Ironies of ironies...

When I was in seventh grade, I used to hang out with a bunch of nerds.

I was a nerd.

Back then we weren't called nerds, this was before the Fonz and Happy Days, we were just the uncool kids.

During recess my nerd friends and I would hang out at the library doing our homework instead of hanging out doing whatever it was the cool kids did.

I remember one friend saying something derogatory about Jewish people.  My sister had married a Jewish guy and my four nieces were Jewish so I felt compelled to say something.

I forget what I said but since he look different I raised the question of his own ethnicity.

He proudly said "I am a Hebrew".

I, knowing next to nothing about Judiasm, knew enough that a Hebrew was a Jew and told him so.

He balked but in nerd-style fashion referred to the Webster dictionary.

I watched his face fall as he read the definition of Hebrew and he was very silent after that.

I don't remember this nerd's name but that is who I was thinking of the day of my brother's funeral.

My brother was always different from the rest of us.

I guess I never questioned it because we were all so different but even with all our diversity he was an outlier.

Unlike my younger brothers, he didn't have freckles or green eyes or wavy hair or tan lines.

Unlike my sister, he was not white.

Unlike me, his hair was nappy, his skin very dark.

I remember sitting at the funeral home, my brother's ashes in an urn sitting on what appeared to be an altar and my brothers' wife and son and granddaughters eulogizing him.

But what I remember most was my brother's wife asking later that afternoon when we were alone if he was a Negro.

I remember saying "I don't know" and leaving it at that.

In that instance I remembered all the unkind things I had said to him over the years about black people and being glad that I had kept my unkind thoughts to a minimum.

But most of all I remember thinking about that nerd guy in seventh grade reading the Webster dictionary and realizing for the first time that his own unkind words could be used against him.

And I was silent for a very long time.

How could I have not known?

My brother was a half brother.  And the whiteness of my half sister blinded me to the darkness of my brother.

After all how could he be black if they were full siblings and she was so white.

But then she does have what she calls crazy hair.

I had seen pictures of their father.

There was no denying that they were his.

It was also undeniable that their father was white.

And my mother was white so where does that leave us?

This is were it gets really complicated.

You see I am Puerto Rican and there are a lot of white Puerto Ricans that if you look one or two generations back you realize are not so white.

They look white but aren't.

What I am trying to say is that my brother's father was white but my brother's mother, my mother,  was not so white.

I know this because I met my mother's father, my grandfather, and he was not so white.

I guess after a generation or two, it is easy to forget the grandmother or grandfather that was not so white.

It's what happens when you focus on the white side while ignoring the black.

And after a couple of generations that can be done without anyone being the wiser.

My sister has two grandsons, my grandnephews, with red hair and blue eyes.

My grandnephews are Mormon and Republican and listen to Beck and think Beck is a God (egads!).

They hate, hate Obama.

They have no idea.

Ironic, isn't it?

My brother always seemed so guarded. Was this why?

Maybe some day I will ask their grandmother; my sister with the crazy hair.

Cereal bars

The last couple of weeks I have been measuring my frustration by the number of cereal bars I eat.

I usually eat a cereal bar every morning before heading out to the gym.
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But lately I have been going through an entire week's supply in a couple of days.

Sometimes I wonder if my wife is happy only when I am not being true to myself.

She says things like "you are a gay man but you are married."

She use to say things like "you are either gay or married."

Which is to say that in some 30 years she has gone from gay is a choice to being married for a gay man should be no different than it is for a straight man.

I don't know if she believes this out of ignorance or because she is in denial or because she has to believe this or lose all hope.

I wish the drip, drip, drip of frustration was not eroding my soul like it does.

Which leads to where I am at now - I am tired.  I would like a day without frustration.

I am also out of patience and when I get impatient I start feeling sorry for myself.

So now I am mixing pity with frustration which leads to even more cereal bars.

And at a $1 a bar this is getting expensive.

Regards,
Philip

P.S.  Clif bars were my favorite for a long while but recently Luna Bars have beene making a comeback.  Yum.

Dealing with someone else's depression

Recently an acquaintance has been suffering from a severe bout of depression.

I kept trying to think of what to say or do but I could never figure out anything.

One day he was having a particularly rough time so I gave him a hug.

It caught both of us by surprise and was probably not a smart thing to do since we really don't know each other that well but I gave him a hug because I was missing the 'old' him.

Yesterday he told me that that hug was the best thing I could have done because it reassured him that I was not considering abandoning our friendship.

I had no idea he was worried about our friendship; much less thinking the friendship might end.

I now realize that was the depression talking and that by giving him a hug I addressed one of his fears in the affirmative without even realizing it.

I think what helps the most with severe depression is just letting the person know that you are not going anywhere and avoiding giving advise because the advise just comes across as crticism of the person for feeling the way he does or pressure to get over it.

Sounds lame I know but I am trying to see it from the depressed person's point of view and, if I were depressed, that's what I would want done. 

Silly Christmas Song

When my kids were little, I would make up silly songs.

This morning I remembered my daughter's favorite Christmas song when she was four years old (she's 33 years old now).

Here it is:

Merry Christmas to my friends, to my friends, to my friends
Merry Christmas to my friends
Hi Ho Silver

I told you they were silly.

Merry Christmas!

Can anyone recommend a good gay movie?

Can anyone recommend a recent release say within the last year?

Here is what I am looking for...

An intelligent (feel-good a plus) film about complex relationships and familial/traditional expectations... and the surprisingly adult outcomes when a family is confronted with a nontraditional family situation.

Here are three movies I am already considering:

Weekend:  This frank drama centers on the cautious relationship between two gay men -- one a genial lifeguard, the other a lusty art-gallery worker -- who contemplate turning a passionate one-night stand into something more meaningful.

Circumstance:  Iranian teens Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) explore their forbidden attraction to one another against the backdrop of modern-day Tehran's subcultures in this Sundance Audience Award winner for Best Drama. Atafeh's brother, Mehran, returns home after drug rehab and is soon dismayed by his sister's newfound sense of liberation. Giving up on his dreams to become a classical musician, Mehran joins the morality police.

Beginners:  Based on indie director Mike Mills's relationship with his father, this intriguing drama tells the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a graphic artist coming to grips with the imminent death of his father (Christopher Plummer), who, at 75, has one last secret: He's gay. Both inspired and confused by his father's determination to find true love at last, Oliver tentatively pursues a romance with commitment-shy French actress Anna (Mélanie Laurent).

Here are two fairly recent movies that I've seen that I highly recommend:

Plan B:  After his girlfriend, Laura (Mercedes Quinteros), dumps him and takes up with handsome charmer Pablo (Lucas Ferraro), Bruno (Manuel Vignau) plots revenge: He tries to come between the new lovers. But his plan -- which entails a growing friendship with Pablo -- soon takes an unexpected turn. Though Laura still goes out with Bruno now and again, his sexuality comes into question in this Argentinean import from first-time director Marco Berger.

Undertow:  Writer-director Javier Fuentes-León sets this offbeat romantic ghost story on the rough-hewn but gorgeous Peruvian coast, where a married fisherman must come to terms with his love for another man, despite the strict moral codes of his homeland. This winner of the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic at Sundance is a vivid examination of the ways in which affairs of the heart supersede social strictures and all other forms of logic.

The Other Side of Stigma -or- How I as a minority managed my stigmatization

Recently, I posted about being a racist.

Now I’d like to flip it around and post about what it is like being a minority and having to deal with a majority that treats you unfairly.

I’m not saying all members of a minority have the same experience.  What I am saying is that I think there are common stages that a lot of minorities go through even if some may get stuck in a certain stage or skip a stage or even go back and forth between stages.

I'm a gay Puerto Rican and I have gone through many of these stages and have seen other Hispanic and sexual "minorities" go through these stages so I know it's not just the majority that has problems with someone being different.

 
Here is what I see as common stages that many minorities go through when dealing with their stigmatization:

Stage 1:  You don’t know you are being stigmatized and take the unfair treatment personally.  You may blame yourself for the negative reaction you are receiving and wonder what you said or did to offend. You may internalize the rejection and negative values of the larger group and may even start feeling inferior.

Stage 2:  You realize that it's not about you at all but instead about being judged for something you have no control over - the color of your skin or how you look or your sexuality. You may be upset but still hoping for reconciliation with the larger group but are getting tired of the rejection.

Stage 3:  You are so tired of being treated unfairly that you decide not to give them a chance to reject you anymore so you reject them before they can reject you. You have lost trust and start rejecting the larger group’s values.

Stage 4:  You are more fully rejecting the majority's values and instead taking pride in your minority and embracing your minority's values. You may even start feeling superior to the majority.

Stage 5:  You expect rejection and become militant in your outlook. You may not only feel superior; you may find justifications for rejecting the majority. You may seek an apology and even redress from the majority.

Stage 6:  You encounter members of the majority who actually treat you equally but the hurt is still so fresh in your mind that you cannot accept their acceptance and instead eye everything they do with suspicion. You may be in a vicious circle where you are stuck in the past and can't move forward because the anger re-opens old wounds and the re-opened old wounds re-kindle the anger.

Stage 7:  The acceptance of some members of the majority challenges you so much that you may let go of the fear of rejection long enough to realize that they may actually mean what they say.  You may start questioning for the first time your rejection of the majority.
 
Stage 8:  You realize that you are doing to "them" what they did to you. That is judging them based on something they have no control of such as skin color, how they look or their sexuality. You may feel ashamed for doing to them what they did to you.

Stage 9:  You stop seeing them as members of the majority but instead as just people with good and bad traits and start judging each person based on the content of the their character instead of them being a member of the majority.

Stage 10:  Enough of the majority welcomes the minority to the table that you start feeling like you belong.  You may start identifying with the majority.  In other words, you have arrived.  The majority has invited you in and you have accepted.  Done for long enough and that may result in the redefinition of who belongs to the majority and minority.

Remember how Michelle Obama was criticized for saying she felt proud of being an American for the first time after her husband got elected. I think what she was trying to say was that she felt proud of being just an American for the first time because before the election she had always felt like an American in waiting but America had embraced her husband so fully (see Stage 10) that she started feeling like she belonged; that she was no longer a not totally accepted member of her own country; but a fully accepted American.

That feeling of belonging and being just an American is something I felt for the very first time after that election, too.  It’s a wonderful feeling.

But none of the above is new to these times.  When Kennedy was elected, the Irish and Italians and Poles (i.e., white ethnics) felt they had won and probably many felt like just Americans for the first time, too.

Unfortunately, the politics that followed shortly after Obama’s election spoiled that feeling of belonging for many of us.

When I saw a lady on television cry out "I want our country back", I wondered if  she thought people like Obama (and therefore people like me) had taken the country away from her and other Americans and that made me doubt her “our” included people like me.

So you see it's not just the majority that has issues with people being different.

And it's not just the majority that stereotypes or has to get over their stereotypes.

Regards,
Philip

Two dreams....

I am in a warehouse.  It is a warehouse of old people.  Doctors and nurses are milling around going from patient to patient.  I look all around me.  My eyes keep coming back to this one woman.  She is somehow familiar.  Her hair is grey and brittle; her breasts sag underneath her sweater.  I have never seen this woman before but then I know who she is.  She is my wife and she is waiting.  Seems to me that she has been waiting all her life.  I realize I am lying in a cot.  I don’t feel any pain but I know I am dying.

I ask God if in death will we finally find happiness.  I wait but God does not answer.  Then I know.  No, not even in death will we find happiness.

I wake up crying.  But after a while I am able to fall back asleep.

I am on the Burlington Northern train heading out of Chicago to Berwyn where I live.  I am young again.  I have wonderful news and am so excited.  I don’t know what the wonderful news is but it is big.  And there is only one person in the whole wide world that I want to tell this news to.  The closer I get to my destination, the more excited I get.  But it’s not clear in my mind who that person is.  Finally the train halts to a stop.  I get off and start walking briskly.  I walk faster and faster until I break out into a run.  My heart is pounding.  Then I know who that special person is.  It is her.  It is her.  I am running to her.

I wake up crying again.  This time I am afraid to fall back asleep.  Daylight finally arrives and I get up to start my day.