Results tagged “civilrights”

Update: The students did it! The re-vote from the board yielded a unanimous vote in favor of forming the Coexist club. I'm sincerely thankful to the students, to their advisor Christina Baker, and to Superintendent Bruce Deveney for their leadership and for making the right choice to support every student.

A brief personal note: Though I usually write about tech geek stuff here, I'd been following a story from my high school alma mater that was of particular interest to me, and I wanted to take a moment to write a note to the members and supporters of Coexist, the Gay-Straight Alliance at East Pennsboro High School. East Pennsboro's mascot is the Panther, and most of the football games and pep rallies I went to tended to talk a lot about "Panther Pride".

First, to the students behind Coexist, thank you: I appreciate anyone who is trying to be a voice of love and tolerance in a place that, all too often, has forgotten to value those principles. I know it's not an easy conversation to have, and I appreciate your courage. I also wanted to give a little bit of perspective from someone who's fought those same struggles, though it was quite a few years ago.

Who the heck am I?

As background, I'm now living in New York City, where I've been very fortunate in my life and in my professional career to get to have opportunities I never could have imagined back when I was a student at East Penn. I was in the Computer Club back then (computers weren't very popular yet), and today I get to work with a lot of the people who make the websites and apps you use every day. I was in the Youth in Government program, and today the non-profit that I've been running gets to work with all levels of government from city government here in New York all the way up to the White House. And I was in the Newspaper Club, which helped me see myself as a writer and has led to me now having the ability to have my words published where millions of people can see them.

So, in short, I've been really lucky. But I also spent a lot of time in high school figuring out my identity and my place in the world, and I deeply wish there had been a place or a club that would have supported that effort. Though things are slightly more diverse in the school district now, at the time I was attending, there were almost no other students who were of the same background as me, or raised in the same religion, or who had the same skin color, or who ate the same things for dinner, or who spoke the same language around the house. That was a deeply isolating realization.

What's more, I knew I didn't conform to the traditional male gender roles as they'd been described to me in that community. While today I identify as a (boring, old) straight male who's been married for years and has a happy little baby boy, I never took for granted that I would settle on an identity that is so privileged in our culture. Instead, I identified very strongly with all my close friends who were lesbian, gay, questioning or queer, as I knew they had to actually reckon with their identities, just as I had.

When I first moved to New York City, I saw the Pride Parade here, and I had only known the word "pride" from hearing the phrase "Panther Pride" at pep rallies back at East Pennsboro. At first, I thought this must have been two different meanings for the same word. It seems clearer than ever to me now that, actually, they were very much two uses of the same word being used to represent one important concept.

What I Learned

When I say that I reckoned with my identity, I don't just mean that I was figuring out who I am. I also mean that I had to confront other people's biases and prejudices about every aspect of myself. Over my years going to East Pennsboro schools, I had my nose broken, my car vandalized, my parents prank-called, and had a teacher call me out during school hours for not being of her preferred religion. Worse, I struggled enough with being different that I questioned myself, thinking I must have been crazy or wrong or misguided, or that the things that made me unhappy must have been my fault. At my worst, I wasn't just miserable and self-destructive towards my own life, I was mean-spirited and unkind towards other students who were probably going through similar things.

But eventually, I figured it out. And the combination of my loving, compassionate, patient parents along with my incredibly understanding, tolerant, and supportive friends got me through. I knew, though, that there were adults in positions of power, whether they were teachers or administrators or just parents in the community, who thought struggles like mine were wrong or bad or selfish or just a cry for attention.

I know I just seem like some guy who's twice your age talking about stuff that he might not understand, but I really have been in your shoes. I got kicked out of class a few times for everything from wearing lipstick to wearing a dress to writing "love sees no gender" on my t-shirt. But I also remember sitting with Ms. Baker in Ms. Vasquez's English class, where everyone rightfully ignored those parts of how I expressed myself in order to focus on what I was actually writing. It made a huge difference in the course of my life.

The only distraction, then, was by those who chose to make an issue of how I expressed myself and my identity. And the only thing that helped me overcome those distractions was having a supportive community of friends who showed me that they accepted me for who I am.

Tonight, adults who've been chosen as leaders in your community are going to make another decision as to whether they think you deserve to exist as an official club to support your fellow students. They'll argue whether it's a distraction from learning, and whether the school district has enough money to support the minimal costs for the program.

Let me be clear: There is nothing more important we can learn as young people than to be kind, tolerant and accepting of others. The truth is, most of what I use on a day-to-day basis to do my job or to take care of my family, I taught myself in the years since I went to high school. But had I been left to fend for myself and taught that my differences made me a bad person, I can't imagine I would have had the motivation and drive to achieve the successes that I've had.

To those who want to make this a budget issue: I'll pay for it. Myself. Total up the most exorbitant, extravagant cost that you can imagine for the administration of the Coexist program or a Gay-Straight Alliance at East Pennsboro, and no matter what you think the price tag is, I'll make sure it gets covered. This justification is now officially removed.

Going Forward

Tonight, your school board will make a decision about your club, but also about the culture and mindset of the community going forward. Judging by the wisdom you've already shown, there's not much I can teach you about the world that you haven't already figured out in high school. But I will share one lesson that I think might not be obvious.

Ms. Alger, Ms. Gaughen, Mr. Helm and Mr. Tyson aren't your enemies. And they're not motivated by hate. They're just adults who've forgotten what it was like to have to struggle to discover who you are. Maybe they were fortunate enough that they didn't even have to go through that struggle. It's like someone who's always had perfect vision not knowing why some of us feel so vulnerable when we don't have our glasses or contact lenses around; They don't know what it's like to not be able to see the road ahead.

The thing I've learned in the years since I was at East Pennsboro is that sometimes adults need to learn from kids, and that sometimes educators and administrators have to learn lessons from students. So use the board meeting tonight, and the conversations going forward, to show the same compassion and forgiveness and understanding towards these adults as you would toward your peers.

I think the discipline and heart and passion you've shown for an important cause is going to make history tonight, and you're going to make a real change in your community and in the world. I am so proud of what you have already done, and so inspired by the effort you've put in, that I am not sure I even have the words to do it justice. I'm optimistic about tonight's school board decision, and even more optimistic about the incredibly bright futures you all have ahead of you.

Three years and one day ago, I got married. And then shortly after that, I wrote a post about getting married, which has become one of the most popular things I've ever written. If I have to be known for something, I'll definitely take that as a good representation of my work.

But one of the ideas that I didn't talk about back then was what a terrible reputation marriage has. Having had most of my impressions of marriage and weddings informed by popular culture and the examples of society around me growing up, I got a rather skewed vision of what married life is like. This is especially true because my marriage started in a way that was necessarily very different from that of my parents. (Theirs was, by western standards, an "arranged" marriage, though I wouldn't describe the situation quite so glibly.)

At any rate, here's what nobody ever told me about being married and having a wife and maintaining a marriage, based on (an admittedly rather limited, compared to long successful marriages) a great three years.

• It's fun! You've got somebody you like who goes with you wherever you go, and it's someone who knows your sense of humor and what kind of food you like and what makes you laugh. BFF!
• It doesn't have to be full of bullshit and drama like your single life. None of that "I don't know if this is what I really want." or "It's not you, it's me." idiocy. You're in there, you're up for the task, and things can just work smoothly every day if you let them. Awesome.
• It reduces your sense of obligation. You get an instant get-out-of-jail-free card for any event or external commitment that you don't want to go to, whether for legitimate reasons or not. You can just talk about how an obligation to your spouse and family takes precedence over whatever else is going on, and any reasonable person has to concede that your absence is justified.
• It's so much less work to go out. Like a lot of guys I know, I was always working when I was single. You have to be "on" all the time, obeying that compulsive curiosity of whether that latest person who walked into the room was The One. If you're like me, there was a lot of subconscious effort going into the work of always talking to the prettiest girl in the room. Now I still do it, I just bring her with me.
• The Ball and Chain is for Losers. I can't emphasize this enough. Adult men I knew growing up, or stereotypical sitcom dads on TV, were always talking about how "the old lady won't let me" just go and do whatever fun thing they wanted to do. News flash: If that's your life, it's both of your faults for being lame, uncommunicative, lazy bastards. Don't settle for misery. If my wife or I want to go do something, we just let the other know, and if the other person's not up for it, no problem. If they wanna tag along, even better.
• Married people are hot and getting hotter. I had never really done well, anything athletic before I got married. I'm hardly Michael Phelps now, but I am in the best shape of my life, and weigh a few pounds less than I did the day I got married. My wife is in terrific shape (if you're in or near NYC, go watch the Marathon this weekend and cheer her and her 30,000 closest friends on!) and I think we're both dressing better than we ever have. Even though I'm still very self conscious about the idea of exercising at all, I do it because it's fun and makes me feel good, not because anyone's nagging at me to get off the couch. Amazing what positive motivation can do.
• You can just say "screw everybody else" sometimes. Just like you don't have to feel compelled to socialize all the time, being married means you don't have to justify your weird political beliefs or obscure hobbies or bizarre musical tastes to anybody. You've got one person who's got your back (or puts up with your eccentricities) and if some other random stranger doesn't like it, who cares?
• You can have sex whenever you want. Perhaps the most pernicious and horrible thing people continually say about married life is that you either don't have a sex life or that it gets boring. Tip: If the sex sucks, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
• You become less of an asshole. All the petty insecurities of the pre-adult years of your life, all the grievances you faced when your only family members you dealt with were those you were born with — those things start to fade away in a happily married life. If, as is the case for me, both partners genuinely love each other's family, you get a really great set of bonus relatives. In cases when people aren't that lucky, you at least get another sympathetic pair of ears to listen to your complaining about how crazy your family is.

The thing is, I'm not saying being married is easy, or that it's 100% fun. But it mostly is! I feel like I got hoodwinked as a single guy because I heard marriage described so often as some cross between a prison, being grounded as a misbehaving teen, and being castrated. I don't doubt that lots of people make mistakes in who they marry, and I am not trying to be a pollyanna about the very real fact that a successful marriage takes a lot of dedicated effort, or that some people just can't make it work even with their best efforts. But most marriages work, even if the people who don't get it quite right end up being a lot louder about it. And even then usually take another run at it, or a couple of runs at it, until they get it right.

That brings me to my last point. I believe in this institution, and I do believe it makes society better, if only for the simple reason that it tends to make guys like me act much less like assholes than we're inclined to be when we're single.

But just forty one years ago, my marriage may well have been illegal. As a proud and unrepentant lifelong advocate and practitioner of miscegenation, my lifestyle would have been outlawed in many states, and not recognized as legitimate even in some territories where it wasn't explicitly legal.

It is now a historical inevitability that our country will legalize marriage for all couples. Though the fight is particularly polarized right now, and we will naturally face serious setbacks on the way to civil rights for all, I believe the time is close. As we saw in the fight against interracial marriages, the forces against progress are most extreme and invested right when they realize that history is against them. Naturally, my wife and I have donated to support No on Prop 8 in California.

But my motivation isn't political in this, it's simple and personal and based on my experience as someone who is, and has been, truly in love. In the months before my wife and I got engaged, we got to see a couple who we admire and respect whisk their way up to New Paltz, to get married on the only day that they'd be able to do so. These friends of ours have a simple love that is obviously apparent to anyone who's ever met them. That they had to have such a sense of urgency, such an awareness of fleeting opportunity, around an event as momentous as their wedding day, is a blemish on the concept of marriage itself.

Fortunately, we got to take away a much better message. My wife and I saw that people we care about can get married on their own terms, that it doesn't have to be the scary, joyless institution that it's so often portrayed as. Instead, we saw a couple of our friends who have an obvious and abiding sense of humor, who helped us redefine the concept of marriage in our minds so that it could be something fun and stress-free and fulfilling. And it made us comfortable enough with the idea that we knew we were ready to get married ourselves.

It's easy to say "oh, he wants to score political points by saying a gay marriage inspired him to propose to his wife". While that description is accurate, it's not the emotional truth of what happened. What happened was that seeing a real, honest, unconventional-but-honest marriage inspired my wife and I to commit to one another, which has brought me the greatest and most lasting joy of my life. It is something I'm generally private about, a quiet victory for my own sense of justice.

But there was just a brief window in which our friends' relationship could enjoy the dignity of a simple wedding. There are those determined to shut that window again, though the effort will be futile in the long run. So I'd be remiss if I didn't take the time to point out that denying the right of marriage to any of us attacks and disrespects the institution of marriage for all of us. As it turns out, marriage is worth defending, no matter what you might see on TV.

And to my wife, happy anniversary. I like you!