Back to the Beginning

SC, my faculty, told me to start anew with my independent contract, since I seem to have lost my motivation and passion over the last six weeks or so.  This is what I wrote to refocus.  I must stay, I was watching Law & Order SVU and later Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.  In other words, I was utterly distracted. ;)

I write so I don't go crazy. I have so much activity in my head, I have to release it.  Writing is my medium of choice.  I'm going to try my hand at radio/video/photography, because I have an interest in them and i think they're important media forms that have the ability to convey a powerful message.


I first decided to create this independent learning contract because I've recently begun to identify as 'queer'.  As I began to settle into my new identity, I became more aware of how non-heterosexual people are portrayed in the media... and how few queer people of colour are represented.  I had also noticed how few queer people of colour I knew on an individual basis.  The literature i encountered also felt skewered toward the White Experience.


And I began to wonder where the queers of colour were.  I knew they existed (my friends and I could not b the only ones, along with a handful of celebrities!), I just did not know where to find them.  I knew of queers within other culture and countries (the travesti of Brasil, the five genders of Indonesia) but I was looking for specific examples of queers within African-American culture.


It wasn't until I began to research potential books for Evergreen's Queer People of colour library that I realised how much literature was available, not only for African-American queers, but also Latinos, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Middle Easterners/Arabs and Native Americans, and is going to be published within the next year.  Although the amount of works is not really as vast as that of White LGBTQ, it's more than I expected with communities of colour generally being less receptive to queers of colour.


The feeling I get when I see all of the books on queers of colour is a sense of pride.  To know that despite our unique issues being generally misrepresented or ignored by the mainstream, they are being studies and addressed in the academic world give me hope that one day I will be able to switch on the television or read an article in a national newspaper that accurate portrays my experience as a queer person of colour.

Oh yes, that is definitely some jilted writing. -__-

I must mention that 'queer' is a relatively new word in my vocabulary.  In Florida, 'queer' still carries a very negative connotation.  I'd equate it with using the word 'Negro' or 'coloured' to describe an African-American person.  You just don't do it.  But here in this Pacific Northwest bubble, it fine.  But I'm going to try my hardest not to take it for granted that on the other side of the Rockies, and East of the Mississippi it is not acceptable.

Just trying to keep things in perspective for when I head back East.... ;)