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marriage is...
a socially validated,
legally binding,
business contract
imposing state sanctioned,
ritual monogamy.
let's give
a big round of applause
for
i signed up for some.
have YOU?
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Reading
yesterday's post again I started thinking about my choices, choices that are informed by an analysis of privilege, oppression and power. I thought about the
failure of the intentional community I tried to build with other people, other queer wimmin, other black wimmin who hated themselves and each other covertly, enough to destroy homes that they themselves admitted were places of safety and respect. Internalized oppression sucks. I thought about my disappointment, about my rage, about my worry and regrets.
"What now?" I asked myself?
How would I raise my children without the protection of a tribe? How would I continue to do my resistance work, my shit disturbing, my speaking and writing against the grain when I have no allies to watch my back?
Reality is, I haven't had allies in quite some time. When I say allies, I mean people who understand what I do and why I do it, who make the choice to speak truth rather than engage in denial for the sake of popularity and wide acceptance, who realize that they'll get flack for even being my friend let alone for openly agreeing with the critiques I level inside communities of resistance and don't give a flying fuck because they're so secure in who they are.
I realized that I wasn't interested in waiting around and hoping that some mythic ally riding a dark horse pulling alongside my dark horse then we ride off into the margins together...blah, blah, blah...
There was no time to wait, no space to hope.
I thought and thought. I thought especially about the privilege that I had been attempting to undermine, privilege offered to me as a binary gendered female openly in relationship with a binary gendered man, both assumed to be heterosexual, both assumed to be patriarchal, both assumed to be monogamous, both assumed to be interested in the approving glances of heterocentric black folks and others, both assumed to be interested in the polite banter of those who (mis)understand the presence of my children as a beacon inviting their (completely conditional) validation and respect.
I thought about unearned power, relative safety, about attempting to perform as a member of the herd, as an approved card carrying member of the in clique represented world wide.
I decided that I would utilize the privilege I had been offered, access the privilege I had been offered as a way to offer myself and my family more of a smooth passage through this fucked up world.
I said to Papi: "We should get married."
He looked at me as if I was taking that prozac I kept threatening to buy.
I assured him that I was not yet on emotion, sight and power suppressing drugs.
I explained that given all the shit we'd gone through and given the fact that no allies were in sight, it might be time for a drastic change in plans, a surface swerve to the right...of course I used way more words and the conversation happened over the course of months.
Then we told Ophelia who also looked at me as if I was taking that prozac I kept threatening to buy. She talked about why she had chosen to get married and about all the wedding plans she made. Were we going to cater? Where were we going to have the ceremony? What dress was I going to wear? Was there going to be a reception? Who were we going to invite?
This conversation also happened over a days, weeks, months as I came, Papi came and then we brought Ophelia to the realization that there was going to be no wedding, no caterer, no church or hall, no white dress, no reception, no guests.
I didn't want to invite my father who doesn't understand my politics and who I only have marginal communication with to a ceremony he would attend as proud father attempting to give away his daughter. I didn't want him to call my relatives and tell them: "Tonia is getting married!" and then have to deal with them trying to occupy their positions in a patriarchal, heterosexual, monogamous, cross gendered wedding spectacle against my will, completely not understanding any critical experience I might attempt to craft. I did call him on the night of the paper signing as we travelled across the city. I figured I'd just let him know. But he didn't answer his cell. Relief.
Papi and I played with the idea of inviting his relatives. We went through the list of people he's related to but not interested in spending intimate time with. We thought about the fact that wedding guests come with wedding gifts, hardcore evidence of conditional approval. We thought, well we could say no gifts just money, hee, hee, hee! Lots of cultures do "sprays" where the "lucky" couple is showered with capitalist, consumerist, masturbatory showers of cold hard green. Wedding narratives aside, this simple act exposes the cold calculated business of marriage.
A money shower? Money we could take to pay for Stinkapee's schooling and funnel into our various projects. But then we thought about having to smile through a ceremony and reception with people who don't understand who we are, the kind of relationship we have or the kind of family we're crafting. When we ran the simulations they always ended with us feeling icky and having to scrub off layers of skin to feel clean again.
So, no guests. Save Papi's mama who we invited. But she didn't want to come without her male partner...unh, no. Add him to the list of people who are sleeping and don't care to see what's in front of his face. As I've mentioned, softcore patriarch to my father's hardcore patriarch, sometimes I just have to engage in a little bit of denial, myself and pretend he's just not there. laughter of the damned.
A ring for the newly purchased hefah? Nope. No, blood diamond signifying Papi's ownership of my worldly possessions and pooni power. Gross, stoopid, trite, unnecessary for my purposes. If I wanted to be recognized as a well paid whore, which I do from time to time wield in order to access more privilege in certain situations, I just lug out the old, tired "h" word. "Have you met my h?" "Have you seen my h?" "I was talking to my h..." "Last week me and my h were..." It never fails to take the fear and confusion out of the eyes of those who are interested in accruing or offering heterosexual patriarchal privilege to those willing to participate in various monolithic age old lies about superiority and worth.
So, it would be me, papi, Stinkapee, the Shmolian...unh, we needed two witnesses and could only come up with one - one of Papi's friends, a white skinned jewish business man. He came and signed off on the correct docs. But not before we got there - city hall - late. Made a detour to see Ophelia.
Found her male partner grinning a slightly befuddled, congratulatory grin as if to say: "Unh...she told me...I don't really get you, don't want to get you, wouldn't have chosen you as a daughter-in-law. But! What tha fuck! Welcome to our family!"
I watched him struggle, lots of mental gymnastics, I'm sure, as he tried to fit what was unfolding as a completely unexpected happening with the wedding scenarios he had no doubt been indoctrinated with as a hetero, patriarch growing to adulthood in this world.
In response I decided to engage with him as little as possible. I smiled a sort of uncomfortable, please don't try to hug me because you're not getting what we're doing or why we're doing it sort of smile as if to say: "I know you wouldn't have chosen me as a family member. I know you'd sit better with a young, university educated yet still completely brainless, surface feminist/activist, patriarchal, panafrican, starving, small, young, sexually inexperienced girl/woman who would show deference and respect what you say. Well, I'm not her. S'aright. Cuz I'm not entering your family. I've simply accepted your son and Ophelia into my rag tag resistant, resilient, defiant matriarchal world."
I said a sad and disappointed goodbye to Ophelia across a political chasm of sorts and we continued on to City Hall where we were greeted by an admin worker who wouldn't let us bring the Shmolian's stroller into the space where the papers were going to be signed. We entered the space and found two black people, a young man and a young woman dressed in white, smiling brittle hopeful smiles..."When does it happen? When does the sky open and the golden shower...hee, hee, hee...shower of golden approval, the rush happen?" They had just signed their papers and were glowing with newly transformed from separate single adults into married couple by the power vested in the forty something year old robed white woman into complete and utter relationship hell...unh, I meant to say: bliss.
As "luck" would have it, the "husband" agreed to be our second witness and with that we were off! Do you take this....blah, to blah and blah, to be your blah, blah, blah, from this day...blah, for blah, or blah, as long as you both shall...blech.
Yah, yah, yah. Then Papi and I signed off to cement the legal portion of the proceedings which served as notice that both of us would now agree to accept the privilege we had been avoiding and fucking with for most of our relationship.
By this point Stinkapee, who had agreed to play music on her battery operated baby piano, had fallen asleep, bored by the lack of pomp and circumstance...wouldn't want to offer up a puffed up, stepford wives-esque fairy tale she might want to emulate in later years. Stinkapee was gurgling, happily oblivious to the Kangaroo court charade his parents had decided to participate in.
The masturbatory justice of the peace wanted to see romance, kisses and picture taking. We grudgingly offered something she could squint at and pretend looked familiar. The pictures, which will never see the light of day speak volumes. There are glowing red eyes, uncomfortable postures and strained smiles. Ick.
It was finished. We were now card carrying, licensed breeders sanctioned by the state. We thanked our witnesses, gave the congratulations the willingly and obliviously married man and woman we had encountered there actually wanted and expected.
We took a cab home and went to bed.
So, I'm married. Feels pretty much like it did before we had the papers. Sometimes we talk about going to vegas and getting married by elvis. That was what I orignally wanted to do. I figure if you're going to engage in a farce that you know is a farce because a farce is all you want because the farce carries a lot of weight and smooths over interactions with everyone from bill collectors to landlords to neighbours, it should look like a fucking farce. And being married by elvis...definitely screams campy, flaming farce.
I was going to go out on that note.
But really, part of the reason I wrote this post was because of blogland. When I first came here, looking around and checking out people's blogs, I found a lot of wimmin who defined as feminists. It was bizarre, especially since no one else noticed that a lot of these radical feminists sounded more like hardcore conservative liberals.
It was especially bizarre watching these anti-patriarchal feminists go through their paces talking on one hand about fighting patriarchy and then writing stuff like: "This post is about my engagement. Here's the ring Doug, Dave, Miguel, Sanjiv, Sandeep, Kwame, Ho-chee, Lee, Tchaka, Julio, Diego, Thierry, Phillipe, Cedar gave me." "Here's a picture of us with his parents and my parents at the wedding rehearsal dinner." "My designer, custom made dress is a size eight and I'm a size ten. Diets suck, but a feminist has got to do what a feminist has got to do."
I searched for anti-patriarchal analysis that turned marriage as a dominant and dominating construct and found none. They were serious. They were good with being wedded breeder sows in white.
I found those rainbow signs supporting gay marriage all over blogland: Marriage is love. I searched for radical guerilla analysis and found none. I searched for poly solidarity and demands for marriage to be available for everyone or no one. I searched for campy parodies and found none. Folks were serious about gentrifying their relationships so as to come more in line with heterosexual norms that allow people in cross gendered relationships to dominate queers. We're as "good as" they are.
Let's be clear.
At this point in my life having locked horns with way too many unscrupulous feminists, activists, queers, black folks, organizers in community, I'm presently dead serious about mercilessly accruing privilege...since gathering true, strong alliances at this point seems to be a giant butt crapping bust.
I'm serious about utilizing societal validation of heterosexual, patriarchal, monogamous couplings to safeguard my (unwillingly) nuclear family.
I'm serious about utilizing the trappings of polite society to camouflage my children and my relationship even as I continue to expose and explode the significance of all this through carefully planned and thought through radical childrearing techniques.
I'm serious about navigating through a world that attempts to offer unearned privilege to me and Paps just because he has a dick and I have a twat and we happen to sometimes rub them together and go "Ahhh...fuck, that was good."
That's just plain stoopid. Believing in it, spending thousands of dollars to court it and allowing our wounded little selves to attention feed off it feels sad to me.If I had created the circumstances for such a feed, as if to say: "This is the high point of my existence. This decadent display of insecurity is what I've brought to this planet. This is what I was born to do. This spectacle feeds my core..."...I would wonder why I even bothered to draw breath. I would wonder what exactly I had learned in all these years of self-guided politicized study all these years.
I'm serious about critiquing my relationship with/to Papi and about asking/expecting him to do the same. This running, work in progress critique is the only thing that gives our relationship even a small possibility of surviving in a world where there is no validation for two Black folks, children of the middle passage, children of the diaspora, settled on the wrong land, trying to unpack generations of verbal, emotional, physical abuse and rape bequeathed to us by white slavers who passed it on to our ancestors. Even with a critique of all this, the shite drowns us and our family every fucking day.
A wedding in white would never wash all that clean. Though, I suspect it does white wash away the surface grime for a desperate and simple few, creating a canvas where they can paint on a more pleasing surface seeming..."We just as good as white people," that shifts ab-so-lute-ly nothing about what actually lies beneath.
sigh...
I'm serious about critiquing feminism from the inside out. I'm serious about discussing wimmin's socialized need to be popular, to be validated and to belong even as this socialization oftimes conflicts with what we describe and understand as our radical, revolutionary politics.
I'm serious about cross referencing all things political with overtly discussed and described strategicly practical guerilla maneuvers that allow feminists, activists, shit disturbers to function and resist in plain sight. I'm big time serious about survival by any means necessary.
Hmmm...I think I've written plently for now.
Here comes the blaaaahhh,
Here comes the blaaaahhh,
Here comes the blaaaahhh, with a daaa, daah, ta-DAAAAH!
