Sometimes I think about what I think about (horribly circuitous way to introduce an idea, but bear with me) and I realize that what I feel to be extremely obvious, empowering, or useful—is the exact opposite when put into almost any context other than my own.
EXAMPLE: I have this little song/poem I mutter when I am being weird: a defensive set of lines I’ve had in my brain since I was in grade school. It’s been a useful mantra: armor from church, state, boss, and bully for almost 40 years.
I thought it was either a Maurice Sendak or Shel Silverstein poem, or maybe a bit of lyric cribbed from The Tragically hip? Nope. My Googling leads me to guess that it’s a chimera of stuff I read a long time ago, which makes the next bit here much easier to admit—
This little song is problematic as HELL, when removed from the context of MY OWN LITTLE CRANKY BRAIN. Yes, I am aware of the malleability of text. I know that twenty different actors can play twenty different characters all while speaking the exact same lines.
And I also admit I don’t absorb that actuality into how I function as well as I could. I am not nearly as flexible in my on-the-spot reactions as I am in my composed interpretations (and of course this a function of time, as not all conversations can be conducted via the decidedly thoughtful chronology of asynchronous post).
So let’s stare down the slimy fact that words matter far less than the voices speaking them. And then live as though we can keep up with that idea.
If intersectionality had a symbol, a Venn it would be—illustrating the back and forth built into every sentence—a switchable subject and predicate—and that we oscillate between those roles at all times.
I can't believe that "Who said it: Hitler or Kanye" bit is from 14 years ago...
It would be even harder to differentiate them today. :(