Using this Space as My Space

I am watching Ariana Huffington on Charlie Rose. She has points, but her voice kind of makes me zone out. Sorry, Ariana. Had that itch to write, so here we are. I am grappling with my second thesis idea, that of 'Queer Space,' in that I was to articulate my ideas of queer is not isolated to sex, rather, the idea, in the post-lesbian-feminist, post-gay liberation writings, is that queer is that which opposes the norm. Through this opposition, the 'fallacy or normalcy,' if you will, is shown and thus is changed in some way equalizes the disparities in society. Make any sense? Then comes the 'space' part of this idea. Much work has been done in the gay and lesbian literature on the city as creating or harboring spaces used for illicit activities (sex. drugs, violence), long held as the moral decay centers of American society. Rural-ness = wholesomely moral. To me, suburban and rural areas are the ones to be feared, places of isolation, hatred, bigotry, misundertanding, violence behind the picket fence, murder in the bedroom, and all that. I believe this distinction between urban/rural is still being debated, which is one of the reasons I want to explore these topics. At least I think that is why.

Queer Space is thusly those areas of the built environment where those activities labeled 'abnormal' or against the norm reside. Those closets of man-made materials set in the rural areas of the urban - parks, public places, open spaces, and the rural areas in the country - those places in the mountains, the fields and plains where people meet and exchange what a 'majority' would call deviant or against the norm. These spaces are also the spaces of misunderstandings, homophobia, hatred, violence, rape, muggings, and assaults. All of these areas are. Is that what ties them together or is it something else?

Continuing the Conversation

If there is one thing that annoys me the most about the 'academia-Ivory Tower' versus 'common folk/everyday people' debate, it is the ingrained arguement that politics and religion should not be discussed. How many times have I heard this from family and friends? Answer: way too much. It is aggravating to be that voice in the crowd, or at the dinner table, or at the party, that broaches an important, or at least contemporary, issue or story of some relevance and someone says, 'Oh, my mother/father always said, the two things you dont talk about are religion and politics,' to which I respond, what else is there? I do not to hear about American Idol, or Britney Spears, I do not care who was voted off Survivor or what you bought at Pottery Barn last Saturday. This is nothing more than the materialist clogging of American intellectual arteries. We are all suffering from brain failure.

This arguement also leads into another pet-peeve of mine, the importance of unions. At several of my lowly, entry-level jobs I have held, I mentioned the fact that, with a union, we could have greater say the outcome of our work and surroundings. 'Oh no', one middle-aged woman told me. 'Unions are terrible, they make you not work, they tell you what to do,' etc. etc. I really had no idea what a bad name unions had gotten in the last generation, with many afraid of them to the point of getting completely screwed by corporations. Does it not make common sense to unite and stand against capital, which exists only to reproduce itself, not help labor, instead of taking whatever scraps they decide to give us? It boggles the mind!

These two themes are inextricably linked, in my opinion, as the American people are blinded by consumerism and cheap brick-a-brack at the expense of American jobs, then complain that all the companies are leaving. The housing bubble, mortgage crisis, and incredible debt burdens that we all now carry in some form further clog thos arteries of intellectualism, environmentalism, humanitarianism, and self-lessness in general. It is long past time for people to wake up and exercise their minds. Get involved, watch the news, take up an issue, care about something besides your own life-bubble! If you don't, somebody else will and I can guarantee that they could care less about you.