#they ABSOLUTELY dealt with just as much oppression as gay men did it just looked different

[timeisacephalopod]

That whole James somerton thing has been real interesting to me because I had never seen his "work" but I do find it baffling that anyone could listen to a white guy claim lesbians faced basically no backlash for their sexuality and that straight women have no idea what it was like to be treated as objects or a "purse" as he put it on account of that certainly isnt a White Gay man Only event. In fact women have several words for the way they're views as objects for men's pleasure, not that somerton would know anything about that in part because he never did any actual reading during his "research." But it does hearten me to know if I had come across his "work" I would have clocked it as shit because I know more about the subjects he talks about than he does and anyone who has no idea how shit lesbians were treated has no business speaking up on queer politics, especially when they're just going to use misogyny to play the victim like an instrument.

Hilarious that within 3 days of hbombs vid he bagged himself up and took himself out to the curb to be collected by the garbage people by nuking his entire channel though, that's very funny. (I mention a case about Little Sisters Bookstore in the tags, turns out I got the name right, that's what the link below is if you'd like to read Canada's supreme Courts website on the case!)

[cezulian]

I'm still trying to figure out how to handle slavery and racism in this John Laurens book I'm doing. Because the thing is, I'm writing this book to represent a man in history who was a homosexual with internalized homophobia living in an age where people were regularly subjected to harsh and terrible punishment for such a thing, ranging from abuse and humiliation at the hands of the public in the pillory to a long prison sentence to execution (Thomas Jefferson, local asshole, was even trying to institute castration as a punishment for homosexuality when it was possible at least. No one cared about women or what they did in private at the time because of course). The point of it is to examine the search for identity in the age of enlightenment that many soldiers of the revolution dealt with, the nature of the Revolutionary War as not an act of revolution itself but an unfortunate product of it, the dangers of stunted under-evolved attitudes towards things such as homosexuality despite the enlightenments willingness to acknowledge it openly as an aspect of classical mythology/history that is portrayed in a positive or otherwise neutral light in the works they so admired, the idea of heroism vs. the dark reality of trying to achieve it, and that absolute heroism, IE being able to save absolutely every poor soul one comes across, is an unrealistic concept in most circumstances because there will always be an institution that is bigger than us in every respect who are actively working against us. John Laurens was very, very, very against slavery and racism and its a factor of his personality that is extremely important because he was a white man from South Carolina whose father was one of the biggest slave traders in the 13 colonies, and in a time where your father's approval of you as a person was based on your ability to imitate him as closely as possible, and for a person whose entire sense of self-worth hinged on his father's approval for most of his life, this distinction of belief was and is a very big deal. The problem is that I cannot, in good conscience, portray Laurens's anti-slavery/anti-racism sentiments in any way I can think of because I do not want black people to be once again pushed to the background of a historical narrative about the white man trying to save them. Its a disgusting and horrible trope that needs to disappear in all fiction, and the fact that this is not fiction but rather an in-between form of storytelling does not change a thing. Laurens himself did not have a white savior complex, although I believe its apparent in a lot of his correspondence that he did experience some serious white guilt, but his reasoning seemed to ultimately boil down to his strong sense of justice and equality. I do not want to erase this part of his life, because the point of it is to portray historical events that are already erased from history and to erase part of history while preaching about not erasing parts of history is just hypocritical storytelling (take notes, "Hamilton"). But at the same time, any and all mention of slavery in the narrative would be by a more privileged third party who actually benefits from the institution and as a black woman, a writer, a history nerd, and what I consider a generally decent-minded person, I refuse to do that to these very real people in history who suffered very real atrocities every single day for YEARS while I continue to prattle on about this rich southern white man who looked out his window at the black men and women tilling away at the fields from the comfort of his plantation estate bedroom and said "That troubles me". But then again, I have no idea what else to do because it WAS such a big deal in his life and a large contributing factor to his establishing an identity. He went to congress several times during his life to try and rally support from higher-ups to give slaves the chance to fight in the war and in exchange they will receive a country worth fighting for, AKA, their freedom and the freedom of their families (which, trust me, I know didn't assure any slave of being able to find work as a free person especially in the south and absolutely did not guarantee them smooth sailing and stability from then on were it to happen. I mean, 200+ years later and we're still fuckin workin on that). In the end, nothing he proposed went through and his final thoughts on the matter before dying (killing himself) were basically "I am beyond pissed that I can't do anything but I'm not suffering nearly as much as the slaves are and that is bullshit because everyone should do their own work like back in the fuckin day and no one should benefit off of the suffering of others but here I am fetishizing how my own helplessness pales in comparison to that of others who I promise you are not saying 'poor white people who feel bad because our lives are harder than theirs'. Unfortunately I think the only thing I can do at this point is make sure that any slave my dad hands over to me is treated kindly and respectfully because others would most definitely treat them horribly and being not horrible is apparently the most I can do. Guilt consumes me, I hate myself, fuck the government, I'm a puppet in someone else's show no matter how hard I try." The common excuse given by those who create "white savior" type characters or storylines is often something like "well oppressed groups can never be heard on their own and sometimes it takes a privileged person in a position of power who believes in them to get their message on the right track" and frankly, that's just bullshit and its lazy writing and all it does is make the message of the piece come off as "#NotAllWhitePeople" instead of the much more desired "look at the accomplishments of these POC against all odds". I don't want a #NotAllWhitePeople narrative, especially when most of the damn thing is about LGBT issues and erasure as well as the deeply flawed societal construct of masculinity! And classism! And mental illness! And when is mental illness an excuse for shitty behavior and when is it not! And emotional abuse! And the horrors of war! And idealism of self! And the interesting, complex philosophies of those subjects in the 18th century all over the world during a time where the world was changing and changing fast and in such a way where every single person was affected by it! I don't want to write about the racism of that time because I cannot for the life of me think of a way to portray it with the immense weight with which it no doubt existed and continues to exist on the shoulders of a nation built by those it oppresses, but I don't want to not write about it out of respect for the very people affected by it and out of respect for myself as a WOC who would not even be able to write about ANYTHING if it weren't for all that my ancestors suffered, and out of respect for historical accuracy as a whole! And honestly, I usually try and keep race and LGBT issues separate from one another when I go on about one or the other unless I'm talking about the white LGBT community thinking it can adopt certain colloquialisms of ebonics because they perceive themselves as being oppressed in the exact same way or if I'm talking about how same-sex relationships between black men or black women get omitted from fiction or media representation because the black community often has some kind of issue with not equating especially the former type of LGBT relationship/identity with weakness, whiteness, or a general rejection of one's blackness. But this is a point where the two are forced to overlap one way or another and in such a way where I cannot edit it till it represents both with absolute equality because its all based on very real events. In fact, if John Laurens hadn't been a real person in history at all and I could write this book as 100% historical fiction, I'd probably write it with the same themes an ideas but with a black male main character dealing with his homosexuality or bisexuality at a time when the aforesaid perception of such a thing was viewed as weakness, heightened by the fact that he and people like him were made to feel weak every day of their lives. But the reason I'm writing about John Laurens is that I am drawn to his story and the fact that it was all real, and I am profoundly disappointed in how he has been portrayed in what little works we have about him, whether it be in biographies where even the idea that he was gay is fervently denied and all those who think otherwise of him condescended to with the exigency of establishing a law, a frenetically romantic and saccharine sweet fiction of his life written with obvious passion but a lack of substance and accuracy, or in a broadway musical where his identity as an LGBT person and desperate denial of that identity all while being in a same-sex relationship with the main character who was a very positive and consistently validating force in his life who despite being essentially the only significant relationship of that nature present in his life was a constant source of self-doubt for him and a major player in his eventual suicide (which would have only served to further enforce the theme of the musical being that the main character had experienced so much death in his life and all of people who were extremely important to him as well as the theme of telling the story of history we so often gloss over had the storyline actually been explored) is under-utilized and instead chooses to examine a totally unnecessary apocryphal hyperbolic fiction of a heterosexual romantic subplot that didn't even happen the way its portrayed, means nothing to anyone, adds nothing to the theme of the show except that which could have easily been represented by a distinct lack of such a subplot, and ultimately disappears by act 2 without reaching any semblance of a, pardon the pun, "satisfying" resolution which it could be argued was the point but again a point that could have been easily characterized by a character who was dead before the closing number of act 1. I desperately, DESPERATELY want his story to be told, and I feel that a great many people could benefit from it, especially since internalized homophobia is a frequently ignored or barely touched upon aspect of LGBT literature and LGBT people, especially LGBT youth, need to be told that hey you are not the only people like them who have ever felt this way because here is a super real person from before your great grandparents were even born who is widely considered a war hero and was a major player in the forming of an entire nation but was just as afraid of himself as you are and was unfortunately brought down by a society with negative ideas not so unlike the society with the same or similar kinds of ideas that challenge you on a lifestyle that is none of their business, but if he managed to achieve greatness to the point of still being talked about 200+ years later despite the limitations placed on him by the commonplace regression of human thought experienced by his contemporaries who favored preserving certain outdated conservative ideas of absolute compliance in spite of one's natural inclinations over compassion in an age where compassion, free discussion of ideas, and as much philosophical variance one could possibly live in accordance to without becoming wishy-washy were considered the level of excellence which all human beings could aspire to embody, imagine what greatness and level of excellence you can acquire and personify, all the things you can achieve today in an imperfect but highly evolved age where your generation is only becoming more and more eager to offset intolerance and bigotry with the pursuit of better understanding, where now more than ever do people like you have a voice and now more than ever are others willing to fight for you if that voice is attempted to be silenced by the adamantly hateful, the world is just as hungry for justice and change as it was at the dawn of the Revolution its extraordinary and so are you and so, so many people believe in you. But the same amount of black youth need to be told that their greatness is not inevitably hinged on someone born into greater privilege than them in the eyes of society stepping in and denying them individual agency over their own advancement out of what may or may not be good intentions on their part, and that with great ambition comes an even greater struggle when you are viewed as less-than, but you do not need to wait on someone with a better standing in the eyes of your oppressors to clear the road ahead because if you truly aim to reach the peak of your achievements then you already possess the strength it takes to overcome the initial and unfortunately ever-constant obstacle of the real less-thans considering your self-aware knowledge of what you know you are capable of attaining in your life not worth their effort. Black youth need to be assured that they are enough for themselves. Anyways, all ADD ravings aside, this is honestly the only thing holding me back from not sitting tge fuck down and just WRITING the damn thing. I've for real got rough drafts of like 60% of the non-racial narrative and 0% of the racial narrative because all I can think of are wrong ways to go about this. If you somehow managed to read this whole thing and think you can help, PLEASE do. I'm clearly going to have to do more research on how to write about a white person fighting against racism without making it seem like a big huge self-righteous "UMMM YOU'RE WELCOME" from white folks to black folks, and especially learn how to do so without feeling like I'm betraying my roots to the point of my great great great great great granddaddy's ghost waiting for me in my dreams to ream me the fuck out. And I'm literally losing sleep over this dilemma too so I'd better get my shit together.