The Church, Dating & Mental Health

This is a scary place to find a date. Probably because it's haunted. [Photo by A Quiverful of Fotos]

I wanted to write a brief (or maybe not so brief) companion piece to my "Undateable" series about the complexities of mental health within the context of church dating.

Let's say you are a Christian and you want to date someone who shares your beliefs. Are you more likely to end up dating someone with a personality disorder (or other mental disorder) if you choose to date within the context of a church?

To be clear, I am not saying that suffering from depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, OCD, or any other mental disorder or illness disqualifies anyone for dating or makes a person undateable. I do not believe this at all.

Nor am I saying that a person must have resolved all of their emotional issues before dating. If that were case, no one would ever date, myself included.

Disclaimers aside, I think there are certain personality disorders that might make a person more likely to cause harm to others within the context of dating. And those who have these personality disorders may be predisposed to attend church.

In my "Undateable" series, I write about different attributes I've encountered dating (or not dating) Christian men--things like misogyny, cowardice, racism and not taking "No" for an answer.

Although these attributes are not necessarily related to mental health, in some cases, I feel like they are caused by or co-occur with a personality disorder.

[This is not to take away from the fact that a person with a personality disorder is fully human and fully worthy of love, respect and acceptance, but never at the expense of another person's safety.]

Some examples of potentially damaging behavior within the context of dating include physical and emotional abuse, stalking, obsessive pursuit, disrespect of communicated boundaries and rigid gender roles.

I want to be careful here--diagnosing anyone with a personality disorder is obviously not something I am qualified to do.

However, I can hypothesize that in some cases, mental health is the issue. I would also argue that the culture of dating within the church is inherently dysfunctional, and thus encourages dysfunctional behavior and ways of relating to the opposite sex.

So, to make the point I came here to make:

I think that racist or sexist remarks can be a sign that the person you are dating has a personality disorder, particularly if they make little sense within the existing social context (i.e., the surrounding social group is usually neither blatantly racist nor sexist).

Also, racist or sexist jokes or statements can be a precursor to abuse. It might be worth thinking more about our collective tolerance for hateful or devaluing statements about the Other and whether or not we are encouraging or enabling an abusive dynamic to take place between the church and the culture, as well as between one individual and another.

To what extent does the church tolerate sexism, racism and homophobia and to what extent does this tolerance contribute to abuse, particularly of those who are the most spiritually and emotionally vulnerable?

Perhaps we could love and accept the broken (all of us, according to Christian theology) while also being wholly intolerant of anything that devalues another human being.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys are All Dented Cans - The Myth of Persistence

Photo by quinn.anya

So I've started doing this thing where I'm completely honest with men. Why?

Well, for one, it amuses me and my dark sense of humor. I get to say fun things like:

"I'm not interested in pursuing anything romantic with you."
"Hitting on one person on the fb status of another person is kind of a douche move."
"You fondled my earring at a BBQ and it made feel uncomfortable and disrespected."
"When you grabbed me from behind around my ribs directly under my breasts [yeah, that happened], I felt unsafe and violated."

Yep. That's right. Just waiting for the marriage proposals to roll on in.

For another, I'm done protecting a man's feelings at the expense of my own personal safety.

And that brings me to the topic for today in dented cans: THE MYTH OF PERSISTENCE. And yes, it definitely deserves to be in all caps.

There's this weirdly longstanding myth out there that women want men who will continue to pursue them even in the face of blatant rejection (see also, "The Notebook").

You say, "I just want to be friends."
He hears, "I just want to be friends until I change my mind and decide we should definitely get married and have five kids."

You say, "I'm not interested in you in that way."
He hears, "I'm not interested in you in that way, but you should definitely grab me and try to kiss me."

You say, "I like someone else."
He hears, "He's probably a douche-bag--so you still have a shot!"

To the men that believe this myth, "No, I'm not interested" means "Try harder. You're not trying hard enough. Persist long enough and I will say 'Yes.'"

Except it doesn't mean that.

No--when you persist in pursuing me after I have made my feelings clear, I can only assume that there is something wrong with you either emotionally or mentally. And the last thing in the world that I desire is to have an emotionally or mentally unstable man pursuing me, or worse, believing that I owe him something--a date, friendship, my time, a second chance.

In short, when a man will not take "No" for an answer, all my self-preservation instincts kick in, and all I want is for him to stay the **** away from me.

I feel fear and anger.

Fear--because if this man apparently can't understand or chooses not to understand the words that I use to communicate (perhaps if I did an interpretive dance?), who's to say what other boundaries of mine he won't violate due to this "misunderstanding"? If he has already violated my verbal boundaries and made me feel unsafe, there are still other boundaries he has yet to cross: emotional, spiritual, mental, physical.

But truthfully, I have trouble understanding the level of pure terror I feel when a man refuses to take "No" for an answer.

My best guess is that this is a dehumanizing experience--I am not a person to these men. I am the projection of all of their baggage about women. I "owe" him something--my body, my "Yes," a chance for him to prove that he is the man of my dreams and we are meant to be together-- In short, I cannot give consent because I am not fully human. His pursuit has very little do with me, and so much to do with the fantasy world he has created in his mind: A world in which I should say, "Yes."

At a certain point this fantasy becomes far more important than my humanity. And that is terrifying (cue visions of being chained up in a dungeon somewhere by a man who "just wants to love me," and is willing to wait as long as it takes for me to realize that).

My guess is that many men fail to understand this as well--they have never experienced fear for their personal safety in the context of romantic relationships, partially because women are not encouraged to pursue in the face of rejection, in fact, quite the opposite. Any romantic rejection is humiliating and shameful.

And what about "Not Leading Him On," that crime that women seem to be accused of at a substantially higher rate than men? Why do women so often take the path of least resistance, trying to "let him down easy." It goes back to fear, again. Women have been taught that saying "No" is not only rude, but also dangerous.

A stranger came up to me in the 99 cent store and told me that I was "beautiful." He followed this up immediately with, "That's a compliment you know."

Of course, I enjoy compliments most when they are followed by vaguely hostile or threatening statements. I also enjoy being put in a situation in a public space where I am expected to thank a stranger for harassing me or be subjected to the accusation of "ungrateful b___ who can't take a compliment."

Unfortunately for me, as a woman, I fear for my physical safety. Therefore, I try not to engage with men in an aggressive or potentially escalating manner.

The same goes for turning down men who are romantically interested in me--but as it turns out, it matters very little what I say:

I've had different Christian guys: Corner me in a car and demand repeatedly that I go out on a date with him, then text me to apologize and tell me that he really "respects" me; Tell me my job is on the line unless I let him back into my life (as a friend, of course); Ignore my request to be "just friends" by grabbing me and dipping me for a kiss, all while citing the scene in "Hitch" when Will Smith and Kevin James accidentally make out ("You lean in half way, then wait for her to go the other half").

Then there's the anger--yeah, being seen as not quite human kind of pisses me off. And there's the icky, would rather not think about it, idea that my biracial, "exotic" looks only contribute to the extent to which men are able to project their own fantasies onto my very real, non-white (but still human!) body.

The intersection between race and perceived sexual availability is a fraught one at best--but whether it applies here or not, let me just say:

I don't want to be touched, grabbed, or groped in public by men I don't know.
If I say I don't want to date you, I mean exactly that, and I don't care to repeat myself.
I am in no way obligated to explain to you why I am not interested. I owe you no justification whatsoever.
If you won't take "No" for answer, consider yourself banned from my life.

So why is it that Christian men are so horrible at grasping the concept of women as fully human?

The word "consent" is quite the buzzword these days, but I believe there are many Christian men who do not grasp the concept:

Consent (or if you prefer, "Respect") isn't just about sex. It's about respecting the boundaries of another human being--seeing them as fully human--in every single interaction, romantic or not.

There are certain things that "Nice" Christian guys tend to believe or say that are inconsistent with consent:

One, believing that if you go to the trouble of asking a girl out, she should say, "Yes," just because you took a risk and put yourself out there.

Two, if you ask a girl out and she says, "Yes" even though she is not ultimately interested, then she is leading you on.

Three, you are a "Good Christian Man" but every girl you ask out says, "No," meaning that there is something wrong with them, not you. You are a victim of feminism, shallow female whims, or unfair discrimination.

Four, if a girl says "No" before the first date or after five dates, you deserve a full, complete, and honest explanation as to why.

Five, women don't actually know what they want. They read romance novels and "Fifty Shades of Grey" and then complain that they don't want to be raped, beaten, sexually harassed, or coerced into sex. What gives?

One and two are obviously contradictory, but I have heard both. Trying to control whether or not someone says "Yes" or "No" to a date is contrary to the idea of consent--and trying to control a person's motivations in general feels fishy.

For three and four, being rejected sucks, obviously. But believing that someone else is "wrong" for rejecting you or that the the entire female population is delusional because they are not romantically interested in you is also contrary to the idea of consent--particularly to the idea that a woman should be able to choose to date or not date someone for any reason. Yes, any reason, even one you think is shallow or stupid.

Also contrary to consent is manipulating a person into unwanted contact of any kind.

For five--well, perhaps that is the subject of another blog post, but it boggles the mind that women are still not allowed to be complex or contradictory beings with a freedom of choice and personal autonomy that transcends one particular sexual fantasy or choice of reading material. "Women don't know what they want" seems highly correlated with the myth of persistence--"Women don't know what they want" but "I (a man) know what they should want." Gross.

In conclusion, if a guy will not take "No" for an answer he is, in my opinion, undateable.

Up next in the Dented Cans series, a post on entitlement.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - The Racist

Coming never to a store near you

[Catch up on the premise of this series here.]

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for this next installment--

And on the docket today for cringey subject matter, racism.

It probably won't shock you to know that, like misogyny, racism is a deal-breaker for me in a dating relationship. This hardly feels like ground breaking territory.

After all, how many of us look at a prospective dating partner and think, "You know what would be really awesome? If he/she were just a little bit racist every once in while, just to keep me on my toes as an ethnic minority."

No. Highly doubtful.

But despite that generally accepted reality, I dated a racist Christian guy.

This is embarrassing and shameful for me to admit. How could that even happen? I'm a college-educated, biracial feminist who studied English literature. I've read Spivak and Bhabha for crying out loud. That **** takes commitment (and roughly four cups of coffee or 20 cups of tea, depending on whether you're stateside or across the pond).

Here's my theory: we tend to work with a simplified framework of reality when it comes to other people.

So in my non-hypothetical case, I have a framework in my mind about Jack's character. I think of him as highly sensitive and extremely compassionate based on the sum of all my interactions with him (the mathematical function of our relationship).

So when Jack says something that doesn't fit within the framework--"Sensitive to other people's feelings," "Compassionate," my mind places these utterances outside of the established framework as rare exceptions.

The same holds true with racist comments. Far from pouncing on a statement with a gleeful, "Aha! I knew it! All white people harbor secret racist thoughts," my mind seeks to integrate the new information into previously held conceptions about Jack's basic character.

There's no way someone this empathetic could be racist. Right?
I must have misunderstood what he said. I think he meant something different.
But he's a Christian.

To return to the subject of this post, whether or not someone is a Christian seems to be only a very mild marker of whether or not he/she is also racist (completely debatable of course).

Observationally, however, a shared belief system like Christianity can function much like a shared disgust for the Other, whatever or whomever that Other might be.

"We're Christians so of course we think ____ is disgusting/sinful/wrong."

More observational thoughts about the intersection between being a Christian dude and being racist.:

The "Other" and Disgust

When I've heard Christian guys that I dated (or didn't) say something racist or bigoted or prejudiced, I couldn't help but register the tone of disgust.

Isn't that what racism is, in a way? Gut-level disgust about this inferior group of people? Whether they're destroying America, rioting in the streets about injustice, or brutally asserting their worth as human beings, nothing done by "people like us" ever seems to elicit an even remotely similar reaction.

Even if it's not aimed at you, you feel it like a punch in the stomach.

I want to make a quick note here about the possible connection between racist remarks and having a personality disorder. I mention this later on, but I hypothesize that there is a potential connection--and I want to point it out as a red flag: The person you are dating might not only be slightly racist, but also emotionally dangerous.

The "Other" and Forced Teaming

Gavin de Becker talks about forced teaming in his great book "The Gift of Fear." Basically, the predator uses the tone and language of "we're in this together" to establish rapport and trust with his victim. Example: a stranger points out that you're both unprepared for the rain, commiserates with you about your lack of an umbrella, and then offers to give you a ride in his car. [STRANGER DANGER]

Racist remarks can function in much the same way. A conspiratorial lowering of the voice (ooh, I'm being so daring and countercultural right now, I can't even). The message:

We're in this together.
We both feel the same way about this controversial issue.
We're superior and better than those other people.
You agree with me by default, because you're clearly not part of an inferior racial minority.

My silent response making me a co-conspirator, implicating me in the same kinds of beliefs--to challenge them would be to lose the relationship. I betrayed myself. And I hate myself for it.

I reached a turning point in dealing with this particular relationship when I realized that the racist (and sexist) remarks were far from the exception to the rule--they were beyond calculated and intentional. Far from being the isolated pinpricks in a compassionate, honest and loving relationship, they were the deliberate wounds of an abuser.

He discovered my deepest vulnerabilities. And wielded that knowledge like a weapon to hurt, manipulate and control me.

The "Other" and Political Correctness

Something odd tends to happen if you even hint to a man that he might be racist or sexist.

He begins clutching his pearls (haha), crying, "No! Not me! I would never believe such things. What kind of sick, twisted monster do you think I am?"

Because apparently, calling someone a racist is stopping just short of calling them a child molester.

Well, let me be neither the first nor the last to say:

"He doth protest too much."

Often, after letting you know that you've offended his delicate, white male sensibilities, he follows with, "Well, I'm not politically correct if that's what you mean."

I have a theory about not being politically correct:

Speaking the language of politically incorrect is a way for those without any real power to puff themselves up--like the so-called "alpha male" who is secretly insecure and terrified of his own weakness.

Why are Christian men politically incorrect?

1. They feel personally disempowered in their lives and adopt what they perceive to be the vocabulary of power (politically incorrect speech) as a posture of "I can say whatever I want whenever I want, but only around people who are like me and agree with me and only about people who are less powerful than I am and unlikely to fight back." See also, cowardice.

2. Christian dudes refrain from challenging other Christian dudes in Christian Bro-centric environments.

Being politically incorrect is putting on a brave face for the lads--what with all the oppressive powers of feminism making it impossible to be a "real man," because God knows, merely having a penis is just about enough to get you locked up these days.

Church & Patriarchy

Speaking of power, perhaps the church tends to attract men who feel disempowered in other areas of life. The church, unlike other contexts, tends to place a premium on male leadership--even more progressive churches do this. So a man who is not a leader in any other part of his life might find himself an integral part of church leadership.

Of course this is speculative, but I would observationally argue that men who attend church might feel a greater sense of being victimized and disempowered in other parts of their lives, and so seek out greater involvement at a church that values them and their contributions. They might lack power politically, socially (be socially awkward, for example), economically (unemployed or underemployed), or romantically (perceive themselves as the "nice guy" that women always reject).

Just to reiterate: We are all dented cans. Male or female. White, Black, Asian or Hispanic. However, the sense of victimization that seems to come from the gap between being apparently privileged--you're white and male! Go you!--and the reality of working at Coffee Bean, relying on your parents for gas money, and asking women out only to be repeatedly rejected--feels somewhat specific to the demographic I am writing about.

Again speculatively, in this day and age for white men, I'm not sure if racism or politically incorrect language can be entirely separated from a personal sense of victimization.

Note: Playing the victim is a common sociopathic trope.

Clearly I am not saying that all men who say racist things are sociopathic (just the guy I dated).

But, I think that this sense of victimization dulls a person's empathy to any and all who are perceived as Other. After all, if you gain part of your sense of self from being a victim of society, why the hell would you want to share that power with someone else?

And what defines a sociopath? Lack of empathy. And that's not the kind of guy that I want to date.

So to conclude an overlong post: Racism bad. Racist guy bad. Racist Christian guy--the worst.

Have a great day.

Up next in the series, men who won't take "No" for an answer, or The Myth of Persistence.

A Story Worth Fighting For

I never imagined it would be this much of a struggle to be the hero of my own story, the lead in my high school play, the center of my own narrative.

No one and nothing prepared me for this. Not college. Not courses in feminist, post-modern, post-colonial, or Marxist theory. Not reading Doestoyevsky, the Bronte sisters, Donne, Shakespeare, or George Eliot. Not all the papers I wrote about hybridity, syntax or laughter. Not being good at school or good at my job. Not praise from teachers, employers or peers. 

Nothing. 

Part of being the hero means you get to have layers. So, for example, one of the most jarring things about inhabiting my identity is the baffling (to me) denial that I have a past. That things have happened to me. Not only that things have happened to me, but that I've been affected by these things that have happened to me.

At every fresh encounter with a new person, I'm assumed to be (supposed to be) a blank slate. 

As if you were the first stranger to tell me to, "Smile." 

The first white guy to call me "exotic." 

The first person to ask, "So, where are you from?"

The first man to speak to me in a condescending tone of voice about something technical. 

I'm told that I'm "cynical." That I have a bad attitude. That I "hate white people."

I feel like part of being human is learning from the past, taking in experiences that repeat themselves over and over again, making sense of these experiences and even molding them into a narrative. 

Like any three-dimensional character, don't I deserve a back story too? 

Like Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. But sometimes it seems like even laughter is not allowed to me. Because to laugh is to have a distinct point of view that sees the cracks, the contradictions, the absurdities of the status quo. 

I think I can say that I've paid a price for not aquiecsing to the dominant narrative. And as I fight for my story, I can't help but feel like I'm fighting for my life. That if I don't have this, I have nothing. That if I don't fight for my story, no one else will. 

Racist people don't think they're racist

I bet Donald Sterling wouldn't call himself a "racist." In fact, I'll bet you three housing discrimination lawsuits that HE is the victim in this unfortunate and regrettable situation.

When's the last time someone was accused of racism and said, "You know, you're right. I am a racist." 

No. No one considers themselves a racist just like no one considers himself/herself a "bad person." It just isn't done. 

It's like the guy I dated who called me a "bitch" and referred to other women as "bitches" but who was certainly no misogynist. 

Or the same guy who, when I called him out on his racist comments, insisted that he "didn't actually believe those things." He was merely throwing softballs at me so I could "knock them out of the park." 

That's all they were. Softballs. Racist softballs. Racist softballs thrown at my head. 

Racism. It's all just a game and somehow I'm always up at bat. Or standing at the free throw line--the outcome riding on whether or not I can make the shot. 

And there's the rub. Racist/sexist people are not even a tad bit bothered by your righteous indignation. They're not interested in your arguments. They're not interested in change or transformation or regeneration.

No. 

If they suffer, it is the world's fault. 

They are misunderstood. They are hurt. They are attacked. They are vilified. Unfairly.

All your righteous indignation does is assure other people--or maybe just yourself--that you are not racist. You are not like that. You are not Donald Sterling. 

I'm struck by the fact that: 

A: Sterling purportedly dated a woman who describes herself as racially mixed. 

B: Sterling donated a lot of money to the NAACP.

I don't find these things surprising. 

After all, isn't love often mixed with hatred, generosity with contempt, kindness with cruelty?

Is calling someone a "racist" part of white privilege?

Apparently some Americans found this Superbowl commercial offensive because "America the Beautiful" was sung in different languages.

I saw many people on facebook (mostly white) calling these people out and using the word "racist" quite indiscriminately.

There were (bloodless) calls for social media blood to be spilled.

This got me thinking: is using the word "racist" with equanimity and aplomb part of white privilege?

I'm not white (wouldn't you know). And I think long and hard before I even talk about race let alone use such a loaded term as "racist."

Why?

One look at me, and you would know that I have skin in the game (not white).

I'm not white.

Not white.

Got it? I'm not white. And therefore for me to even talk about race means that I am not objective. I am wholly subjective, biased, non-neutral, and prejudiced.

Because of my not-whiteness, I have no credibility.

To be white is to be untouched by history, free from the shackles of the past, free to disclaim responsibility for the actions of not-my-ancestors, free from the burden of guilt and shame that racism represents--

"I am not responsible. Not my past. Not my history. Not my family. Not my burden."

[I feel like this is the crux of white privilege. White privilege says, "I don't care because I don't have to care. I see you over there carrying this burden, but I don't want to know about it. I'm not interested. I'd rather ignore it. That's your problem that you feel that way. I'm sorry, but it's your choice, not mine. Your burden has nothing to do with me."]

My ethnic ambiguity testifies to my lack of clear-headed thinking about racism. And people don't always respond particularly well when I talk about race or when I use the word "racist."

I've experienced some of this righteous indignation before. I've used the word "racist" relatively casually and been not-so-subtly challenged and rebuked.

I've found that using the word "racist" can shut down entire conversations, entire relationships. Except, looking back, I wasn't the one who used the word.

It was more like, "You think I'm a racist? How dare you."

To be honest, blatant racism doesn't really interest me that much. To quote M. Scott Peck quoting Simone Weil, "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring."

The word "racist" is the exact opposite: inflammatory, loaded, weighted, the worst thing you could possibly call someone (which, if you notice, is not the same as "the worst thing you could possibly be").

So in a world where calling someone a racist is such a terrible thing (worse than actually being racist), I want to ask:

Is there room to talk about the everyday banality of racism. The ordinary kind. The kind that doesn't make the news?

I ask, if you didn't feel righteous indignation, what would you feel?

What would it mean for "racist" to be merely a descriptor, not the word you hurl at your worst enemies?

What if "racist" wasn't used to shut down conversations, but to start them anew?

Racism, Racialism & The Spontaneous Combustion of Facebook Friends

So this happened:

A white man publicly shaming an Asian woman over--get this--prepackaged food sold from a retail grocery chain.

A civilized discourse on facebook about the relative merits of Trader Joe's Authentically Korean Seaweed Salad with Spicy Dressing, and then--

BOOM. He was gone. In a blaze of glory. All that was left was the faintly acrid smell of confusion and freeze dried kimchi.

And oh man. How could it be more perfect. I especially enjoyed the "Have a nice life while I remove you from my friends list" and the reference to calling yourself a Christian and making racist and homophobic comments (has this guy talked to any Christians recently? How about in the last 500 years?).

[How is it that when someone says "Have a nice life" they almost never mean it?]

We don't tar and feather wrongdoers anymore. Worse. We defriend them. Publicly.

What exactly is going on here? What should be considered racist? Is any generalization related to race "racist"? Should we dismiss all cries of racism as politically correct BS?

First, I'm going to make a distinction: racist v. racialist.

Making a generalization based on race is racialist but no necessarily racist, see the helpful tune from Avenue Q, Everyone's A Little Bit Racist for more details.

Obviously, you don't have to be white to make a negative (or otherwise) generalization based on race. Can you spot the racist statement?

"Wow, there are a lot of latino people in this sushi restaurant."

"That guy over there is black."

"I think Indian girls are hot."

"Most Asian people drive green Fiats."

"All white people are racist."

Okay. That was an easy one. Point taken.

HOWEVER

Have white Germans been systematically and historically oppressed, humiliated, excluded, killed or otherwise mistreated for not being able to make tasty Korean food?

No.

Now, before anyone starts picketing this blog holding signs that read "I'm white and I make a mean batch of kimchi," let me point out that context matters. History matters.

People who think that context and history don't matter usually think we shouldn't talk about race at all, which I suppose is the ultimate form of political correctness.

The problem with calling all racial generalizations "racist" is that it obscures real racism, a racism that goes far beyond "white people don't make Korean food as well as Korean people do."

If all generalizations based on race are racist, then we have no choice but to conclude that we are all racist, and isn't that wonderful because we're all the same and why can't we all just get along and laugh about it?

In Mindy Lahiri Is a Racist, the show makes fun of racist stereotypes [LOL] and politically incorrect gaffes without ever pointing out that, hey, inequality sucks.

I would argue that the most insidious form of racism is not "Asian women can't drive," but something much more systematic and subtle.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, "Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others."

George Zimmerman or Trayvon Martin?

Is the "knockout game" really a thing?

Are white people victims of reverse racism?

I wonder why this spontaneous combustion of facebook friends seems to happen to white men. White dudes: battling for equality and respect one incendiary facebook comment at a time [See what I just did there?]

There must be something more going on. No one gets this upset about Korean Style Beef Short Ribs.

Just don't dis my Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin Flavored Basmati Rice. If Trader Joe's ever stopped carrying it I would probably starve.

What you believe about race doesn't matter

I don't care if you're racist. 

Really. I don't. 

I don't care if Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic, I don't care if Alec Baldwin is homophobic, I don't care if you're racist. 

It's a moot point. 

Listen, I don't give a **** about your personal character. 

I care about what you say. 

When you say racist things, I care, because this about the content of your words, not the content of your character.

Whether or not you're "racist" or "sexist" or "homophobic" can be a question between you and God, or you and yourself, or you and your next-door neighbor, Bob. 

Go ahead. Search your heart. Send a team of resourceful and dedicated spelunkers into the caverns of your soul. And if in the end, you find not a single hateful thought toward anyone at any time for any reason related to gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, then great. I'm sure you'll sleep soundly tonight. 

But when you say, "Asian people always ____"

Or, "Gay people are ____" 

Or something about Us v. Them--

I care. Because words matter. Words like "bitch" or "slut" or "fag" or the N-word have power. They have history. They have baggage. 

So let's skip the wounded indignation, the part where you insist that there is nary a hate-mongering bone in your body:

Who me, a racist? Me, a homophobe? Me, a sexist? But I love women. My best friend is Asian. My favorite color is purple.

Why do I care?

I care because your words, whether you mean them or not, are part of a larger system of injustice.

I'm strongly with John Stuart Mill on this one: Say whatever you want to say. But saying whatever you want to say and then demanding freedom from censure because "I'm a good person" or "That's not what I meant" is the exact opposite of taking responsibility.

So let's skip the non-apology, the sorry-I'm-not-sorry: 

"I regret that you've mistaken me for someone who treats others poorly because of their race. You must have me confused with an actual racist. If you could only peruse my personal history at length, you would find that I've always treated every single person with the utmost respect, regardless of the color of their skin."

It may never be conscious. It may never be active. It might look nothing like hate. But you are making the world just a little bit worse. 

So, who cares if you're racist (or sexist)? You are participating in and perpetuating a system of discrimination, exclusion, prejudice, abuse, violence, hatred and death.

Like I said. Who cares.

Inspired by: 

What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn't Matter

Femininity & The Blank Slate or Why I'm Not Flattered When a Stranger Tells Me I'm Pretty

This has bothered me for a while. 

Every time (yes, generalizing) a girl/woman tells a story about unwanted male attention (catcalling, harassment on the street, being asked out by a stranger, having her personal space invaded,  getting a sexually explicit fb message), someone chimes in with the equivalent of: 

"Jeez, he was just trying to pay you a compliment / be friendly / make a personal connection / ask you on a date." 

In every other situation I encounter in life, I'm supposed to be an adult, which means I have thoughts, I have values, I have past experiences, I have a modicum of practical sense, etc. 

But in this one specific scenario, I'm supposed to be a complete blank, approaching every fresh encounter with a new man as if I had just stepped off planet xx and this was the first time someone had ever told me to "Smile, Beautiful!"

And instead of thanking him or smiling sweetly, I flip him off.

And when I tell the story, someone I know (male) defends that guy on the street (or on the social network). 

"Why can't you give him the benefit of the doubt?" 

So...it's okay for him to objectify me and reduce me to an adjective [My name isn't "Beautiful," you asshat. Oh wait, it is. Nevermind.]

But I must ascribe to him thoughts, feelings, a deep and meaningful history of respect for all women, and, especially, that "he's not like all other guys."

He gets to be an individual with a unique background, history and cultural context, and how dare I treat him as anything less than a unique and special human being. I get to be "a pretty little thing."

"You're being so judgmental."

I mean, right. Maybe he's a really nice guy. Maybe he wouldn't hurt a flying cockroach if it landed in his beef bourguignon. Maybe he loves children, candy necklaces and riding escalators at the mall.

Well, welcome to my world, where making snap judgments about strangers based on past experiences and not making snap judgments about strangers based on past experiences can mean the difference between life and lying dead in ditch somewhere, to put it subtly.

Have you not watched a single episode of Law & Order: SVU? Evolutionarily-speaking, it's better to assume the worst.

This is what doesn't make sense to me. It's okay for me to follow my instincts EXCEPT when I don't respond favorably to a man's romantic overtures, or at least act a little bit flattered that, gee whiz, someone thinks I'm pretty!

"You should be flattered that someone finds you attractive."

The opinion of a total stranger > My safety, sanity and desire to appear in a public place without being harassed.

There's also the not-so-subtle threat: 

Someday you won't be attractive anymore and no one will think you're pretty or make obscene gestures at you from the safety of their motor vehicles AND THEN WHERE WILL YOU BE, HUH?? AT LEAST SOMEONE WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU, CAN'T YOU SHOW A LITTLE GRATITUDE!!!

Yet another reminder that my primary value as a woman lies in how attractive I am to the opposite sex.

And how to explain the anger some men seem to feel when a woman resists objectification or even--how dare she--complains about it.

I mean, a woman who finds her value within herself without any reference to outside male validation--

How unappealing.

Facebook & The Outrage Machine

I can't BELIEVE something like this would happen in AMERICA!!!!

WHERE HAVE ALL THE REAL MEN GONE!!???

Proof that all politicians are SLIME and a giant BOIL on the face of humanity!!

Sound familiar? 

Welcome to the outrage machine. The only rule of the outrage machine: Be angry. Very, very angry.

And there's a lot to be angry about, in this world. Just look at the news: rape, murder, genocide, natural disaster, child neglect and abuse, and on and on. Too many terrible things, too few Twitter characters to contain them all.

Outrage is often the best response--or if not the best, then the most instinctive.

That being said, I'm taking a step back and looking at outrage from several different angles.

Outrage as drug

The dirty little secret about outrage is that it feels good. It feels right. It feels righteous.

Surely righteous anger has been the catalyst for many courageous and revolutionary movements throughout history.

Anger can rouse us from depression, from angst, from feeling like a victim, from passivity, from fear.

But what if it becomes a drug? What if outrage forges familiar neural pathways that we revisit over and over and over again?

Outrage as manipulation

A lot of the outrage on facebook (or other forms of social media) is manipulative, flat out. That doesn't make it right or wrong, but it does make it too easy--

Too easy to go to that place of outrage, to the chest-heaving, eye-dilating, fist-clenching, teeth-gritting, heart-racing automatic and autonomic response.

Some of us have that one facebook friend who functions as our own personal outrage machine. I used to have one of those. Then I blocked their feed. It was that simple. I had so much free time on my hands I took up knitting AND making pie crust from scratch. I was a much more peaceful person (not really).

It seems easy to acknowledge that certain status updates, links, articles, blog posts, etc. are specifically designed to elicit outrage. They manipulate our emotions to get a certain kind of response.

Outrage as money

It's weird to think of outrage as dollars and cents, but that's exactly what it is in click-baity journalism. Just think about it. Someone is manipulating one of your most powerful emotions to make money. [Oh wait, that's all advertising.] And again, this doesn't make outrage right or wrong. I would, however, question the motives of those peddling outrage for profit.

Outrage as narrative

Here's where it gets interesting (for me).

I'm worried that as outrage becomes a default response, we will begin to tune out the things that don't push our own personal outrage buttons. If it doesn't match our own particular "narrative of outrage," it doesn't register.

I'm concerned that many outrage narratives foster an "Us v. Them" mentality, not necessarily an "Us v. Rapists" mentality (Note: Rape = Bad) but an "Us v. Small Town Football" or "Us v. Republicans" or "Us v. The Idiots Who Voted for Obama."

There simply isn't enough outrage to go around. Even I, a feminist, have a limited supply (And I eat outrage for breakfast, like cheerios).

And the not-so-shocking truth about racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or many other social evils is that in real life, they're depressingly banal and hardly outrageous enough to earn a stint on Jerry Springer, let alone 45,634 shares on facebook.

"And now for a very controversial after school special wherein Connie's coworker rolls his eyes condescendingly when she offers to help him create a PDF in Microsoft Word."

Oh the humanity.

I'm more interested in the ordinary, the blase, the familiar and unquestioned. I want to interrogate the logic of sexism, of racism, of all kinds of violence and prejudice. 

I think there are "good" people who believe some pretty messed up things. I think there are good people who participate in and perpetuate a culture that I don't believe in, a culture that (honestly), I hate. To state it more blatantly, there are people that I like, people that I love or would have loved had I known them, who participate(d) in and perpetuate(d) a culture that I hate. 

And the "Us v. Them" binary starts to crumble.

So, to recap, the downsides of outrage:

• Outrage puts you in "fight or flight." [Which can be useful if you need to fight!]
• Repeatedly posting outrage click-bait might cause people to start tuning you out (or blocking your fb feed).
• Outrage creates "buttons," not stories. 
• Outrage is where nuance and subtlety go to die. 
• Outrage is exhausting

Humor as an alternative to outrage

I'm not saying that the opposite of outrage is bland amusement, or that rape jokes are always the best response to rape (although rape jokes can be one of the most subversive responses to rape culture, and no, "I'm going to rape you right now! Hahahahahaha" is not a subversive rape joke, or much of a joke, for that matter).

I'm saying that humor can accomplish what outrage cannot. It can turn things on their heads. It can offer a fresh perspective. It can tilt the world just enough that you see a piece of the sky that you've never seen before. It can feel like hope.

Which is perhaps a post for another time.

"That's Not Cool, Bro": Homosociality, Objectification and the Uses of Social Media in Rape Culture

I've been contemplating writing this for a while now. This is the "nice" version, believe it or not. The hide yo' wife, hide yo' kids, hide yo' husbands version is in the works.

Upfront disclaimer: I'm going to talk about rape. And feminism. And Twitter.

Maybe you've heard about the Steubenville, Ohio rape case. Maybe you haven't. You can read about it here or here, but if you don't care to, a few facts about what allegedly took place:

1. Two high school football players sexually assaulted a girl at a party.
2. Many other people were present.
3. Some of these other students / partygoers posted to YouTube or Twitter about the rape.
4. They expressed positive and/or approving thoughts and feelings about the rape [There's a YouTube video of a guy talking and laughing about it].

Now, I think you and I have at least a little bit of difficulty getting into the headspace of a rapist. We probably also have a problem getting into the headspace of anyone who would think of rape as a good thing.

Nevertheless, these people and these reactions exist, so let's think about it for a minute. Okay, more than a minute:

Why would someone think that rape is funny?

There's a lack of identification. There's a lack of empathy. There is perhaps a sense that the victim of rape deserves to be raped.

Then, think about the dynamics of two intersecting phenomena: homosocial approval and social media.

What is homosocial approval?

For the purposes of this blog, homosocial approval is explicit or implicit social approval from other dudes. In the case of Steubenville, this could be an over-identification with football, with high school social status, and with the approval that comes from other guys when you boast about your sexual conquests.

Of course, homosocial approval is not always negative. It can be very positive. But when combined with sexual violence and social media, it becomes something else entirely. See also this incident in which two high school boys took pictures of a girl as they assaulted her (because what's a sexual assault unless you can show pics to your friends later, amiright?).

Like most of us, I have borderline racist and misogynistic friends and/or acquaintances. [I'm sorry, is that harsh? You know what I'm talking about, though. Maybe it's because I have a lot of Christian friends (low blow).]

And the friendly misogynist-next-door--he's unlikely to ever rape anyone. However, he does continue to perpetuate the idea that women are objects. Or, that a woman's primary value is in how she looks. Or that she's fair game as long as she's legal. Or that a woman is responsible for a man's behavior. And that, my friend, is destructive.

I started writing this with a question: How do my male friends respond when their friend says something borderline racist/misogynistic? Does it bother him? Does he say something? Does he shrug it off? Does he laugh nervously?

I guess that was actually a series of questions.

I'm asking you, hypothetical guy friend, to do one thing: withhold your approval. Don't agree. Don't fist bump. Don't retweet. Don't hit "like."

Maybe the phrase "rape culture" makes you mad--because you believe that there is no such thing. That it's a phrase coined by feminists to victimize men. Fine. Forget that phrase. Call it whatever you want. Call it dude-thinks-rape-is-super-funny-in-youtube-video culture. I don't care.

And what about me? I'm female. Guys are supposed to be trying to impress me. Doesn't my approval or lack thereof count too?

It doesn't. Not in the same way. I'm not the target audience here. You try lecturing a guy on manners after he calls you a bitch for turning him down. Or giving a crash course on sexual harassment to the gentleman, and I use that term loosely, who won't take "No" for an answer. It's not gonna happen.

He doesn't care what I think. That crude joke was not for my benefit. It was for you. Not me.

So hey bro, dude, man, whatever. Do me a favor and don't laugh.

It's not that funny, anyway.

Crying. In public.

It was 9pm last Wednesday night and I was crying in a booth at Canter’s Deli on Fairfax. I pushed at the corners of my eyes with my knuckles and dabbed the snot leaking from my nose with a napkin. The edges of my vision blurred with tears, like a watery postcard. At the center of the postcard, still surprisingly in focus, sat my friend. 

I get ugly when I cry. My entire face turns blotchy and red. The salt stings my nostrils. My eyes puff up, causing me to look more Asian than my usual fifty percent. My nose swells. My eyelids start to itch. The corners of my mouth dry out. I can’t breathe through my nose. 

I try to avoid crying in public, mostly because of the ugliness and the sluggish way the signs of it fade from my face. I feel marked long after the impulse to weep has gone. As a kid, my dad would call me “red eyes” as I sat at the dinner table, unable to hide the signs. 

I’ve locked myself in countless stalls in countless bathrooms at countless churches, waiting for the telltale puffiness to leave my eyes, giving the all clear. 

I’ve always felt shame at any strong display of emotion. 

I have a good memory too, for emotions and things. How do I know this? Because when I say to a friend or family member, “Remember when such-and-such happened?” or “Remember when you said this-or-that?” they almost never remember. For example, my sister doesn’t remember the hurtful things I said to her when we were eleven, but I do. I remember the emotional charge of hate, fear and pain. 

My dad recently told me, “When you were little, you would burst out crying at the dinner table because of some promise Mom or I had made to you months ago.” 

It’s like I was born to hold grudges, to internalize forever the hurt and unmet expectations of the moment: “You wounded me on this day, at this hour, wearing this blue shirt.” 

Last Tuesday night, I had a dream that my sister was telling me that it was over between us. There was no yelling, no screaming, just calm, rational argument. She was making several very valid points: I had said this. Done that. Sure, it was in the past, but still the facts were there and the only logical step would be to cut ties. 

I dreamt this, knowing my sister. I dreamt this, knowing that she would never reject me. Never. In the dream, I felt numb. 

My dad and I had a fight about a year ago that ended in my tears. And honestly, I despised myself for crying. I hated the vulnerability of it. 

And sitting there in that booth, in Canter’s, on Fairfax, in Los Angeles—all I could see was how I needed to forgive myself. That it was okay to be hurt, okay to remember, okay to cry. 

Perhaps God made me this way for a reason. Perhaps it’s part of being a writer—this emotionally fraught memory of mine. 

I looked across the booth at my friend. All I could see in her eyes was empathy. I was crying, but I felt no shame. 

Are you experienced? : Excellence, Exclusion, and the Hollywoodization of Church

“Well, we’re really looking for someone with experience.”

My heart sank. These were the words I dreaded with all the dread of a combined $30,000 in student loan debt. Experience was exactly what I did not have as a recent grad.

What I did have were Hollywood dreams, a resume replete with low-level production jobs, and a working knowledge of literary theory.

Now, here I was, rejected from a volunteer, assistant position on a film that would never make money. I reacted the way most mature adults do when faced with rejection. I raged. I sulked. I griped to my friends. I half-heartedly contemplated quitting my dreams.

But most of all, that word “experience” hit me like a punch to the gut. I thought I was over it. I had mentally shrugged it off as no big deal.

I had tried once, unsuccessfully, to volunteer at a church I was attending. I wanted to get involved. I chose production arts because it seemed like the best fit for a wannabe filmmaker who happens to be an introvert and doesn’t particularly like directing cars or working with children.

I was emailing back and forth with a church staff member. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to work behind-the-scenes. He asked about my experience. I described my involvement in making movies. Radio silence on his end.

I finally approached him at church and introduced myself.

“Oh. I had confused you with another girl named ‘M___’ who is definitely not qualified to volunteer for the production arts team.”

In the next 30 seconds, he must have used the word “experience” at least five times: everyone who volunteers for production arts needs to have experience, all the people who’ve signed up during the volunteer drive are supposed to have experience, the other girl doesn’t have experience, etc.

I froze. I dug around in the back of my mind. How could someone be so completely unqualified to run PowerPoint slides or wrangle microphones? I quickly surmised that she must have been born without thumbs. How tragic.

Everything hit me at once—my name in the emails (announcing my gender, my non-white racial status), my perceived lack of knowledge, my dubious credentials, and my strange kinship with this girl with missing digits. I felt naked and exposed, as if the letters of my name had shouted from the rooftops the deep unworthiness I had tried so hard to hide.

How had he perceived the truth about me? How had my name betrayed me so brutally?

I did what all writers do under these circumstances. I wrote what I knew was a reasoned, well-thought-out email explaining why what he said had bothered me. I was handling this in a grownup, rational fashion. I joked to myself, “Well, at least he didn’t tell me to go volunteer for the children’s ministry or the welcome team instead.” But at night my mind wouldn’t let go of that girl, that other girl, the one without thumbs. I kept thinking about her. I felt bad for her.

I knew it was nothing personal. What is church after all, amateur hour? You can’t just let anyone push buttons or run PowerPoint slides. These things take finesse, experience, maybe even some degree of talent.

God forbid a bad sound mix or a missed slide distract the churchgoer from the message of the gospel. It’s about excellence. And experience is the necessary precursor.

Excellence is hard to define, but I think we all know mediocrity when we see it. Rachel Held Evans calls out painfully amateur special music as one hallmark of the awkward church. As Christians, mediocrity embarrasses us. If it’s not good enough for the world, it shouldn’t be good enough for Sunday service. Mediocrity hurts us and makes us cringe, like watching your friend perform bad standup at a club with no guest list and a two drink minimum.

And so we are urged to give God our best: Quality. Excellence. Good production values. I don’t believe that God has a problem with any of these things. I don’t think your worship is any more pleasing to God because you have a crappy sound system or sing Keith Green songs off key.

Similarly, just because a movie has positive Christian values, spells out the gospel, or is produced by a mega church does not make it good. Au contraire says every “Left Behind” movie ever made.

I currently go to church on Hollywood Boulevard. We get our share of the homeless, the strung-out, and the downright crazy. Last Sunday, a relatively normal looking man rushed the stage in an attempt to join in as a backup singer for the worship team. He never made it that far. Security escorted him out, his hands still outstretched for a microphone.

I feel like I’m that guy sometimes—the grossly unqualified gatecrasher violating the sacred order of the liturgy with my flaws, my brokenness. It’s not that I’m not experienced. It’s that I know that no matter how much experience I have at living this life I will never be perfect.

If only you could see my heart—the hatred, the bitterness, the jealousy, and the pride—you would rightfully conclude that I should be forcibly removed as well. In the face of perfection, I am unworthy. We all are. We are all missing a few fingers, or in my case, probably a major limb.

To weave the connection between church and Hollywood a little bit tighter, consider this Hollywood value: The product is more important than the people.

If it is the quality of the end product that matters, the church too can justify exclusion on the basis of excellence. Are you experienced? Are you worthy? Will you make us look bad?

In the midst of my disappointment at my rejection from the film job I didn’t have the experience for, what hurt the most was realizing that a church was ready to reject me for the same reason—this ethic of excellence that expels and excludes.

Ironically, I HAD the right experience. But my name, my face, my body told a different story.

The church is not transforming Hollywood. Hollywood is transforming the church and making it after its own image.

Five Things I Learned From Watching Seasons 1-4 of Grey's Anatomy

This is not an attempt to justify the hours I have spent watching this show, nor to deny the trashy, soap-operatic nature of its content. Ahem.

Suffice it to say, I very recently made my way through the first four seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Here's what I learned:

1. "Use your words."

The characters of Grey's say this to each other a lot--which is funny because they're all extremely articulate. Huh. Frankly, this imperative is a good reminder for me. I'm good with words. I'm not good at expressing my feelings. In words. Out loud. To other people.

2. When in doubt, write a monologue in which a character has an emotional epiphany and conveniently highlights the theme of the episode.

Some might call this "cheating" or "laziness on the part of the writer."

I call it genius. Sure, in real life the person you're ranting to rarely stands eyes wide and mouth agape as you aphoristically sum up the event's of the day. Small detail. These monologues are the thematic glue holding each episode together. Dramatic subtlety be damned.

3. The law of promiscuity and diminishing dramatic returns.

Have you ever noticed how the longer a TV show goes on, the more hookups occur between the primary cast (e.g. "That 70's Show," "Friends")?

I would hazard that the weaker the dramatic premise and/or episode specific storyline of a show, the more likely two previously unconnected characters are to suddenly begin a sexual relationship.

Writers do this to heighten the dramatic value of an episode. However, the more promiscuous a character/cast is, the less their sexual relationships mean emotionally and dramatically. Kind of like in real life.

So, what is invoked to increase dramatic value actually decreases it.

4. Sex and the unbearable whiteness of being

Grey's Anatomy boasts an impressively diverse cast--and by diverse I mean ethnically. Average/ugly people were not invited to this party.

Intriguingly, the shade of a character's skin seems to be co-related to number of sexual partners. How do I say this--only the white characters seem to be allowed to sleep around, while the minority characters are frustratingly monogamous.

5. Everyone has issues.

There's something about Meredith Grey. There's something about Meredith Grey and her emotional blankness that feels authentic.

That's what I've learned. And I'm only on season 4.

"How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?"

This audiobook version of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"  is superlatively good. Just amazing.

I had wanted to read "Their Eyes" after listening to an essay by Zadie Smith in her collection "Changing My Mind." In this essay, Smith writes about the universal literary tradition vs. the particularity of blackness--of female blackness. In sum, "It is not the Black Female Literary Tradition that makes Hurston great. It is Hurston herself."

I'm reminded of several things:

One, in my American literature class at community college we read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison. A classmate (white, sheltered) began wondering out loud whether or not black people were too invested in feeling sorry for themselves. The professor got upset.*

Two, a columnist in my college paper wrote in response to a lecture on God and black suffering, "We're talking about black suffering again?" or something to that effect.*

My American literature professor used to make a point about subjectivity--that saying, "You can't understand this book because you're not ____ (black, white, female, etc.)" is a fallacy.

It's like saying you have to be white, male, middle class and born in the 1930's to get "Rabbit, Run" or have lived with seven men of dubious appellation to properly decode "Snow White."

Hurston writes in her essay "How it Feels to be Colored Me":

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."

And so, maybe its not just black suffering we talk about, but human suffering.

Speaking of pleasure, this is one of my favorite scenes from the book:

"The sounds lulled Janie to soft slumber and she woke up with Tea Cake combing her hair and scratching the dandruff from her scalp. It made her more comfortable and drowsy.

'Tea Cake, where you git uh comb from tuh be combin' mah hair wid?'

'Ah brought it wid me. Come prepared tuh lay mah hands on it tonight.'"





*I mean, slavery was SO two centuries ago.