#oneofus Bisexual visibility campaign The void. A chasm. A cliff. Total emptiness. An all consuming darkness. The body as container - an empty glass and pitcher filled with experiences that shape one's identities. I've been lamenting identity and who I am for many years. The ever-present questions of the traumatic "why?" and "why me?" press the power button of the cerebral centrifuge that spins round and round. Its spin rotates quicker as markers of identity cling to its surface forever nagging for acknowledgement and acceptance - not tolerance. Biracial Trauma My identity - my ethnic composition or makeup - was under constant scrutiny as a toddler. Being born in 1974, my identity as a person of Chinese, Jewish, German, Scot-Irish, Indigenous was and continues to be considered a curiosity. I vividly recall riding my half-brother's shoulders and a white couple asking if I was an "Amerasian war baby" - the many forgotten casualties of the Vietnam War. He said, "No, he is an American!" So at an early age, I was accustomed to being "homeless" lacking verbiage and a way to articulate my desire to belong. Soon enough I visited my "white side" in New Jersey and quizzically asked, "when are we going back to America?" They laughed furthering my confusion. My Chinese grandmother added years later that my mother married an "American" - a white guy despite being born in the US herself. Thus nationality and patriotism somehow trumped my genetic makeup. Perhaps this is tied to the US military's endeavors throughout Asia and the Pacific and the desire not just to control territories but also bodies through prostitution, sex trafficking and/or rape. Biracials do not have the choice of their composition - it was handed down by their parents - some known, others absent. It is as if the mixed baby is a product. A science experiment unlike any other. A magical panacea to end miscegenation. Parental experimental desire gone wild. Our formative years under the microscope. Boxes. Categorization. Curious compartmentalization. The result? Marginalization. And symbolism. For many of us are reduced to foods: Half and half creamer, Oreos, coconuts, bananas and other edible products. Yet people of multiple origins often seek comfort in other people of mixed heritages relishing in their experiences although different to decode our pasts. For myself, my relationships with multiracial people as well as adoptees and refugees are tied to the shared but varied traumatic experiences of misidentification, dislocation and trauma. We have all suffered immensely and with sharing comes the understanding that we are not alone. We survived. We exist. We matter. Bisexuality My genetic makeup and perhaps the popular adage of biracials being "the best of both worlds" influenced my sexual orientation as bisexual. So just as I was / am "caught between" in the game of ethnic essentialist politics, I became and continue to be marginalized within the greater LGBTQ community. Not gay enough. Not straight enough. Not fucking enough. Not to be trusted. An anomaly. Carving out space within the queer community has been a lifelong challenge for those I have encountered throughout my life have insisted that my identity was / is a phase on the path to being a full blown gay. I was on the receiving end of these stinging humiliating remarks: "It's like you're gay, but you're not," "that's Gay" and "you drama queen." It's as if the bisexual subject like their biracial counterparts are assumed to have no volition, no agency in their identity formation - just the subject of fascination, ridicule, erasure and/or desire. In my formative years as a teenager, I came to identify as bisexual. Coming out to my closest friends within the goth industrial scene and my sister was a relief. They all knew. There was no need to explain. However, there is a void for my bisexual peers and friends are mostly women. As a result, I looked up to male popstars flirting with persona and sexuality: Marc Almond of Soft Cell, Pete Burns of Dead or Alive, David Bowie, Prince among others. I steadfastly defend my dual identity as biracial and bisexual; however, I do not let my life be dictated by outdated modes of categorization - the boxes never quite fit. Thus, I have created terms to describe myself throughout my life: graffiti tag name (Darewon), musical persona (Klenderfender), drag (Jihad Spice), husband (Space Prince), artistic (Creatrix) and lastly me (Peacock). Class My upbringing from the late 1970s to early 1990s in Alameda, California was rare. I was raised in a working-class single-income household as a result of my mother's bipolar disorder and suicidal tendencies. My father was trained as a mold maker for glass bottle manufacturing - an industry for which he work thirty plus years. Despite my dad insisting we had a "middle-class" lifestyle, we shopped at thrift stores, flea markets, bodegas and Chinatowns to make ends meet. The lack of cash manifested in lack of material goods that make children happy - nice new clothes and the latest toys. As a result, I stole most of my toys from department stores. I wanted what the other kids had including their families - two working spouses, laughter, fun and joy. When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed Latchford Glass in Hayward, California closed. My father returned to a job he had previously left at Owens Illinois in Oakland's Fruitvale District. The terror of NAFTA influenced my fathers insistence that I go on to college. He took me on a tour of the factory pointing to the centrifuge that broke all the bones of a woman's body, a mold which seared off a worker's arm and more horrors of factory life. He would always come home from work announcing his displeasure by slamming the door loudly, yelling at everyone, say "whatever" and retreat into anxiety ridden news to justify his anger and rage. His coworkers - blue collar - were just as nuts and often racist. From my father's experience, I witnessed the ineptitude of unions, workplace atrocities and mechanical slavery. This was further compounded by my father's fights with coworkers to the point of having "hit men" - undercover police men - watching over our house after a death threat. The working-class was under attack in more ways than one. My lived experience within a dying "working-class" culture granted me the ability to see pass bullshit with ease. Entering the academic complex, I became inundated by socialist and communist propaganda peddled by the true middle-class - affluent bored students in need of a surrogate activity (usually politics) to preoccupy themselves. My class consciousness removed from the armchair ease of theory allowed myself to see how class is often a persona - an act - one wears to gain cultural capital within social activist communities. And I have seen many of my former colleagues use that act to climb the ladder and become a part of the establishment - the greatest lie of all. Here lies the ultimate questions: struggle vs. assimilation; marginalization vs. integration; erasure vs. visibility. Disability As a product of an abusive - psychological, physical and sexual - family somatic illness manifested in variety of ailments and (dis)ease: Eczema, TMJ, IBS and body pain. At an early age, I knew I was different as I was questioned during a kindergarten aptitude test. My drawings of my family were in question. My deviant behavior. My secretive sliding of bad behavior notes under the door of another classroom. The finding out and the resultant abuse of me, school administrators and faculty. As if I was a too much of a burden as a biracial experiment gone awry. Then came the tests. The tests that will forever mark me as different, as something to be fixed. I was diagnosed with a speech impediment and was enrolled in a special class to correct my stuttering and mispronunciation of words which my father in narcissistic fashion said was due to his Jersey upbringing. The most humiliating experience was the colorblind test. As I waited in line, I eagerly anticipated passing the test like my peers. I did not. I only answered one of ten sight questions correctly. I broke down in tears. I was marked as legally colorblind and as a result have been on the receiving end of curious tests by acquaintances to see if I really am. This othering hurts and adds to feeling of inadequacy and marginalization. I was fortunate to go to school in Alameda, California which is known to be a haven for people with disabilities. My speech impediments lessened as a result of my re-education; however, it still manifests in times of excitement and anxiety. In addition, my grade school had class for students with disabilities and teachers required students to spend a week in the class paired with a student in order to write a reflection paper. In retrospect, it was a cruel comparative exercise to reinforce abled bodies as opposed to the disabled - an exercise in gratitude. However, students with disabilities were encouraged to take part in the everyday mundane activities of school by passing out milk or lunches. Flash forward into early adulthood, I fostered friendships within the disabled community and came to the realization that my disabilities were not something to be swept under the rug but to be embraced. Within disability organizing, I have never been judged despite the markers of sexual and racial identity. I am welcomed. I am allowed to be me. (Dis)closure How do the aforementioned categories intersect in the day to day realities experienced by those living with (C)PTSD? Class, race and disability intersect as I took care of my Chinese grandparents until they passed as a caregiver in my twenties. As a result, I came out of the process with more anxiety, trauma (both grandparents were abusive) and somatic complications: body pain, IBS, TMJ, depression, weight gain, alcoholism, drug abuse and ultimately self hate. Not Chinese enough. Not normal enough. And no money. No love. All categories intersect as an unemployable other. (C)PTSD complicates this for employers lack empathy and exercise their power through stigmatizing those who reveal their condition. Hence trauma is the ultimate form of othering for it happens to other people. It is their mess do deal with. Bootstrap model nonsense heightened by a fierce individualism that discourages collectivity in favor of meritocracy. (Dis)closing one's identity as bisexual, biracial and bipolar -"Try-Bi" as popstar Halsey contends - affirms multiple identities simultaneously. Nevertheless, it appears as if the sexual marker becomes the focus just as it applied to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. Sexual difference tied to "mental illness" manifesting in personas - peacocks all - results in bonafide resistance. A reclamation of oneself. An insistence of our existence. Despite the lack of funds, we cry, "DIY" (Do It Yourself). Many of the aforementioned identities take root online despite the initial assumptions and advertisements that the Internet would wipe away all categories in a rudimentary singular fashion. Tags, discussion, groups, chatrooms, Craigslist, and social media all play a role in reinforcing our identities as seen and tangible in the face of erasure. The resultant online jabs and trolling are a testament to the hotly contested nature of identification and control. Large mass movements of civil (dis)obedience such as the Women's March serve as a reminder of how messy intersectional politics can be. Overwhelmed by transmisogynist pussy rhetoric, my heart sank for my trans non-gender conforming friends. Always looking for representation - I looked for other faces like me and I found signage that literally stopped me from pedaling as I moved towards the stream of marchers. A woman rapidly wheeling in a chair - the universal sign for the disabled tweaked and flipped to fulfill a need, a void. Despite being underemployed, stigmatized, marginalized, categorized and unnecessarily controlled, I for once felt included and it moved me to tears. Women's March Oakland (2017) disabled contingent moves down Broadway towards City Hall.
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AuthorDarren Brown, PhD. ArchivesCategories |