6 — OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — Ocroeen 1999 OIOIOOIOOOOOIIIICIOIIIIIIIIOCCIDOOIIOIOOIOIOIIOIIOOIIIICIOIOOIOOIIIIOIIC Working with the Jigsaw Puzzle of Inclusion by Paij Wadley-Bailey ' udre Lorde called herself A a “black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet.” She didn’t cut herself or anyone around her any slack when it came to dealing with the issues that divide us. Life endowed her with a decidedly distinct vision, but she was careful never to con- fuse distinction with separation. Separation means I crawl into- a tight, gloomy comer called fear and I box everything not like me out of my mind. I fend for myself with no allies. Now, multiply this behavior times millions and you have a society of tight, cramped comers turned away from each’ other, floating in some vague ether called civilization. This is an illusion and serves only to sep- arate the body politic. .Unfortunately, this illusion is the society we live in. The image that comes to mind is a jigsaw puzzle. There’s the initial excitement of creating vision from seemingly separate pieces. But then, when you get home, open the box and empty the contents, you find yourself staring at a pile of separation. All of a sudden that excitement becomes panic. Oh my God, what have I done? Why did I get a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle? Why did I dream so big? The prospect of putting it all together is overwhelming. Nevertheless, the dream won’t go away. Where to start? You know what it’s supposed to look like because you’ve seen it in your mind’s eye. And somehow, afier a very heavy sigh, you start in. The only way that you can begin assembling the puzzle is to search for similarities, common borders. Sometimes “surface” characteristics clue you in. Some’ parts look like blue sky, some like trees, some like flowers in a meadow. Those are the surface groupings. Then, you have to look further for common borders. When the picture emerges, you find suddenly that sky fits tree fits grass fits cottage in the mead- ow. How did that happen? Well first, you managed to fit two little pieces together. You saw that liilllllhlllerl llanlers flanazine: flfltthehl Shearll Ihll CIIHIIIIIISIIW Ileterosexualitv In its September 1999 issue, Harper’s Magazine re-examines the Matthew Shepard murder from a provocative new angle: rather than focusing on the sexual orientation of the victim, frequent Harper’s contributor JoAnn Wypijewski looks closely at the sexual orientations of the killers and the environment ‘which may have helped shape them. Wypijewski’s excellent in-depth look at the culture of “compulsory heterosexuality” defies easy cate- gorization - it neither demonizes Shepard’s killers nor venerates their victim, choosing. instead to look at the history, character and culture of Wyoming and the social forces that simultaneously buckle under the weight of and reinforce institutionalized homophobia. Wypijewski examines the pres- sure to conform to masculine het- erosexual nonns - a pressure she believes not only causes homo- phobia, but also damages hetero- sexual men. “Among the toler- ance peddlers, it’s always the ‘lifestyle’ of the gay guy,” she writes, “never the ‘lifestyle’ of the straight guy or the culture of com- pulsory heterosexuality.” She pro- ceeds to quote a University of Wyoming student in a discussion with a woman opposed to vio- lence, but who‘ was convinced that homosexuality is immoral. “The issue isn’t tolerance,” he said. “We don’t need to learn tolerance; we need to learn love.” For Wypijewski, love is not just an abstract concept - it is “life’s . _.. their boundaries coincided in ways that were delightfiilly unex- pected, even beautifiil. Then another piece found its way into those two, then another and another. You realized that your brain got attuned to thinking dif- ferently. Afier awhile, you even started anticipating patterns, actively sought them out. So that before long, the picture was com- plete. What a sense of accom- plishment, when hours, maybe days, maybe months before, you dreaded the prospect of assem- bling it. Hoped that a piece or two didn’t get lost under the sofa cushion, or eaten by the dog or used as some strange tool by the kids. It all fit. And what if you had taken the opposite approach? Say you looked at a piece that appeared to I you to be odd in shape, some- thing you couldn’t quite catego- rize. You are too correct to just throw the piece out. Instead, in an attempt to fashion unity, you impatiently sliced off a tab of that piece and jammed it into the pic- ture, just to be rid of that particu- lar chore or project. In the big picture, that poor jammed piece will stick out like a bony elbow, and every eye will be drawn to that pained-looking area of your vision. And they will ask, “well, what happened here? Looks like you missed a spot. Why is that poor soul all scrunched up like that?” The answer will only be an excuse: “Oh, I ran out of steam!” Your vision has become the mosaic of impatience. It says, “I only thought about today, and about my comfort.” And there will always be that nagging elbow poking, bunched up in the face of humanity. Or maybe it will be several elbows jabbing and dis- jointed. It all depends on how tired, lazy, or impatient you got in the process. This puzzle image is the acknowledgement of common borders, linking, a wholesome- ness and strength brought about by the effort of inclusion. As out- siders, we need each other for support and connection and all the other necessities of living on the borders. Listening is key. Audre’s The tilhhllhleft is the activation tool [It the ha! 8. lesbian Alliance Against Datamation defining line,” one held fimi by “all the little things of a culture, mostly unnoticed and unre- marked, like the way in which the simplest show of affection is a decision about safety, like the way in which a'man entwined with a woman is the stuff of everyday commerce, but a man expressing vulnerability is equivalent to a quaint notion of virginity - you save it for marriage.” In this out- standing, complex piece of jour- nalism, Wypijewski has construct- ed a story that works on multiple thematic levels, one which com- pellingly suggests that the way to eradicate homophobia is to recon- ceive a heterosexuality now bro- ken by fear of same-sex male emotional intimacy. Please thank Harper’s for publishing this vital, remarkable feature. haircuts O beardstyling O shaves 0 body hair removal hair texturizing O gray.management O coloring l50 B Church Street -- Burlington -- 864.2088 -- Across from City Hall. poem “If You Come Softly,” .expresses the kinship that is pos- sible when people meet, soul to soul, to share their grief. “If you come as softly/As wind within the trees/ You may hear what I hear/ See what sorrow sees.” This expression of our mutual sorrows can be painful. But it’s all part of creating that vision, those 10,000 pieces slowly com- ing together. Sometimes the pain comes out as anger. Because anger’ might not feel good, we shrink from it. Sometimes the sounds of 10,000" pieces coming together can sound downright cacophonous. After all, the doors have been opened; inclusion is the password. But there are times when we cannot hear or under- stand each other. That requires some serious patience. Let the voices be heard. Let the cacophony rock the boat. For as Audre says in ‘Lightly,” “‘Don’t make waves’/ is good advice/ from a leaky boat.” This boat, however, is strong and will sail! V Contact: Mr. Lewis H. Lapham, Editor, Harper’s Magazine, 666 Broadway, New York, NY100l2, e- mail:letters@harpers.org . 20/20 Gives 8 Voice to Homeless Gav Youth ABC News’ 20/20 opened its 1999-2000 season with an exten- sive segment called “Throwaway Teens,” which examined the plights of three homeless lesbian and gay youth who have been thrown out of their homes on account of their sexual orienta- tions. The segment opens with a young man walking: “He spends his days going nowhere,” explains 20/20’s Connie Chung. “Barely visible to the people he passes, he matters to no one. [I-I]e is home- less, fending for himself, far from llllltll (TFW A FULL SERVICE SAION anything he ever knew.” Later, Chung explains that the youth, Daniel, “is certain that he was thrown out [of his family’s house] because he is gay sent on his way without tears, without even a goodbye.” Forced to find liveli- hood, Daniel admits that he has turned to prostitution during rough times. In the end, he says, “I miss my home. I’d like to tell my mom and my family that I love them and that I wish that they would accept me for who I am and just love me again.” At times, the segment seemed needlessly sensationalistic - with examples including gritty and blurred street footage and one teaser which broke to commercial with a description of these youth as “so young and struggling to CONTINUED P I9 Remember: Go to the Men’s 9 Room, Before you go out! 20% off‘