. I am learning how to let people be adults and
interact with them as competent and capable adults instead of charity cases, socially
inept, needy people who can’t advocate for themselves.
I have learned to be open and
clear and to not expect the worst or that things aren’t working or that
something is wrong. I am still working on this, but assuming the best and
assuming that people are adults that can communicate if something is amiss is a
huge new way of interacting for me.
I am learning to enjoy my
strengths and be strong and happy and proud while acknowledging this doesn’t
make other people shrink or feel bad. If it does it is saying something about
them, not about me. I am learning to value people and think highly of them and
not assume them to be their weakest selves. I can interact with people with
respect and faith that they have the ability to accomplish what they want.
I am learning how to be
supportive towards people without assuming responsibility or giving them advice
or trying to solve any of their problems. I am assuming people are strong, even
if they show weakness; they aren’t defined by their weakness, depression, or
problems. They are strong and capable.
I am not letting people lean on
me or leach off of me or depend on me too much. I am keeping emotional
boundaries with all of my friends.
I am remaining emotionally self
sufficient and not letting others impact me too much. I will keep good
boundaries with myself and be honest and aware of how I am feeling.
I am learning to not be afraid or
distrusting of my feelings and learning to look at them as tools to uncover how
I am responding to current situations or past/future scenarios. I am learning
to question both my emotions and my thoughts equally and be looking for
outcomes that lead to a happier me.
I learned to feel more competent
socially, to be more outgoing and open to sharing myself and my sense of humor
and thoughts with more people and have received positive affirmation from that.
I learned to be a better
student—to learn the shit I need, to work the system, to not berate myself or
feel bad if I am not perfect.
I have learned not to value
myself for my grades and have learned to be pretty confident in my abilities as
a person who can learn new things.
I learned how to navigate
uncomfortable work situations and how to make connections with people in
professional settings.
I learned a ton about social justice
topics, politics, and perspectives.
I learned a ton about white
identity and my spot in the US as a white settler (always learning more about that).
I learned how to use humor and be
upbeat in stressful situations. I learned ways to not feel bogged down and how
to pull and push on humor and others to stay energized.
I learned how to be at peace with
not doing everything possible. I learned how to let myself have time and be
okay with not going to every social event or every opportunity. I learned to
forgive myself when I don’t do it all.
I learned to take care of myself
and make myself comfortable in my surroundings. How to plush things out, get cozy,
spend money on small things that make me happy, make my environment a place I
want to be and to set things up in my home the way I want them.
I learned to take care of myself.
I learned to be my own friend.
I learned to have fun with myself.
I learned how to be alone but not
feel lonely.
I learned how to shift my
perspective and be generous to myself and caring toward myself.
I guess part of my reason for
writing this is the desire to make a stronghold on what I have going on and the
progress I have made and to really set that shit in stone and keep on moving
without losing any ground. I learned so much this year and I want to keep
learning. A lot of this year was painful
and kind of miserable. I cried a lot. I felt a lot of things. I had a rough
time of it for a while but it has really transformed my relationships and has
lead me to better self understanding and self love. I did take care of myself
and I did learn to love and be there for myself.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Loveblindness: Race is sexed, Sex is raced
Julia
McKenna
Introduction
Interracial same-sex relationships face a unique set of circumstances as
the combination of a relationship that defies both race and gender boundaries. Further,
many racialized sexualities go unexamined in the dominant white queer movement.
These racialized and sexualized formations of “the other” are often ignored
under the guise of “colorblind” rhetoric with individuals declaring their “preferences”
as if they are innate and formed within a cultural vacuum. Additionally, white
queers, being a stigmatized group themselves may foolishly/naively believe that
they and people of color are “all in the same boat” and dealing with similar
oppressions, and as such they couldn’t possibly be acting in racist ways or
perpetuating racialized stereotyping and fetishization of people of color. Same-sex
interracial relationships are a unique target of scrutiny and the people within
the relationship are objectified and sexualized in racialized ways and their
relationship itself is “sexualized”. I would like to examine the intersectional
construction of identities as it pertains to same-sex interracial coupling and
desire. My primary lenses of analysis are race, gender, and sexuality.
Sociological
Perspective
People operate within a system of simultaneous, interrelated social
relationships, what Andersen & Collins (2013) terms matrix of domination 1. Socially
constructed categories of race,
class, gender, and sexuality are often articulated as binaries “man/woman, Black/White, rich/poor,
gay/straight, or citizen/alien” 2.
These categorizations allow for “the
other” to be identified as these socially constructed categories map out onto
individual lives in the form of identities. These identities are built into
society and are a result of social and historical processes 3.
It is through these categories that are
tied to systemic forms of inequality that we may examine their impacts
intersectionally, in their many combinations. These intersecting identities are
ubiquitous, present in the realms of ideas (symbols, language, images),
interactions (norms, behaviors), and institutions (government, law, education) 4.
To examine some of the complexities of
how these identities intersect in same-sex interracial coupling and desire, I
will examine popular racialized and sexualized images in the media as well as
the historical context of colonialism featuring genocide, slavery, and ongoing
wars.
First, we can examine the media, where race, gender, and sexual
stereotypes intertwine in different ways. In the popular media African American men are
stereotyped as hypermasculine and oversexed, and African American women are
stereotyped as promiscuous. Latinos are stereotyped as “macho” and sexually uncontrollable
and passionate. Latinas are stereotyped as either “hot” or virgin-like. White
women are sexually stereotyped in dichotomous terms as “madonnas” or “whores”. These
dominant images of sexuality are “part of the architecture of race, class, and
gender oppression, revealing the interlocking systems of race, class, gender,
and sexuality” 5.
Second, we can examine the historical context in which these categories
are forged. Through the action of colonial
discourses, the bodies of Native women and men are queered and racialized as
disordered, unreproductive, and therefore nonheteronormative 6.
Similar imaginaries are formed around the Orient and people of color from
Africa. The Orient is cast as a “site of carefully suppressed animalistic,
perverse, homo-and hypersexual instincts” and a space of “illicit and dangerous
sex”7. African Americans have also faced oversexualized portrayals
of black sexuality as primitive, wild, forbidden, and exotic. In United States Culture “Black male
genitalia have but one meaning (rapacious, threatening, titillating lust) and
one size (BIG)”8. In this way, racial others are always in some way
queered, their sexualities marked as perverse which is used as a justification
for violent attacks. Not including narratives and histories woven into and
making up the present formation of socially constructed groups in the U.S.
allows us to overlook the structure of white supremacy and the logics of
slavery, genocide, and Orientalism delineated by Andrea Smith (2001) that are
at play 9.
Third, we can examine the complexity of intersecting identities in
interracial couples and same-sex couples by examining the meaning that families
and society place on these unions. Interracial
couples exist on the color-line in societies “borderland” between white and
black and the racialized/sexualized stereotypes, perceptions of difference,
familial opposition, and lack of community acceptance should not be looked at
as individual problems but as a reflection of the larger racial issues that
reflect contemporary race relations 10. Mixed race
relationships have been “sexualized”, meaning they have been viewed as
essentially sexual, and are not seen to be about commitment, communication, or
love. In the way mixed-race love was/is viewed as
something pornographic and essentially different from mono-race love, same-sex
relationships are similarly sexualized 11. A black
person and a white person coming together “has been given many names-miscegenation,
amalgamation, race mixing, and jungle fever-conjuring up multiple images of
sex, race, and taboo” and responses to black-white couples “have ranged from disgust
to curiosity to endorsement, with the couples being portrayed as many things-among
them, deviant, unnatural, pathological, exotic, but always sexual” 12.
White people and people of color are both given messages from their families
and communities about interracial relationships. White families may discourage
interracial relationships to maintain white privilege while black families may
discourage these unions to maintain strength and solidarity of black
communities and may view interracial relationships as a “loss of individuals to
a white society, weakening of families and communities, and the devaluing of
blackness13. What does it mean then to have same-sex, mixed-race couples? They are
perhaps doubly sexualized and inhabit a unique position of intersecting
identities, both dominant and marginalized.
Theoretical
Ideas
Colorblindness and Colorblind Racism
I would like to
examine how the ideas of multiculturalism and “post-race” logics reinforce what
Jasbir Puar defines as white ascendancy 14. Bonilla-Silva a sociologist describes the
concept of color-blind racism and reports “racism despite our desperate hope,
has not disappeared, but that it has a rhetoric, as style through which it survives”15.
An unexamined “colorblind” approach to
desire allows for the repetition and upholding of sexualization and
racialization of people of color through aligning with a white supremacist
national narrative always contrasting “the other” against a white backdrop
inherently rooted in racial and sexual violence and (operating through) the
intentional silencing, erasing, and forgetting of those violences. Andersen
& Collins explains colorblind racism as “a new form of racism in which dominant
groups assume that race no longer matters-even when society is highly racially
segregated and when individual and group well-being is still strongly
determined by race” 16. To deny the significance of race is to deny
the historical and contemporary realities of people of color and to allow the
perpetuation of racism, unnamed and masked 17.
Horizontal Hostility: Racism in the Queer Community
Narratives that are glossed over and unseen by a
colorblind white queer majority that allow for the replication and continuation
of racialized stereotypes, racialized fantasies and desires to reproduce these
conditions and roles, without being marked as connected to these processes of
violence and control historically. These racial formations and narratives can
be theorized as present but unexamined backdrops to modern queer identities,
especially in light of colorblind and multicultural formations that seek to
nullify past abuses of power and violent deployments of sexuality by erasing
their presence, often through a process of willful forgetting in efforts to escape
the specter, the ghost, of genocide, slavery, and torture. The hegemony of whiteness and white supremacy
is the bedrock on which white queer identities exist. It is so normalized that
it often goes unexamined, “whiteness in the gay community is everywhere, from what we
see, what we experience, and more importantly, what we desire” 18.
The film
Tongues Untied (Riggs 2008) details the theme of white masculinity and its
construction as powerful and desirable or the “ultimate” in maleness, the theme
of black oversexualization and objectification and the stereotypes about size
and physicality. The film critiques subordinate and dominant imagery and
language, the use of “master/slave” and animalistic imagery, the assumptions of
self-hate attached to attraction to the “white other”, and the complicated desire
of attraction to difference 19.
The gay mainstream casts Asian men as feminine and black men as
hyper-masculine while Latino and Native American men are seen as exotic. "No
femmes, no fats, and no Asians" is a common quote found in many gay personal
ads, both in print and online 20. The dilemma of queer people of color can be illustrated by the
following description:
Gay men of
color are told, by both communities, that we are somehow not masculine enough to
be full members in either community. Some of us have tried to attain this
mythical masculine norm. We spend hours at the gym toning our bodies and
building our muscles to fit with the gay masculine norm. Some of us disguise
our speech, alter our style, and watch our steps in an effort to appear more straight
to the untrained eye. And while a few of us may escape the cage of the masculine
abnormality, we leave our brothers behind. "You're pretty masculine for an
Asian guy," we are told. "You don't act like a black guy," they
say. Ironically, both of these betray the cage of acceptable masculinity that
binds us to the mythical man. Asian men are not masculine enough, black men are
too masculine. The narrow range of acceptable masculinity is reserved for white
men------gay or straight-because, ultimately, it benefits them. Rather than see
the explicit racist statement embedded in this compliment, we secretly blush and giggle at the
attention 21.
Darieck Scott (1994)
gives an analysis of the assumed racial dynamics and the divisive tensions
between “gay blacks” and “black gays” and problematizes lines of reasoning that
are sometimes used in support of a strict adherence to Joseph Beams statement
“black men loving black men is the revolutionary act of our time” (featured in
Tongues Untied). Scott points to the
problem of essentialized and politicized identities and Scott declares that
these identities are always conflated and complicated and that power dynamics
exist in all sorts of spheres in relationships. The discussions of black men
hating themselves or being emasculated through the act of being with white men
are complicated and complex and Scott advocates for an examination of how these
essentialized identities and understandings of them in narrow and unyielding
ways leads to further rigidity and restrictiveness (in thought and actions) 22.
Cutrone (2000) responds
to Scott and puts forth arguments as well as poetry/descriptive language that contests
the rigidity of mandates to stick to one’s
own race, stating “all desire is racialized, but only interracial desire is
required to answer for the reification of race” 2,which concisely
states the problems with viewing intimate connections solely in a racial
dynamic, ignoring the personal experiences and attractions, all of which are
within the racial hierarchies and matrixes in the US context. These racial
dynamics are not strictly interpersonal and may manifest as internalized racism
that “makes gay black men see other gay black men as unsuitable sexual partners
and white males as the ultimate sexual partners” 24.
Formations
of Desire
Media representations at
large and within queer communities demonstrate the complexity of racialization
and sexualization of socially constructed categories and their absorption into
the ideas, interactions, and institutions the in the U.S. Dr. Herukhuti articulates this complexity:
Our desires are always our own and emerge from the
rich network of energies swirling within us. But, at the intersection of race,
ethnicity/culture, gender and class, structural inequality (i.e., imperialist
white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy) forges our desires. The ocean of
structural inequality in which we swim hammers away at our emergent desires,
penetrates the boundaries of the Self and seeps into some of the most intimate
recesses of our being. No matter how impenetrable or immune we may think we
are, our tissues have absorbed some portion of this environment 25.
By viewing socially
constructed categories as mere individual identities and the formation of
desire as an individual choice, we “obscure the social context in which
individuals make choices, and discount the ways in which the
state regulates populations, disciplines individual bodies, and exercises control
over sexuality, gender, and reproduction." 26. The system both rewards us in a variety of ways
(social, financial, sexual) for coloring within the lines drawn to structure
our desires and provides “consequences for venturing outside of the confines of
pre-determined options: marginalization, delegitimization, exile, isolation or
death”27.
Conclusion
I hope I was able to articulate the complexity of same-sex interracial
relationships through a sampling of the various intersections involved. Having conversations
about race and situating oneself in the complex system of interrelated socially
constructed categories can allow for greater awareness and integrity within
romantic and social relationships. Further awareness can be gained by examining
“craving the white gaze” while acknowledging the formation of desire as inseparable
from a culture that promotes white European features as the pinnacle of beauty
(for men and women). White European/ European American queers need to examine
the racialized images they have also been exposed to and examine the power dynamics
and abuses involved in those characterizations as well as the historical
violence that has accompanied the sexually abusive structures and subordination
of people of color.
This is a particularly sensitive topic because it involves identities and
relationships that have been sexualized, stigmatized, and violently suppressed by
the broader culture. Desires are complicated and do not need to be shamed, but
their development occurs in relation to categories and boundaries that have a
much deeper history than the lifespan of one person. They have developed over
centuries of colonization and span the histories of genocide, slavery, and
ongoing wars. Ultimately, these topics complicate
our understandings of identities through the avenue of intimacy and
relationships, which not only calls for genuine examination but also acceptance of the fact that all of our
identities exist in the realms of racial contexts (among many others), and we
act, live, and love within and through these multiple contexts.
References
1 Andersen, M. L.,
Collins, P. H. Race, class, and gender:
An anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 2013, 61
2 Andersen &
Collins 63
3 Andersen & Collins
63
4 Andersen & Collins
66
5 Andersen & Collins
76
6 Driskill, Qwo-Li et al. Eds. Queer Indigenous Studies:
Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature.Tucson:
University of Arizona, 2011.
7 Puar, Jasbir. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in
Queer Times. 87
8 Darieck Scott, “Jungle Fever? Black Gay Identity Politics,
White Dick, and the Utopian Bedroom,” GLQ 1 (1994): 303, 318. P.310
9 Smith, Andrea. "Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars
of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing." The Color of
Violence. 70
10. Andersen & Collins 341
11. Andersen & Collins 256
12. Andersen & Collins 344
13. Andersen & Collins 344
14. Puar 90
15. Holland, Sharon
Patricia. 2012. The erotic life of racism. Durham: Duke University Press. 30
16. Andersen & Collins 68
17. Andersen & Collins 68
18. Andersen & Collins 252
19. Riggs, Marlon T., Essex Hemphill, Marlon T. Riggs, and Essex
Hemphill. 2008. Tongues untied.
20. Andersen & Collins 254
21. Andersen & Collins 257
22. Darieck Scott 318
23. Christopher
Cutrone. "The Child with a Lion: The Utopia of Interracial Intimacy."
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 6, no. 2 (2000): 249-285. 254
24. Darieck Scott 253
25. Dr. Herukhuti “The Color of Desire: Interethnic Border
Crossing (Part 2 of 3)” June 15, 2014. http://sacredsexualities.org/2014/06/15/the-color-of-desire-interethnic-border-crossing-part-2-of-3/ p. 1
26. Andersen & Collins 435
27. Dr. Herukuti p. 1
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Raising Hell: Growing up 2nd
I believe most people I bonded
with while growing up have also seen through a lot of the fucked up systems and
teachings of the church. I hope I am able to express and share in this process
with them (or you) and perhaps hope to lend in the processing of others who
still may feel trapped or hesitant or unsure of their own feeling and
conclusions. This article isn't for people
still interested in pursuing the ideals of the church. I’m not trying to
convince anyone of anything but rather hope to convey my experiences in a
healing process. I encourage comments but it is not likely I will respond to
any trolling or useless debate.
While some ex-Moonies may find
exposing Reverend Moon or members of his family for their hypocrisy and
scandals personally vindicating and supporting their decision to leave the
church, I am most interested in elaborating on my personal
experiences—experiences I now view as injustices and direct harm, that I had
growing up as a member of the Unification Church.
Social alienation and censored
upbringing: It taught youth that they were “different” “special” “purified”
people of a different quality and type than people “outside” the church. This leads to an alienation with other people
and a strange in-group out-group mentality that often lends to
superiority-inferiority complexes and judgment of other people’s lives as not
being as valuable as a “purified” person in the church.
Ex-post facto justifications: History
is seen as god’s will as narrated through the teachings of the church, thus the
genocide of native Americans, the holocaust, slavery, etc. are seen as the
proper progression of history, and often is taught along with “moral
justifications” for these events. The violence of Christianity is unexamined (mission
system in the US, anyone?). Systems of oppression, sexism, racism, genocide are
all normalized and rather than the movement being anything resembling a true
critique or shift in these systems, they are replicated implicitly and explicitly
in a myriad of ways.
Explicit homophobia: I heard
people I otherwise respected give the slippery slope argument against gay
marriage (what’s next, marrying animals?), heard Rev. Moon’s translator stumble
over trying to edit homophobic remarks (homosexuals are worse than dogs). I was
encouraged to read a book by Richard Cohen (a “cured” gay member) featuring pseudo
-sciencey case studies pathologizing homosexuality.
Purity culture: Everything is
about sex and the control of sexual desire. By mandating that we not be sexual,
focus on purity, and talking about marriage we are constantly talking about sex
and it is the central discourse of the movement. By teaching young people that
their value is tied to their virginity, many people are put in harms way. Paired with purity culture was abstinence only
sex education, slut-shaming, and rape culture (if she didn’t do something to
deserve it [which she probably did], I bet her ancestors did).
Lineage teaching: The focus on a
pure lineage and “2nd generation” did several harmful things. First,
it gave parents a creepy entitlement to their children’s sexuality and sex
lives, demanding that they follow a strict path of purity and ultimately end up
in church sanctioned unions with a member of the opposite sex. Having
premarital sex is then the dividing line between in-group and out-group, as
once a persona has sex, they are no longer a valued member of their community
and no longer “purified” under the lineage requirements. This is then accounted
for by other ritual and purification processes to allow for a continued
membership, but as a second class or demoted status person within the
organization. Those who had sex before the sanctioned marriage in the church
were designated “special category” and were encouraged to renounce what they
did and get back on a path to purity in the hopes of marrying someone in the
church, now only eligible to marry other “special category” church members.
Consent: Teachings about
relationships and consensual sex are not present. Sex is viewed as the ultimate payoff for purity
and self-denial. Members are encouraged to forgo sex and follow a strict life
of purity as a course to get to a state of sanctioned marriage with another
person of equal purity and once that union is sanctioned and ritually complete,
a relationship of “absolute sex” is permitted and ones partner’s genitals are
seen as one’s own property. This is a problematic teaching as it lends to a
sense of entitlement of another person and ignores issues of consent.
Dualism and Black/White binary thinking:
Strict gender proscriptions and dualism teachings encourage black and white
thinking and mentality about the world. Gender is viewed as inherent and of a
specific type. There are specific ways that masculinity is to be embodied as
well as femininity.
Racist essentializing: The “superiority”
and “inherent purity” of Korean people plays into the myths around Asian women
and supports racial superiority of Korean people. This is harmful to other
races as well as Korean people, who are confined to boxes and put on pedestals
within the movement. Other racist or
nationalist caricatures are supported (black people are entertainers, American
women are individualistic bitches) and a true examination of race and its constructions
and meanings is not attempted or acknowledged. This leaves dominant-submissive
racial and cultural differences between interracial marriages to be navigated
in isolation and leaves children to operate in the world without any real
discussions about race and its impacts.
Misogyny: Rev. Moon only sees women
living in a way he condones to be worthy of respect and safety. He often
compares women to cows, where every piece of her biology has a purpose to serve
others. In one speech her suggests if a woman doesn’t want to use her breasts
to feed a baby it should be cut off. His abusive and withholding beginning of
his marriage with Mrs. Moon is idealized and she is put on a pedestal for her
undying submission to him and for “proving herself” during the first seven
years of their marriage. Strict gender roles are prescribed and their subordinate
status to men is affirmed through the teachings that men are “subject” and
women “object”.
This reflection has helped me
express a fraction of the processing it has taken for me to shift from my
upbringing, where I thought I was a part of a revolutionary group and something
special and transformative to now where I recognize the unification church as a
fringe backlash movement of the 50’s and 60’s of women’s liberation. Far from
being a liberating and uplifting movement, it offers very disturbing explicit
messages about the natural order of male domination and female subservience,
lack of autonomy and control of one’s body and consent, simplistic racial stereotypes,
and explicit statements of violence toward women. These are all problematic and
are not fringe statements of the movement, rather they are the core tenants of
the doctrine that centers on prescriptions around sex.
This reflection is for me, but I
am sharing it in hopes to allow others to process and share in their own
transformations through their upbringing in the Unification Church. I know and
respect many people who I know through the Unification Church, some of which
are still practicing members and this is not meant as an attack on them or
their beliefs (though, if this upsets you a lot, maybe look into some of those
things and work through that). I opted
out from the Unification Church and through that process experienced many
shifts in myself. I write this in hope to give a voice to my experiences and
articulate some of the problematic parts of growing up in the unification
church that negatively impacted my life and put up roadblocks for my
understandings of myself.
*this post is a part of a multigenre project for a class. Feel free to comment and share.
*this post is a part of a multigenre project for a class. Feel free to comment and share.
Painting
fridge magnet poetry
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)