This question of judgement continues to occupy me. This could easily be the legal variety of judging, one where an authority – a judge, a police officer – determines whether a person breaks a law or causes harm to their surroundings. Someone with a high level of authority can determine how long a prison sentence lasts, how high of a fine to pay or how long a person must spend to determine the system that they have reformed.
The concept of fairness and equality within a capitalist system has always been cracked, a sham, a goal that will never remain at an equilibrium. Capitalism depends on the haves in relation to the have nots. This is not a new trope, a new idea.
With the advent of social media and rapid reporting over the past decade, people and corporations continue to reshape the dogma that everyone get a fair chance towards wealth, health and access to information. There is no fairness, and the 1% is not going to part with their wealth without a major public relations campaign announcing their inherent goodness for donating $1 million to ending childhood poverty.
It still exists.
***
An idealists ideal would be to soften judgment, to understand the relativism and messiness with people’s decision making process. This softening of judgment leads to detaching from emotional responses and judgments, and understanding that most people don’t act with all too much intent.
Yet judgment persists, and it doesn’t escape. Intentionality, thinking before speaking, and always remaining aware that words offend works for some people, those who only want to converse with their kind, or even those who don’t want to be reminded of how terrible people can be.
**
What happens when intentionality means not speaking to someone because they don’t fit your idea of normalcy? I perhaps have experienced this more from my own identity groups than I have from society as a whole.
As I muse my desire to lack judgment, I look back to experiences I had clinging heavily to a queer identity right after graduate school a few years ago. Disgusted with binaries, I sought people who also wrote off cisgender straight people who worked too normal of a job, who were artistic in the right way, or who liked urban farming. I didn’t want to befriend anyone who wanted to participate in civil society, so to speak.
I had just moved to Atlanta from New York. Living in NYC, I had to participate in society in order to pay rent. In Atlanta, the cost of living was cheap enough to work a couple of part time jobs and pursue other projects. Perfecto! I could work part-time, pay cheap rent and pursue my artistic projects.
Given that I had just moved from NYC after a decade of living there to Atlanta, I figured that finding people who shared my identity learnings would make for friendships via close confessionals and fun dancing.
It worked at times. I enjoyed the communal bonfires, the dance parties and brunches. But most of the time, my clinging to an identity felt isolating. I felt like others had more authentic experiences with being queer than I did – after all, I dated both male and female identified people across many spectrums. A connection is a connection, right?
I did not enjoy the cuddle puddles, the incestuous nature of everyone sleeping with each other (I don’t kiss and tell, ever), and the utter feeling of not being connected to many people because I didn’t like to be touched by people I didn’t know well. At times, I felt like I had to watch what I said, hide my thoughts and feelings and conform to some other group’s idea of queer. I stayed quiet, hating that I didn’t flirt, sad that I was perceived as too straight, sad that the confessionals and dance parties happened with so few people.
In reality, most of the people I met in Atlanta utilized their identity to connect with people, whereas in New York, identity was not tracked, and documented for its authenticity. Who the heck had time for that? No one.
Or maybe I did that because very few people asked me. My introverted, monogomy desiring self scared people away, as if I was a carnivores plant.. Polyamory isn’t for me – I just get overstimulated by in-depth bodily intimacy with too many people that I don’t know all that well. I don’t want people to talk about how good I am – or how terrible I am – in bed. I don’t want my body up for discussion. I like to get to know people before I sleep with them, at least some one-on-one time. And just because I spend one-on-one time with someone doesn’t mean I want to sleep with them.
For me, clinging to that identity didn’t make me feel any more connected to people. As someone who is cisgendered, I carry an enormous amount of privilege, despite any leanings I have towards loving anyone, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.
I also look like a women, even though I have an ambivalent relationship with expressing myself in an overly girly way. Yet I still wear dresses, have a mustache most of the time and got irritated by wearing a bra.
I have set my queer identity free over the past few years. And guess what? I am still queer, a wierdo, annoyed by people who mindlessly consume culture without contributing to it in some way. Now I moisturize, wear a bra regularly, and I have a partner that I love dearly and who also likes monogamy.
Also, I am somehow less hard on people who don’t fall under the LGBTQIA umbrella. I would rather have that kindness and gently roll my eyes at some of the ill-informed yet well-meaning assumptions straight and cisgendered people make rather than walk into a room full of judgey queers. Let’s save that judgment for those who even bother to hate others based on their identity.
Connective Cube 