The conversations will be emotional, difficult, awkward, and painful, but I am strong enough to do it. As often and for as long as it takes. I believe it is impossible not to have these conversations, or we'll keep losing these children.
Dear Candace,
I began my e-Hyde Park soap-box Faculty L self-indulgences
around the time of the Columbine high school massacre and
later after 9/11 and the suicide of one of our colleagues,
wondering at the time “how do we talk about these things?.”
We don’t.
Hallways and lunchroom, sure.
Faculty forum at four o’clock before going on to
housekeeping business (eco-logy), of course..
I had just re-read Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media
(“the media is the message) and had focused on his insight
in my Readings in the Humanities course. Suddenly his
description of media as more pressingly significant than
the so-called message was realized in the technological
wonder connect/disconnect finger tip at-one-ness off our
current environment.
Viral..
We have as resource a new mostly untapped venue for
“how-do-we-talk- about-these-things'. that is more significant
(I claim, for the sake of argument) than the things (content,
subject-object matter) we might be thinking about.:
Bullets: Power Point:
*the homophobic bullying and suicides
*the clothesline-T-shirt concern (1 out
of 4 women are raped-- some statistic
announced)
* dys-morphic binge & purge, self-
mutilation practices,
* varieties of ADD, drug & alcohol
self-medicating
* ongoing empowermental agenda
* Duke U co-ed & lacrosse team documentation
* female fight-club and mean girl YouTubing
* peek-a-BOO: I SEE you.
Don't you think it's all related--a deep grammar which
generates thematic variations & seemingly dissimilar
symptoms but maybe better considered systemically-
-as a whole?
This is the key question for me.
The relatedness. The relativity.
Clumsily at first. Absolutely. But with practice—more grace.
The conversations will be emotional,
difficult, awkward, and painful, but
am strong enough to do it. As often
and for as long as it takes. I believe
it is impossible not to have these
conversations, or we'll keep losing
these children.
“These” children? The queer and alternative-ly life styled?
Stressed and restless-legged? Rebellious with no cause
at all? Home schooled and retro-fitted to classroom
coherence? Multi-tasked & yet forced-focused?
Textually harassed?
It IS possible not to have these conversations.
Because they are beyond logic and sermons
and rationalization. Emotional, difficult, awkward
painful and unprofessional. Write it up and deliver
it at some conference, sure. Rage against the
machine. Wear Local Food bumper-stickers
on your automobiles. Stick stuff on your
office doors to proclaim your identity
and concerns.
Do I overstate? Understate? Simultaneously.
I contain pulchritude.
xxxooo, Sam
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