Archive for May, 2007

Eco-Queer Revolution

Published May 31, 2007 Current Affairs Leave a Comment

by Troy Williams

Gay_2_3
Our little planet is going through some hard times.  There is overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are contributing to our climate crisis.  Australia is currently experiencing a drought that is devastating their agriculture.  Our bee population has been reduced over 25% — potentially threatening our food production. Mass species extinction is a deadly reality.  Global warming is a fact.  Peak oil is past.  Jesus Christ! What the hell is happening on Planet Earth?  And what can we do about it? 

The queer community is in a unique position to become early adopters and innovators of green living.  Our American-fringe status provides us an atypical world-view.  We are free to think different.  We can inspire our cultural imagination with vibrant new stories. Our old myths and folk-tales have been too anthropocentric. That is to say, these stories perpetuate the tired belief that the Earth’s natural resources are provided for human use alone.  In Genesis, Jehovah (evidently not knowing any better) gave men dominion over all living things.  And ever since, our leaders have deployed armies, swords, muskets, guns, tanks and missiles to threaten, steal and plunder the very best our planet has to offer.   Riane Eisler calls this story the “dominator model”. 

But there are other options.  New stories are emerging across the spectrum of deep ecology, spiral dynamics, eco-feminism and the social potential movement.  These narratives reveal that humans are one part of a holistic network of systems.  We comprise an integral strand on the web of life – no more or less important than any other.  These deep storytellers explore the rich interconnected nature of all our varied systems.  We co-create with the environment and with each other in what Eisler calls a “partnership model”.

From this perspective emerges eco-feminism.  According to Fritjof Capra, “Ecofeminists see the patriarchal domination and exploitation of women by men as the prototype of all domination and exploitation in the various hierarchical, militaristic, capitalist and industrialist forms…the exploitation of nature, in particular, has gone hand in hand with that of women, who have been identified with nature through the ages.” (Capra, The Web of Life, p. 9). 

War, terrorism and gross poverty, are all justified by the dominator narrative.  This old way of thinking has separated us from nature and each other. Environmental activist, Lester Brown is on the forefront of advancing a new story.  “The challenge is not to provide a high-tech military response to terrorism, but to build a global society that is environmentally sustainable and equitable – one that restores hope for everyone.  Such an effort would more effectively undermine the support for terrorism than any increase in military expenditures.” (Brown, Plan B 2.0, p. 259).  Our choice today is either conflict or co-operation – domination or partnership. 

Queers have traditionally been despised by dominator hierarchies. Right wing churches, the military and the GOP are fundamentally threatened by us because we enter into sexual and familial unions that don’t replicate their dominator template.  We endanger their “traditional” family values of subjugation, repression and patriarchy.  And hence, they will always hate us.  That’s why I have no interest in being part of — or seeking acceptance from — any of them.  The Military, the Republicans and the Church can keep their Kevlar vestments. Gays will never experience justice in a nation that is committed to dominating the world through force. Empire and Equality are not compatible.

Thankfully, a new planetary consciousness is emerging.  The rising generation is embracing a holistic global world-view. We are exchanging our fragmented identity politics for a new universal paradigm that will protect all humans in our fundamental rights.  We are beginning to embody an ideology that will conserve and protect the planet’s resources.   Embracing a “gay” identity simply isn’t big enough anymore.  We must identify as a universal humanity, connected to a broader network of diverse cultures, nations and earth systems.

Okay, so that’s all theoretical revolution-talk.  In the meantime, let’s be pragmatic.  How can eco-queers adopt sustainable practices today?

1) Become an E2 citizen by visiting www.slcgreen.gov. This site offers several options to help make our transition to green living.  2) Reduce the amount you drive.  Develop car-shares with friends.  The most daring can even go “car-free”.  3) Replace lights with energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. 4) When possible, buy food grown locally to support our regional economy and reduce the gas and oil used to ship food across the country.  Participate in community supported agriculture and our local farmer’s market.  5) Bring cloth bags to carry groceries home.  6) Visit the Green Building Center in Salt Lake and talk with them about pragmatic ways of greening your home. 7) Learn how to xeriscape your yard.  8) Continue your education about climate change.  Discover the innovators who are creating new stories.   Visit the Earth Policy Institute (earth-policy.org), Grist magazine (grist.org) and Al Gore’s climatecrisis.net. A newly launched science-activist web community can be found at earthportal.org.  Listen to The Bioneers, Thursdays at 1pm on KRCL, 90.9 FM. 9) Support local organizations like HEAL Utah, The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Save Our Canyons, Wild Utah and the Utah Rivers Council. 10) Let your elected leaders know that you expect them to protect our environment with responsible, reality-based legislation. 

We all belong to this planet.  We all have the invitation to engage and explore new possibilities. It’s a time for action.  It’s time to re-connect.  It’s time to carry our new story forward.  We can be leaders in the green revolution.  I have no doubt that marriage and the other issues that LGBT activists are working hard to obtain will finally fall into place.  It’s only a matter of time.  In the meanwhile, let’s open our eyes to a larger view of human rights, social justice and ecological sustainability.  When we finally do enjoy full access to social liberty, we will want clean water and fresh air for our queer families.   We will want a healthy planet on which to enjoy our hard-earned freedoms.   

Don’t Ask, Don’t Kill

Published May 30, 2007 Uncategorized 1 Comment

Istock_000001332022xsmall_4By Troy Williams

The
American Empire is in decay but some queers won’t be happy without a bomb to
die for. Rep.
Marty Meehan, (D-Mass.) has introduced new legislation to lift the ban on gays
in the military. To bolster his
argument he paraded forth Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, a gay soldier who recently lost
his leg to a landmine. Many gay activists are capitalizing on America’s love of
self-sacrificing war heroes to finally lift the ban. They unquestionably believe this a desirable goal. Not me. In fact, I prefer the ban be
made permanent.

Repealing
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a tragic misdirection for our movement. Under
the direction of an Imperial Patriarchy, our military has invaded Iraq,
murdered tens of thousands of civilians, tortured prisoners, extradited
innocent men to secret European prisons and is now provoking conflict with
Iran. The US military has been involved in destabilizing democratically elected
governments in Chili, Venezuela and Haiti. They have trained Latin American death squads which have committed horrendous
acts of barbarism. I am grateful that LGBT Americans have been forbidden to
openly participate in these acts of lethal destruction. Our military is in the
business of expanding the new Pax Americana. Call it what you want, but with over 700 military bases in over 130
different countries, the US has become a global empire.

Our
military now serves the agenda of war profiteers. The arms industry, in collusion with the executive branch, allows
the exploitation of earth resources by multinational corporations. Halliburton, Lockheed Martin and the White
House comprise what Eisenhower referred to as the “Military Industrial
Complex”.

“Freedom
is on the march” is the new cry to plunder. The Bush Administration may believe
its own hypnosis, but we need to wake up. We live in a nascent stratocracy – a government ruled by military. The best our representatives can do is pass
non-binding resolutions of disapproval as Bush/Cheney march more troops to
their death. The vox populi is
silenced. Our newly elected Congress is impotent. The daily revelations of gross mistreatment of wounded soldiers
further reveals the total disregard these warlords have for the pawns of their
global endgame.

The
Military Industrial Complex is a structure that queers need to undermine – not
join en mass. We should subvert and
dismantle these institutions of domination – not perpetuate them. Queers should
not be foot soldiers for imperial demagogues.

We
have something better to offer the world.

Riane
Eisler is a scholar and futurist who promotes cultural transformation
theory. Her classic work, The
Chalice and the Blade, details the characteristics of “Dominator” systems that have ruled our
planet through 5000 years of patriarchy, class disparity, and warfare. In
contrast, Eisler also explores ancient civilizations that were organized on
models of co-operation, non-violence and egalitarianism. She argues that true
social transformation will not come from the blade of Empire, but rather
the chalice of partnership.

Eisler
believes we must take an active part in the evolution of our culture. Will we perpetuate a world of competition
and empire, or will we build a society of justice and equity? As our planet
struggles under the burden of perpetual war we must be critical of the role we
play in shaping our future.

Patriarchy
may hold great appeal for queers who have been disenfranchised from phallic
power. The desire to embody dominator ideals is an ever-present temptation. But
our fringe history should make us extremely cautious of embracing institutions
that humiliate others. The military
teaches soldiers to kill by dehumanizing enemies into “sand-niggers” and
“gooks”. Certainly “queers” know
something about the violence of reductive slurs.

Assimilation
is a perilous endeavor. The danger is
that we will model the behavior of the dominator. Mormons serve as a classic cautionary tale. They were violently persecuted for their
beliefs and non-traditional marriages. When they successfully assimilated into American culture they
immediately joined in campaigns of oppression against other minorities. To humiliate blacks, the Church denounced
the civil rights movement. To teach
women their place, they mobilized members in opposition to the ERA. To ostracize queers, they endorsed a Federal
Marriage Amendment. This is how Mormons proved their patriotism to a skeptical
nation.

We
need to vigilantly consider the consequences of such assimilation. Will we follow the Mormon path and become
dominators ourselves? If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is lifted, will the US
military be magically transformed by our presence, or will it transform us into
something lethal?

Dominator
culture is tribal and territorial. It
views the earth’s resources as mans to possess and destroy for profit. We have
devastated the earth with our missiles, bombs and Humvees long enough.

We
need eco-queers, peace dykes and freedom fags to rise up and lead the human
evolution of the planet. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Riane Eisler and
others offer us the theoretical prototype for a sustainable earth-culture.
Feminists, deep-ecologists and queer theorists have provided new visions for
social revolution. They have uploaded our minds with a radical
global-consciousness — a whole-systems reboot for Planet Earth. Non-violence, gender-equality and social
justice require a new relationship to the planet and to each other. We must build holistic networks of
cooperation and partnership – first in our intimate relationships and then
within our larger communities. It’s a total paradigm implosion – a fractal
rebirth into an integrated planetary world-view. We are Cultural and Spiritual
Creatives. We manifest the generative
power of the Whole. The new queer
collective must dedicate our movement to the universal liberty of humankind and
inspire loving relationships with the living systems of the earth. War is old thinking. Imperialism is yesterday. Green is all the
rage and Peace is back in vogue. Webs of social justice weave endless
possibilities. We are all connected.

To my
queer friends who covet the boots and guns of Empire, I have one admonition:
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and please, Don’t Kill.

Qcasticon
Qcast "Don’t Ask, Don’t Kill" here:
Don’t Ask, Don’t Kill
 (7:19 min.)

Cosmogenesis: Quantum Jump to Homo Universalis

Published May 27, 2007 Consciousness , Evolution Leave a Comment

by Troy Williams

Barbaramarxhubbard
I
recently had the opportunity to speak with Barbara Marx Hubbard. She is a
futurist, social architect and spiritual pioneer. She is president of The Foundation for Conscious Evolution, and
the author of Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social
Potential.

Troy
Williams: We’ve got about 14 billion years to cover and only and hour to do
it. I want to talk about cosmogenesis –
I want to explore conscious evolution and the social potential movement – but
before we get into that, let’s talk about your story. Take us through your own emergence as a futurist.

Barbara
Marx Hubbard: Well, I am a 77-year
old elder from the future. I was born
in 1929 and the key event that turned me into a futurist was when the United
States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in1945. I was fifteen years old. I was infused with the American Dream
that power was good and that we were good. And it suddenly occurred to me that
if we continued to use power like this, we could destroy everything. So I asked a great question, “What is the
meaning of our new powers, that is good? Where are we going as a civilization?” And I found that nothing was written
down. The power was so new that we
didn’t know. So I became obsessed with
a question. My husband who I met in Paris, said he was “an artist seeking a new
image of man, commensurate with our power to shape the future”. My desire is
always to understand how humanity can do this. I founded the Committee for the
Future to bring positive options into the future. In 1984 I ran for vice-president to bring into the political
arena the projects, initiatives and ideas now working to heal and evolve our
world. I was the other woman whose name was placed in nomination along with
Geraldine Ferraro. I didn’t know what
to do Troy. It was too big, too much,
too fast – and the current of politics changed the other way. So I began to work on the individual path of
the co-creator. How do we begin to
evolve as human individuals within a planet undergoing a crisis of devolution
or evolution?

TW:
Can you describe what you call “cosmogenesis”? 

35_2 BMH:
Cosmogenesis is really the genesis of the cosmos — as the word says.  The mystery is that it began before time and
space, from a field of all possibilities, from the mind of god, from the
Mystery, from the infinite intelligence of Universe. Out came the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago and it began to
create matter and animal life and human life. From my understanding, the intelligence that is creating all of this is
not an external deity nor is it just accident, but it is an imminent creativity
that is the very subtext of physics itself to make more life and more consciousness. After Neanderthal, suddenly comes Homo
Sapiens with self-reflective consciousness. We begin to awaken to the fact that
we are part of something greater than ourselves. And recently through science,
technology and democracy and an evolution of human consciousness, our species
is awakening to the realization that we are the product of 14 billion
years. In our atoms, genes, and cells
is the story of creation come alive. And we are at a stage of taking another quantum jump, as from pre-life
to life, or animal to human. The
difference is that we are taking this jump consciously, or we are going to
self-destruct. Because the power,
atomic and now nuclear, biotech and nanotech, is so great that if we don’t know
how to use the power constructively, creatively and ethically we can see that
it will destroy our environment and ourselves.

TW:
When you say “quantum transformation” — can you give us some examples?

BMH:
Yes. A quantum transformation is a jump
from one phase to another, which would not be predictable from the phase
before. For example in the seas of
early earth you had molecules that became more and more complex. At some point there was a quantum jump to life
– to the first self-replicating cells. That’s a quantum jump. Then if you imagine those single cells in the
seas of earth, they are dividing to reproduce. They are very successful, but at some point there is a mutation and
photosynthesis comes in and then multi-cellular life. That’s a huge jump from single cells. The next big quantum jump is a little creature they call Australopithecus africanus about 6 or 7 million years ago.

TW:
Lucy.

BMH:
The origin of the potential of human life began and I think we are the midst of
the next quantum jump, and that would be to a new species capable of
co-evolving with nature and co-creating with the great mind of the cosmos. Homo universalis

TW:
This is difficult for a lot of people to imagine – as it would be if we were Australopithecus looking toward Homo habilus, or
toward Homo erectus — to be able to envision that jump from each state seems
improbable.

BMH: The great advantage is that we can look
back. We can see the amazing miracle of
life always evolving beyond its own limits. And as Teilhard de Chardin said, “when systems jump to more complexity
they jump in consciousness and freedom” — as from single cells, to animals to
human, to Buddha and Christ and so on. I call myself a potentialist, not an
optimist. There is no doubt in my mind
that I am evolving. I have no doubt Troy,
that you are a little bit more evolved then when we got started.

TW:
well, yeah, probably. I would hope
so! You call this the Universal Human.

BMH: Yes. We are becoming a more universal human, and we are creating a more
universal humanity. I mean that really
simply. The first step of becoming a
universal human is very personal. You
begin to shift your internal identity from a local, egoic personality — seeking something higher — to
incarnating your own higher self as who you are. It’s a shift of identity from the separated human to the human
incarnating essence. Once you do that,
you are being born as a Universal Human. And then you have to move out and
socialize and you begin to resonate. You begin to learn co-creation. The next big step in the emergence of the
Universal Human is the development of life purpose. And when I say life purpose I don’t just mean a job or profession
– I mean a calling. And it seems to me,
from everything that I’ve heard you say, Troy, you have a calling. 

TW:
Yeah, I’m fired up.

BMH:
You are! Now where did that come from?

TW:
Yeah, I’ve been wondering that. When I
was a kid I was really into X-Men comics, which are mutant super-heroes who are
the next stage of human evolution. As I
got older I thought that was just because I was gay! But now, the more I’m reading your work and looking around and
seeing everything in stages of collapse – my soul is saying we’ve got to move
now, we’ve got to raise awareness. It’s
inborn and it’s present.

BMH:
It’s inborn. Now here is how I would
interpret what you just said. You are a
young Universal Human. The impulse of
your vocation, your calling, your excitement, is the impulse of evolution
itself localized as you. And as you begin to find life purpose, you begin to
pick up the pattern of evolution as your own contribution. So you’re not standing outside evolution
talking about it – you are evolution. And the more you say, “yes” to
your life purpose, the more creativity you unlock.

TW:
Before I worked in radio I was a real estate appraiser and I felt like I was
dying with every house I walked into – but then when I tapped into what I was
all about, then I had joy and fulfillment in the vocation of my choice.

BMH:
As you find your life purpose, and you are motivated from within, you reach out
to express yourself more fully. And to
do that you have to find teammates because you can’t do it alone – and whether
you are gay or straight it doesn’t really matter. I call this “suprasex”. Sexuality gets us to join genes to have
babies. Suprasex is the rise up of
creativity that gets us to join our genius. The innate expression of one’s own self drives you to self-expression,
which drives you to find others in co-creation, and starts to excite you
through vocational arousal. The way
your body can evolve itself is through your creative self-expression.

TW:
What’s been happening to our culture since the atom bomb dropped?

BMW:
There were amazing things that happened in the 50’s. The discovery of the genetic code through Crick and Watson, the
development of computers, the development of contraception so that women had
rights over their own bodies. In the
60’s we had the great Apollo and we became extraterrestrial ourselves and we
looked back on the earth and fell in love with our planetary body. The environmental movement woke up and the
women woke up. We started to see that
we needed an identity of equality. Because women had been repressed for 5000 years. And then there was the human potential
movement. There was a huge opening of
consciousness. And just to speed up now – the crises of the environment began
to accelerate. And the crises of ethnic
rivalries and WMDs and species extinctions. Threats to the actual survival to our life support systems began to accumulate
as we entered into the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s — until there are people
saying, I don’t think our species can make it. Now I look at this potentially as a crisis of the birth of the Universal
Species. We are one fraction of an
evolutionary second away from destruction or a quantum jump. And I think the key right now is the
increased connectivity of that which is creative.

TW:
What needs to happen now?

BMH:
Say “yes” to that essence. Find your
teammates and begin the process of co-creation. Put yourself into that 14 billion year story of miraculous
unfolding of ever greater consciousness – so that if you get depressed or
discouraged, you can go within to that source of creation and realize that it’s
evolving as You now.

RadioActive airs M-F from noon to 1pm on KRCL, 90.9 FM.

Check out barbaramarxhubbard.com.

Qcasticon_4
Qcast our complete hour-long interview here:
Cosmogenesis
(56:14 min.)

Loving Byron Katie

Published May 24, 2007 Uncategorized 2 Comments

Byron_katie_2By Troy Williams

Confession. A few
years back I devoured a lot of
self-help books. My life was messy at
the time and well, I was desperate. Most of the books were banal and silly, but one author actually had a
positive impact — Byron Katie. Her
book, Loving What Is invited me to
take serious responsibility for my life. We spoke recently on KRCL’s RadioActive.

Troy Williams:
Three years ago I was absolutely depressed. I was experiencing a lot of anger and I felt like the universe was
conspiring to make my life miserable. But eventually I found myself with a whole new turnover of friends and
they were all reading Loving What Is. And when everybody around you in reading
Byron Katie, you can’t get away with self-pity and being a victim! They start doing the Work on you, and before
you know it you’re back on your feet!

Byron Katie: Oh
Troy, I would love that everyone had friends like you do.

TW: Yeah, I had
this obsessive unrequited crush on a boy that was driving me crazy and my
roommate pulled out her Byron Katie worksheets and started me off on the
questions and then soon I’d be off to new crushes and doing fine.

BK: Without the
pain. And you are clear enough to see it – just loving what is.

TW: Yup. True. Take us back to your own experience and how you discovered The
Work.

BK: I was
clinically depressed for over a decade. It’s been referred to as the dark night of soul — well this was the
dark decade of the soul! I thought the only way out of this suffering
was to die. I was very suicidal. Then one morning as I lay sleeping on the
floor, I opened my eyes and in place of the darkness was a joy I cannot
describe. I began to laugh because I
could see that not one thought I was experiencing was true.  The important thing that came out of that –
the thing that I want to pass on — is that when I believed my thoughts I
suffered. When I didn’t believe them I
didn’t suffer. I’ve come to see that
this is true for every human being. What I bring to the world is the simplest way to identify and question
the thoughts that cause our suffering. It’s four questions and a
turnaround.

TW: The primary
cause of human suffering on the planet is believing stories, thoughts or ideas
about ourselves that aren’t true. Am I
hearing you right?

BK: Totally. Absolutely. That’s it. What is running through our heads? That is heaven or hell.

TW: So if someone
is being tormented by thoughts, and god knows I’ve been tormented by mine –

BK: It’s the only
thing that has ever tormented anyone.

TW: Exactly. And
sometimes we get obsessive and our thoughts loop like a skip in a record, and
you can’t get free of those ideas that are eating away at your brain! So then,
what are the four questions?

BK: Okay. First, what is a universal stressful
thought?

TW: I need to
have a boyfriend to be fulfilled.

BK:
Excellent. You have the belief you need
a partner. Let’s look at it. “I need a partner. I need somebody to love me.” The first question: is that true? The second question: can you absolutely know that it’s true that you need a partner? And the third question, how do you react when you believe that thought – I need a partner? What happens to your life? What happens to
your physical body in that moment? Do you become depressed? When you meet
someone do you oversell yourself or become shy and undersell yourself? How do you react? And the fourth question: Who
would you be without that thought – I need a partnert? And then just sit and be still and see what
comes to you. This work is mediation.
You sit in these questions and allow your life to unfold in front of you. And
then turn it around and find opposites. The opposite is: I don’t need a
partner. Wow. Welcome to reality. How do I know I don’t
need a partner? I don’t have one. And so we sit in that. Another turnaround
is: I have a partner. Who would that be?

TW: Me.

BK: Me. Who do we
wake up with? It’s us.

TW: So it’s a
good thing if we actually like ourselves…

BK: I have found
that the ultimate love affair is the relationship we have with our
thoughts. So this work is about loving
everything that we think.

TW: I’m reminded
of a quote from Pema Chodron, “When you make friends with yourselves, you’ll
find that the world around you becomes a much friendlier place.”

BK: It’s so true.

TW: I love your
idea that life is not happening to
you, it’s happening for you. Over and over that has been confirmed in my
life. Things that I judged as bad, in
time, I realized were wonderful and necessary.

BK: The Universe
was being kind all along and we’re finally just catching up!

TW: there is a
line from your new book, A Thousand Names
for Joy, “until you can see the enemy as your friend, your work is not
done.” That is so counter to how we
have been conditioned.

BK: We can’t
expect our leaders to end war in the world if we can’t end it in our own mind
and life.

TW: That’s so
true! I’ve been on the radio loudly
denouncing war, while I’ve had wars with my friends and my family. The irony has never escaped me.

BK: So let me end
the war in my own mind and life, and then there is the possibility that war can
be ended on the planet. How can I
expect other people to do what I’m not willing to do?

Byron Katie’s web info: www.thework.com
RadioActive airs live M-F from noon to 1pm on KRCL, 90.9 FM.
To stream the entire hour-long interview visit RadioActive
online at: www.krcl.org

 

 

Beautiful Bottom: Talking with Kathryn Stockton

Published May 22, 2007 Gender Theory 1 Comment

by Troy Williams

Kathryn Bond Stockton marks the queer-edge of our culture. As the director of the University of Utah’s Gender Studies Department, she is quite simply a genre unto herself.  Kathryn’s new book, Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where Black Meets Queer explores the subterranean passages of Shame.  She deftly uncovers the way shame has shaped the identities of queer and black communities in literature and film. She elegantly undresses the artists who crawl, sweat and pull themselves through the dark underbelly of guilt and debasement. Her work is both invitation and seduction.  I sat down with Kathryn to talk dirty.

Troy Williams: After reading your book I’ve become convinced that we’ve given “shame” a bad name.

Kathryn Stockton: Hopefully so.  We don’t want to loose that part of shame.  Where would we be the shame that didn’t have a bad name attached?

TW: Exactly. How would you define shame?

KS: Well, being an English professor, I always run to the dictionary to make sure I’m not making things up.  The dictionary tells us that shame is a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment or unworthiness, and often shame comes from enforcement.  Which of course queer and black people know a good deal about.

TW: You’re book is counter-intuitive because you are embracing shame. That’s a different direction. Most of us want to run from shame and validate ourselves.

KS: Growing up as a queer person, I spent my life trying to flee shame along with everybody else.  I know a good deal about wanting to turn places of shame toward dignity and pride.  But I began to think there was something intellectually dishonest about that.  There is something about growing up with such an intense sense of shame that you learn to be an expert, and you learn to make things of shame.  Everybody does that.  Shame is a fundamental part of human life.  The wish to quickly be done with it doesn’t give the intellectual and emotional curiosity that it might deserve.

TW: Okay.  Well then, for people who belong to different minority communities, where can we begin to look for the value of shame?

KS: Think about the famous moments in the late1960’s: black pride — the notion that black is beautiful.  There is a lot to learn from that particular moment — of embracing the very thing that you are supposedly denigrated for, and see that there is actually beauty to be found there. Take a butch girl growing up who loves masculine clothes.   This is very much a story about shame.  One of the fundamental things from my childhood was the fright of being in female clothes and literally coming home from church and wanting to run as fast as possible from the car into the house so that my little boyfriends next door wouldn’t see me in paten-leather shoes.  It seems odd that something so trivial, so much on the surface could be such an intense marker of shame.  But I think that’s something that black folks know a lot about. Something as benign as skin color being the major marker of one’s shame, enforced obviously by other people around you.  For a butch girl growing up, this intense relationship to female clothes is a fascinating story of shame.  How odd, that a butch girl might feel unbelievably shamed in female clothes but be completely drawn to women in female clothes (a dynamic that obviously straight men know a lot about).  What’s that about?  How can I be attracted to the very thing that on me felt like an intense scene of shame? But put it just over there, on another girl, and I can sense it’s fantastic beauty.  So in a very strange way shame is part of this whole scene of desire.  And to take shame out of the equation is literally to misunderstand the states of our own attraction.

TW: Is there redemption in shame?

KS: Redemption is a funny term.  And this is what I think is critical about Pulp Fiction.  It reminds us of just how violent redemption can be.  Just think of Christ on the cross.  Redemption can’t undo anything.  It pays for it by adding another scene of violence.  When Butch saves Marsellus and is forgiven for his sins for stopping the rape, he’s forgiven, but nothing can stop the fact that Marsellus was raped.    You can’t turn the clock back on American Jim Crow history.  It’s there, it’s part of our history and it’s part of what sticks to the sign of “black” still.  Questions of slavery haunt the signifier of African Americans in a highly significant way.  So Tarantino is playing with the notion that redemption does not mean undoing or erasing, but actually feeling the force of wounds that cannot be undone.  It’s a quite orthodox definition of redemption.  I think this is true for gay people too.  If you grow up with certain aspects of shame attached to your identity, you are never going to loose them fully.  But you add other layers.  It becomes more textured. It’s the layering and the texturing that I am after in this book.  Shame is one of our most important layers.  It’s not going to go away. Indeed there is something toxic about straight masculinity, in the way it gets talked about in the public domain.   Nothing is more virginal than masculinity.  Nothing is more fragile or fearful.  Why does a man need to beat up another man wearing a dress?  Nobody is putting him in a dress.  That man in a dress does not touch him.  But somehow he feels like his sign is being messed with.

TW: The danger of contamination.

KS: Exactly.  What’s important about shame is that it’s a shield or a health-giving measure to help us live with impurity. Because nothing is more toxic than purity.

Qcast our complete hour-long interview here:
Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame (52:55 min.)

Troy Williams

contact Troy at troywillbe [at] gmail.com