WHAT DRIVES ME AND WHAT I DO:
I’m into healthy and thriving community. This could set me up for continual disappointment because well “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.” Nor do I expect change ever has an end goal. I see no moral arc to the universe.
Does this makes me sound morose? I don’t necessarily feel morose. I look for and occasionally find delight in the silver-linings within each storm cloud. Rain brings renewal itself (and storms are necessary). I care about and invest in process.
So what processes are important to me? Since I care about healthy and thriving community I’m obsessed with structures that pattern and shape our lives and collective body. The fucked-up-ness of our world is completely unavoidable: I don’t expect my actions will change anything, but I would like to create some silver-linings.
Doing this means that I have to be reflective and think critically about how things such as my and others’ race, class, and gender matters. Thinking for thinking’s sake is pointless though and I try to put things into action. There are contradictions to calling myself anti-racist and feminist or womanist as a White guy. Labels don’t change anything: contradictions don’t let me off the hook for my actions, or not taking action.
My words reflect the harshness of this world but I, like others who use harsh words to describe our world, am motivated by love. I seek to engage across and understand difference because that is how love moves me. I know I move between many worlds. Sometimes others know about me and my experiences, but often I slide into privileged places without my difference being read. I try to move others when I can.
Whether we recognize it or not, we have all been hurt by the fucked-up-ness in this world. I have used the hurt and broken-ness I carry within me to try to understand others’ circumstances. I can never stand in another’s body, but I must try to imagine, and I must listen.
MY DEMOGRAPHICS (BECAUSE TRANSPARENCY MATTERS):
I’m a White, middle-class, middle-aged (36), binary-male-identified, trans*-experienced but not typically read as trans*, ‘able’-bodied but dis(Abled), ‘pocket’ gay. I am also a PhD student.
addressingtrauma 