Red, As In Necks, Flags And Ronald Reagan's Tie

I have been accused recently of being a redneck and/or trashy. I'm not sure how I feel about this. The argument for my redneck status is based on my love of chicken livers, football and Dolly Parton. However, I have the barest idea of the basic functioning of a farm, I hate Budweiser, and read The New Yorker. There's a lot to be valued of "redneck" values: family, loyalty, simple pleasures, honesty, hard work. I reject the anti-intellectual strain, and the blind hatred of minorities. Moreover, I haven't had my neck sunburned since I was 12.

It is now that I shall punt, and quote Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes."

The more we read about socialist and labor movements in history class, the more it occurs to me that socialism is the perfect system on paper. It's a shit system in real life, at least at the national level, because it assumes that human nature is charitable rather than self-serving, but on a small scale it seems to work. The best example of this I've seen is a bakery called Nabalom in Berkeley. It's a co-op, they're very ecologically conscious, and they make egg-bread cheese rolls, which are exactly what they sound like, and delicious.

I did the Peer Education Workshops at school for the GSA. The basic premise is this: two students from the GSA who've been trained in facilitation (which is functionally political correctness and public speaking) go into freshman English classes and talk to them about homophobia, transphobia, etc. Yesterday and today, my partner, Carol, who is sublimely organized, and I, who am loud went to two classes. The first one, we ran through how not to be a dick to Alphabet People (LGBT etc), talked about AB537, and spent a very long time prodding recalcitrant freshmen into forming complete sentences. However, said recalcitrant freshmen, at the very least, now know that they can't get away with being dicks to Alphabet People. Today was better. The class talked more, we got them going about how people who are different are looked down on, and how this is bad. They were a good group, and my faith in the freshmen class was restored.

One part of the workshop involved sharing "personal stories" about our experiences with anti-Alphabet People sentiment. As Carol and I are both straight, we didn't really fit the "at least one facilitator should be LGBTQ-identified" as stated on the packet we read from, but I was not about to go into classes full of strangers and invite comment on my genitals. So I told them about the debacle of starting a GSA at Stanley and how much harm a homophobic institution can do. I think I got their attention, with only a little bit of shouting. I was really impressed with Carol, who is usually very quiet, as she totally carried most of the workshop. All in all, a good experience.

One odd part of the workshop was this: instead of having to call someone out on a homophobic assumption, I called someone out on an anti-Christian assumption. The girl in question said something along these lines: "People who agree with anti-gay stuff are usually Christians." Now, I'm no Bible thumper, I'm a lapsed Episcopalian who finds God sporadically, but her comment offended me. Much as not all gay men are fabulous hairdressers, not all Christians are asshole bigots. Me included. I suppose my beliefs are mostly Christian. They're not very Episcopalian, in that I have never shouted "TEA AND CAKE OR DEATH", but I do believe in the general principles. And Lord knows, I got the work ethic. In any case, for every Jerry Falwell, there's a decent human being striving for Christ-like conduct.

Alphabet People and allies cannot afford to bash on others if we want to not be bashed. This seems obvious, but then, so do a lot of things that aren't.

Evil Tranny, off to thump some Bibles.