A class assignment

[The following is a piece of writing which I will hand in as part of my Educating to Counter Oppression/Theshhold class. Each week we are given an Accountability , Solidarity and Evaluation Form. We are asked to identify “one challenge or burning question that has come up for us." We are then asked to identify an action that we will take during the week to address the challenge or burning question. My question this week was “How is making one person comfortable and another one uncomfortable justice for all?”

The following is my written reflection.]

Educating to Counter Oppression – Part I

I struggle with the Educating to Counter Oppression (ECO) work. The reason I struggle could be that I simply “don’t get it” and it could be I genuinely feel that I am being asked to give preference to anything that appears “queer” over what has historically been the status quo.

In this ECO world, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. What is unacceptable behavior for a heterosexual person is not unacceptable for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered person. A “queer” dance is okay, while a “normal” one is not.

Let me say on the onset for the specific purpose of setting my comments in context, as a married heterosexual woman, some 3,000 miles from husband and home, I would, undoubtedly, be more comfortable at the "queer" dance. In fact, I could even get into the lark of competing for the suggested "Biggest Dyke on Campus." But that is not the point.

I am troubled. I am troubled by the double standard, specifically because I believe in countering oppressions. And I simply cannot accept that educating to counter oppression, the subsequent future of our world, and the evolution and continuance of our denomination is based on setting one set of limited behaviors over another.

I understand that people have been ostracized because of the fundamental nature of their individual beings. I recently heard a black schoolmate describe an uncomfortable elementary school memory that I thought mirrored my own. She explained that she thought it was because she was black. I wanted to say that it wasn’t because she was black because I had had a similar experience. But I did not feel outside the circle because of my skin color; I simply felt outside the circle. It might have been the same story but we had different interpretations, which is exactly the point. We live in a racist society.

Therefore, I understand that it is necessary to make room, apply resources and honor those voices, which have historically not had an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. But what is difficult to accept about this “work” is that the preferential treatment that is now being afforded to the “oppressed” is taken for granted and contains no sense of grace or gratitude. “It’s about time,” we justifiable say.

In a conversation about whether welcoming congregations (A Unitarian-Universalist program of specifically inviting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people into the congregation) could be welcoming to all and be a comfortable place for all people to be together in a reverent and sacred space, I was informed by my classmates that welcoming congregations were not about the comfort level of the long-time member. Flamboyant behavior of the “queer” was to be expected and celebrated, and if it made someone uncomfortable, it was the responsibility of those who are uncomfortable to simply “get over it.”

Is this not the message that the “queer” community has been receiving? Is this not the mechanism that has prompted the mission to counter oppression in the first place? How does inverting the power structure facilitate healing and the creation of just and sustainable communities?

But the point so far hasn’t been to create just and sustainable communities. The point so far has been to make sure that we understand that racism, sexism, classism and homophobia exist in the world and need to be made right. And, in order for those to be made right, the historic dominant culture must realize their privilege and take a less than equal place in the new world order.

Even that position could be justified. Why shouldn’t the person in the front be asked to move to the back? But I struggle with a solution that seems to hold woundedness, narcissistic behavior and judgment at its core.

And so I ask, and I continue to ask, is there not another way to do this work? Or is justice and equality simply unachievable.

So far that is my conclusion and it breaks my heart.