Influential Texts
The texts are influential to my social justice studies by empowering me to connect personal experiences to develop academic ideas.
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After my select bibliography, please peruse what I will be reading for the remainder of 2019!
Leroy Aarons & Mary Griffith, Prayers for Bobby (2009).
Prayers for Bobby depicts the true story of Mary Griffith, who drove her gay son to suicide due to her religious fervor. After learning about his sexuality, she posted bible verses all over the house, took him to conversion therapy, and condemned him to hell. This text is influential for me not because of the all too familiar tragedy of LGBTQ+ suicide, but the mother’s personal transformation from a bigot to an activist. Prayers for Bobby illustrates how tragedy can result in atonement and reconciliation.
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Both mediums of this text were an influential moment in my identity as a queer person. At 13 years old, I stumbled across the film before I came out. I had not yet seen LGBTQ+ people represented in a film. The film illustrated a crucial message I needed to hear: people can change. People who hurt LGBTQ+ can atone and take action. Prayers for Bobby is an important text for parents of LGBTQ+ children and religious communities to recognize that when they spew hatred, a child is listening. As a result, children are internalizing that hatred. This affirmation from Mary Griffith in particular continues to resonate with me:
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“To all the Bobbys and Janes out there, I say these words to you as I would my own precious children: Please don't give up hope on life, or yourselves. You're very special to me, and I'm working very hard to make this life a better and safer place for you to live in. Promise me you'll keep trying. Bobby gave up on love; I hope you won't. You are always in my thoughts.”
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Susan Gluck Mezey, Beyond Marriage: Contining Battles for LGBTQ+ Rights (2017).
Those of us born after 1997 often conflate LGBTQ+ liberation with same-sex marriage. In Beyond Marriage, Susan Gluck Mezey asserts that despite the legalization of same-sex marriage, entrenched disparities remain for members of the LGBTQ+ community. For example, gender identity is not a protected class under most state human rights statues. As a result, transgender people are not equally protected under law. To remedy these issues, she draws attention to strategic litigation and political advocacy. Many people assume that the LGBTQ+ liberation movement was, and continues to be, a single-issue campaign. Gluck identifies issues remaining to be addressed by citing contemporary debates in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. I use this text to remind me the LGBTQ+ liberation movement is far from over.
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University of Minnesota Tretter Collection, Transgender Oral History Project (2016).
Oral history is crucial for LGBTQ+ people. As a result of centuries of erasure, violence, and silence, LGBTQ+ history is not discussed in many texts. Oral history allows queer people to share their stories on their terms. A transformative text was discovering the Transgender Oral History Project through the University of Minnesota Tretter Collection. This project empowers people to share their stories, and provide primary sources about transgender people. This collection is an influential text for me because it reminds me how queer history is not only stories from iconic activists, but can be found in the everyday experiences of queer people. This text empowers me to serve members of my community to help cultivate their voices to self-advocate for the changes they wish to see in the world.
Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (2011).
Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure explore how failure is associated with the individual, rather than looking at the broader social context which is perfectly designed to punish those who deviate from the norm. LGBTQ+ students are often harassed by fellow students and school staff, resulting in poor academic performance, more egregiously known as “failure.” Halberstam examines heteronormative, capitalist, and academic conceptions of failure, and uses queer theory to demolish these ways of thinking. Queer theory argues that rigid understandings (e.g. a binary view of straight and gay) of social behaviors do not accurately represent different attitudes, behaviors, or conditions. Rather than relying on a binary view of “success” and “failure”, Halberstram reconceptualized how “failure” may produce alternatives to the status quo. Halberstram hilariously uses Spongebob Squarepants, Finding Nemo, and other animated features to teach people about queer theory to redefine how we understand failure. As a person who is not only queer, but has failed many times, this text has been vindicating, and useful in understanding queer theory.
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice & Redemption (2014).
The United State’s criminal justice system is rooted in a retributive conception of justice. With the rise of the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration continues to devastate communities of color. The criminal justice system is a breeding ground for injustice. In his memoir, Stevenson discusses his journey as an activist lawyer, and how his conception of justice transformed following his work representing black men on death row. By recounting his journey establishing the Equal Justice Project, Stevenson’s journey reminds me of the resilience, compassion, and determination it requires to advance social change through legal avenues. Stevenson’s journey reminded the importance of advocacy and public outreach. I am motivated by his story, and aim to establish a community research and organizing center to transform the civil justice system to be more equitable and accessible. Just Mercy reminds me of the crucial intersection of activism and the law, and that laws cannot be established without being aware of the social contexts they exist in.
Johnston McMaster, Ethical Remembering: Commemoration in a New Context (2001).
This was one of the first readings I was assigned while studying at Ulster University’s International Conflict Research Institute in Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This text established my interest in conflict transformation and the role of commemoration in social change. McMaster asserts that interpretations of history are remembered. Consequently, commemoration is not determined by past facts but present needs due to ideological filtering of historical events resulting in a culture of silence. McMaster proposes that in order to overcome this silence, ethical remembering must be employed, which can be achieved by critically evaluating motives, action, policies, and consequences. This piece reminds me of the importance of approaching history from a critical lens, rather than overlooking voices that were lost, persecuted, or silenced. Ethical remembering allows an avenue for members of a community to heal the past while building a peaceful future.