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osodecanelaWhen I first heard about Jussie Smollett the beginning of the month, I didn’t know who he was. I don’t watch a lot of ‘popular’ tv, and I don’t tend to give anything on Fox the time of day. However, the idea that someone both of color AND LGBT being victimized, for being those things left me pensive and frankly, vulnerable. Finding out the actor’s father was Jewish and from an immigrant family didn’t help.
I’ve experienced discrimination, both for being Jewish and for being gay (though not simultaneously) and while neither were physically violent, both left emotional scars. Part of that scarring, helped cement my identity as a minority person, and not in a good way. Hearing about that alleged assault, left me shaking my head. Still? Yeah, it’s still going on. At least, Smollett didn’t seem to badly damaged, at least physically. The spate of killings of LGBT folk, of synagogue goers, of people of color over the last decade have left me feeling marginalized and yes, at risk. How much at risk? Just an underlying feeling of dread; what if? A sense that safety is tenuous.
In my teens, I was sexually assaulted. No, I doubt my attacker knew either my orientation or my ethnicity. I was simply a convenient victim, a teenage kid, heavily under the influence, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anyone. Unfortunately, it was me. In 1973, I didn’t have the ability to find help. I turned it all inwards. Vulnerable. Hide that vulnerability at all costs.
The idea that Smollett may have staged it all, incenses me.
And for now I’m just going to shake my queer, minority head in frustration and anger.
I’ve experienced discrimination, both for being Jewish and for being gay (though not simultaneously) and while neither were physically violent, both left emotional scars. Part of that scarring, helped cement my identity as a minority person, and not in a good way. Hearing about that alleged assault, left me shaking my head. Still? Yeah, it’s still going on. At least, Smollett didn’t seem to badly damaged, at least physically. The spate of killings of LGBT folk, of synagogue goers, of people of color over the last decade have left me feeling marginalized and yes, at risk. How much at risk? Just an underlying feeling of dread; what if? A sense that safety is tenuous.
In my teens, I was sexually assaulted. No, I doubt my attacker knew either my orientation or my ethnicity. I was simply a convenient victim, a teenage kid, heavily under the influence, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anyone. Unfortunately, it was me. In 1973, I didn’t have the ability to find help. I turned it all inwards. Vulnerable. Hide that vulnerability at all costs.
The idea that Smollett may have staged it all, incenses me.
And for now I’m just going to shake my queer, minority head in frustration and anger.
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Date: 2019-02-22 05:04 pm (UTC)I was sexually abused when I was 11 years old. I didn't tell my folks and from then on was an 11 year old with a secret. It was really damaging to hold it in. It still has repercussions in how I approach relationships and I'm 65 next month.
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Date: 2019-02-22 08:45 pm (UTC)I was 17 when I was assaulted, and did not know my attacker. This is not to say I was prepared for an assault, but I sure as hell was better prepared than an 11 year old. Moreover, many, if not most kids know their perpetrator and are burdened not only by the shame of what happened, but the compounding issue of betrayal by that person. I had no pre-assault connection, no one else’s secret I was bound to keep other than my own shame.
I wasn’t queer bashed. My life wasn’t threatened, just my livelihood; in the mid 1985, the CEO of the clinic I worked for as the medical director got word I was gay and threatened me with firing, if he got so much as another whisper of my orientation. My husband, who was then specializing in labor law confirmed for me I had NO legal protection. That was a life changing moment. It ultimately pushed me into my own private practice, where I stayed until it was really no longer a financially viable enterprise. At least you can’t get fired from your own practice, just because you’re gay.
I was 13 when my family got lost, having pulled off the highway in South Georgia on our way to Florida. We stopped in a diner and after sitting for 15 minutes without service the waitress came over & quietly murmured they didn’t serve our kind. She suggested we leave before there was any trouble, nodding over her shoulder to two bubbas seated at the counter. With 3 young kids in tow, my parents didn’t push the issue and we left.
While Pop had the map of Eastern Europe for a face, my red hair and ruddy complexion usually leave me passing as a generic Gentile. It’s also left me in the room for unbelievably anti Semitic remarks. It’s grown rarer over the years, but the ignorance never ceases to amaze me. It shouldn’t, not with attack on synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers on the rise in the last decade. My great niece is in a Jewish daycare/preschool run by their synagogue. To my surprise the classes are well integrated, with roughly half coming from non Jewish homes, many children of color. I was both relieved and disturbed by the security precautions. Thick tempered glass (bullet proof? I didn’t ask). Electric key fobs for each parent that unlocks the inner front door, as well as the child’s class only. No classes within a direct line of site of the front door. A receptionist, also behind a window to buzz people in only once they pass her muster. Given recent events in Pittsburgh, it’s sadly reassuring.