I don’t really want to talk about it. That thing. You know that thing. That thing I don’t want to talk about. I don’t think you want to talk about it either. Kind of embarrassing, really. Ok, not kind of embarassing, very embarrassing. Beyond embarrassing, in fact. Shameful even. And that’s why I don’t want to talk about it.
So what is it? My friend, brother, sister, or cousin is in prison? My aunt, neighbor, son, or boss is gay? What is the secret that is so bad that if you found out about it, you could no longer stand to be in the same place with me? And we are not talking about sharing the same booth at Shoney’s. No, we are talking about simply occupying the same space while a maximum of 136 other people (seated) or 208 people (standing) are betwixt us. That secret is shameful.
That secret, really, is shame. It’s the idea that something about who I am makes me unworthy of the things to which all people nominally have access. Shame is powerful because when it is put on us or when we take on ourselves, the first thing we do is act like we don’t have it. We don’t talk about the shameful thing. Sometimes we will go to outrageous lengths to avoid talking about the shameful thing.
When we talk about drug dealers we conjure up images of parasitic heroine dealers who try to get junior high kids hooked, but most of us should think of Stan over in Fox Chase Apartments who sold dime bags to frat boys. “But Stan’s different. He’s not that kind of drug dealer.” Meaning, essentially, he’s not black. Because, as Michelle Alexander has so eloquently articulated, the vast majority of people who are incarcerated for drug offenses are African-Americans who are there for marijuana offenses.
Which makes me think, why aren’t people talking about this? Why aren’t we talking about the ways in which mass incarceration has, for all intents and purposes, replaced the Jim Crow system as the means by which we are creating a permanent underclass in this country? Why aren’t we talking about the ways in which horrid, constitutionally indefensible laws are being proposed in Kansas, Mississippi, Arizona, Georgia, and God only knows where else to provide a moral wedge issue at the expense of gay people? Because make no doubt about it, these laws are being proposed in an election year in the hopes of making politicians facing re-election fear doing what they know to be decent. Why are we afraid to be decent to one another? We do not want to risk being tainted with the shame we see being heaped on our brothers and our sisters.
But here is the thing: we don’t have to take this shame onto ourselves. We don’t have to accept the shame that is cast at us. And we don’t have to be afraid that someone else’s shame will infect us. In fact, I believe that we are all called to seek the dignity of every human being not just because that person is worthy of being treated with dignity (which they are) or because this pleases the one who created us (which I think it does) but because, in the process of treating our neighbors in a dignified way, our own dignity is confirmed. We don’t both get infected, we both get healed.
Gay people are not to be used as political pinballs. Black people are not to be used as a menial caste. People are not objects and there is no shame in saying they are people. Let’s talk about that.