This is what I have to look forward to if I decide to go to Grad School...

I guess it confirms everything I've feared about studying humanities...

Hillary Clinton and the State Department, "It Gets Better"

I think I feel the same way about Hillary Clinton that most of gays seem to feel about Lady Gaga... (that she should be president).

Of course Hillary Clinton has a special role to play, as Secretary of State, in assuring young gays that it does get better. During the height of the Cold War, the State Department was ground zero for government persecution of gay men and women as many were investigated and fired during a witch hunt that is generally overshadowed by the Red Scare. Termed "security risks," it was believed that homosexuals posed a threat to state security due to the possibility that they could be blackmailed by Soviets over their sexual behavior, and as a result of their general moral inferiority...

Historian David K. Johnson has written a fantastic book about the subject that I highly recommend called The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. He discusses the origins of the State Department's purging of homosexuals, which spread throughout the rest of the government, and also the role it may have played in the early development of the gay civil rights movement. The fact that sixty years later the Secretary of State would be making an emotional appeal to young gays should make us feel hopeful for the future and out the civil rights struggles of our own era.

Happy Columbus Day...

Today is Columbus Day, and what better way to observe it than by reading the first chapter of Howard Zinn's  A People's History of the United States, with his detailed and disturbing accounts of early interactions between Europeans and the natives of Hispaniola, Mexico, and the future United States. Here's an excerpt. I highly recommend reading the whole chapter, which you can find here at History is a Weapon.

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.

"History is the memory of states," wrote Henry Kissinger in his first book, A World Restored, in which he proceeded to tell the history of nineteenth-century Europe from the viewpoint of the leaders of Austria and England, ignoring the millions who suffered from those statesmen's policies. From his standpoint, the "peace" that Europe had before the French Revolution was "restored" by the diplomacy of a few national leaders. But for factory workers in England, farmers in France, colored people in Asia and Africa, women and children everywhere except in the upper classes, it was a world of conquest, violence, hunger, exploitation-a world not restored but disintegrated.

Howard Zinn: "Chapter 1: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress," A People's History of the United States

Things that don't really go together with 80s R&B...

Well, I don't have too much to report this weekend, except that I'm feeling kind of nostalgic for old R&B. So for that reason, I'm listing to the S.O.S. Band song "Weekend Girl", cracking open a beer, and watching some naked Bulgarian kid do handstands on cam. Hope y'all are doing the same.

It Gets Better

In the wake of recent attention being paid by the media to gay teen suicides and bullying, columnist Dan Savage launched a YouTube channel to host inspirational videos made by older gay men to kids who are in school and just coming to terms with their sexuality, having to deal with being different. I think it's a great idea and strongly encourage readers of this blog to make their own videos.

When I was growing up, I was never really bullied, but I was very deep in the closet. It was really lonely being a teenager and knowing I was into guys and having no one to talk to about it. It feels really hopeless and you can't imagine things ever getting better. This was a part of my life that was happening only six or seven years ago, and I would never have been able to imagine the things I've done since then, the amazing people I've met, places I've been, parties, what it feels like to be completely open with people about your sexuality, or even having a blog like this.

The reason why I'm not making a video myself is that, to a degree, I still identify with the intended audience. I'm still young, there's a lot that I'm still figuring out myself. Even though I was mostly out when I was at college, I've had to go back into the closet somewhat since graduating and living and working in the suburbs. I'm still growing up, and I'm still exploring different communities. I think I naturally gravitate towards older guys because they remind me that things are going to get better over time. Everyone needs a positive role model, and for gay kids it's much harder to find them - especially if you're in the closet and under eighteen. That's why this project is so important.

As an example for you to follow, I'm posting this video by Dart, who has an amazing blog and podcast series about leather and BDSM at his blog, Dart's Domain. When I was a teenager in high school, feeling alone and scared about liking men and knowing I was into kink, this is exactly what I wish I could have heard.