Stories As Non-Violence

My Letter to the Editor/The Nation

In an article in The Nation, author Richard Kim suggests that people who wish to fight for equal rights for GLBT people (and others), we "weaponize" our stories. He uses the story of Jose Antonio Vargas to prove his point. But I think he missed the point. Here's his article.

Here is the letter I just submitted to The Nation in response (I'll let you know if it gets published):

One of the most difficult things to see when you're not looking for it is an act of non-violence. We think of it always as something showing in the face of violence, as an act against violence. But sometimes that act is in words. So I understand how Richard Kim missed the act of non-violence Jose Antonio Vargas committed when he wrote his June 22nd New York Times article coming out as an undocumented immigrant (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html).

Kim shows his lack of understanding when he suggests that GLBT people and others tell their stories and say "Are you with us, or against us?" He suggests that New York organizers did the same and said through their stories "you’re either with me, or you’re with the haters—but you can’t have it both ways."

The power of Vargas's story isn't that it is a weapon, that it divides people into haters and supporters. Its power comes from his act of laying himself bare in front of the American people, making himself vulnerable to the very thing he was afraid of: deportation from a country and people he loves. He didn't do it so that he would get deported, but so that he could show the injustice of the system. This is exactly how non-violence worked in the Civil Rights movement of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. People put themselves in harms way at lunch counters and on freedom buses to expose the injustice of the oppression. Their actions invited compassion, and did not divide people into camps that they did not choose for themselves. Never does Vargas say or even imply that his readers either be with him or against him. He says "Here's my neck. Cut it if you can. Now reflect on that."

I refuse to use my stories as weapons against neighbors and friends who are not sure how they are going to vote on the Minnesota marriage amendment in 2012. They deserve to have my compassion as they tell me they're not sure. But I'm going to tell them my stories, hopefully to lay bare the injustice. Not to impugn them but to fault the system we all inherited and want to make right.