(Cross-posted at My Left Wing and ePluribus Media)I've had something that has been nudging at the back of my mind for about a month now and I think it's time that I bite the bullet and write it out for the whole world (or at least DailyKos) to see.
What follows is an intensely personal story - one that I have shared with only a handful of incredibly important people in my life - and a kind of revelation I had about why and how it drives my politics and parallels to political things I see today.
The favor of your attention is most humbly requested after the jump.
This is me.
It was taken at a wedding that I attended last Saturday, June 24, so it's very recent. I am 38 years old, and will turn 39 in August. I think I'm pretty normal as far as women go. I watch my diet and exercise and have looked essentially the same (hair color nothwithstanding!) for the past decade or so.
But this is not who I was, especially not in high school, and it is in high school that my personal story takes place.
I'll ask you to think back to your own high school experience and remember those kids who just didn't quite "fit". Sometimes the reasons the were obvious - they were socially inhibited - they were ultra-geeks - they were outstanding but essentially non-social academic achievers - the reasons for a lack of "fit" are myriad and I'm sure that many here can tell a story about themselves or someone they knew and cared about and how and why they didn't fit.
That was pretty much me. I was all wrong from a high school perspective. To begin with, through junior high and high school, I was either "thick" or seriously overweight. My 5'9" frame carried an average low weight of 150lbs. and a high weight of 192lbs. But that wasn't a reason for my lack of fit. Many of us know kids who DO fit with others who don't have perfect bodies. I also had really bad hair, I never wore the right clothes, and, before the braces I had buck teeth, and during the braces I had really SHINY buck teeth.
Hopefully you're getting a mental image of either yourself or someone you knew in high school who just missed the mark. This, in and of itself, is not tragic. Now take that picture and add a very mature and vociferous personality but one that was definitely volatile. In other words, picture a kid who could be made upset and visibly so. The kids who didn't fit existed somewhere in the subtext of the popular high school experience, neither popular nor unpopular. The kid that I was though - the one who stood out in her differentness for a variety of reasons - that kid is always the target of those who inflict harm and hurt.
I'll illustrate with a story - just one, because I think somehow it will be enough.
My mother had the opposite high school experience from mine. She was popular, a good student, and a cheerleader. Growing up, I would hear all the fun stories about being a cheerleader and all the fun cheerleaders had together. The holy grail of acceptance then, for me, became being a cheerleader. I tried out for Freshman cheerleading at the end of 8th grade and didn't make it. Not surprising, actually, as I had not practiced nor put any effort into preparing for the try-out. Throughout my Freshman year, though, I did practice. I worked hard at it. I had set my sights on this and had identified the mistakes I had made the first time I tried out and did things to correct those errors. At the end of 9th grade, I tried out for junior varsity (JV) cheerleading. I thought I did well - I know I had invested the effort and I felt good about what I had done. I had to wait an agonizing full school day before they posted the roster of the new JV cheerleading squad. I thought the day would never end - I kept checking the freshman locker room (where they posted the results) and checking them and time dragged and just when I thought I would expire from suspense, they posted the list.
My name was on it. I had made it.
I literally floated home. I called my parents (who both worked). I called my grandparents. I told my neighbors - anyone who would listen. We talked about it nonstop through dinner and the remainder of the evening. I went to bed that night secure in the knowledge that things would now change for me - that high school would now be different. No more verbal jabs, no more put-downs. I was a cheerleader and, with the others cheerleaders who were already reasonably popular, I had earned freedom from being the butt of every joke.
Boy was I wrong. And this is the hard part for me to tell - REALLY hard. It's still so raw, even 20+ years after-the-fact, and I still find it embarrassing to a certain extent, but here goes.
When I came to school the next day, I immediately went to the poster board where the names were posted for the cheerleading squad. It was kind of like a visual version of pinching myself - I had to see my name there again to ensure that it wasn't just some kind of freaky dream. My name was there, all right. And immediately below it was a piece of paper with this headline:
Petition to get Rena Ray off the cheerleading squad
Below that were a host of signatures. I was - stunned. My blood rushed to my head and I got that weird kind of out-of-body feeling when you know what you're seeing and experiencing is real but you haven't quite accepted its truth just yet. I remember walking to my locker with my mind racing, looking around to see if the other kids were watching to see my reaction. I don't know how I dialed the combination to my locker - but somehow I did. When I opened it, it was filled with garbage from the cafeteria. Yesterday's food garbage, piled on top of all my books and notebooks. As a bonus, one or more of the perpetraters had emptied the Skoal in their mouths onto the top of the pile.
It got worse from there. I don't remember or know how I got through that particular day. I took a lot of incredibly awful and mean taunting from the boys, all members of the football team. Thankfully, summer vacation came only about a week after.
A month before school started, cheerleading practice began. And yes - I had rightfully made the squad and I showed up (with some level of surprise) to that first practice and every other one that followed. I had routines to learn, and I think way deep down inside my I hoped that the summer break would ameliorate the horrible, hateful treatment I had received. Right before the school year officially started, we were issues our uniforms. I swear to all of you - putting that on and looking at myself in the mirror with the uniform, the pom-pomps, the clean white sneakers with the blue and green Nike swoosh - was one of the proudest moments of my life.
The first week of school we had a pep rally planned, to kick off the new football season and to generally get students back into the swing of being back in school. All the cheerleading squads participated - the varisty squad on the side of the auditorium with the upper classmen, and the freshman and JV squads on the side with the under classmen. We were to be generally peppy and cheerleader-ish, doing a cheer to open the rally and then breaking into the school's fight song. Throughout the whole time that we were performing, I was booed. I'd hear the boys yelling that they wouldn't play if I was a cheerleader; why didn't I just quit; things like that. You can close your eyes, I'm sure, and remember a moment like this whether you were the target or merely a witness. It was really, really awful and terribly demoralizing.
Ok - so my sob story is complete. If you'll allow me a digression for a moment, I thought of all of this because I ran into a girl with whom I went to high school in Target the other day. I hadn't seen her for 20 years. While she wasn't a prime perpetrator of my teenage torture, she was part of that whole crowd and stood by silent throughout my humiliation. We had a nice conversation in the Target - she looked great, I looked great; we caught up, etc. Not a hint of weirdness was present in our entire exchange, and that was fine with me.
I don't remember exactly what it was I saw on the news that caused me to think about her, about the specifics of my high school experience, and the sudden and obvious parallel that occurred to me between what I experienced first-hand and what I see going on in politics today - I think it was a winger on CNN's situation room talking about flag burning and gay marriage.
And it struck me. These people who made it their mission in life to torment me in high school are exactly like the people who want to incite hate against the gay community for their own personal gain. In high school, it was less about torturing me than it was about stepping on me to elevate themselves. This whole gay marriage issue - it's not about gay marriage. It's about identifying and singling out a group of people who, whether fairly or unfairly, are an easy target and stepping on their backs to climb up and win. It's so... juvenile.
I imagine today that the people who think it's ok to fan the flames of discrimination against the gay community are the same ones, mentally speaking, who thought it was ok to push me within an inch of suicide to make themselves look better. They are the same people who think that rights are relative; that torture is fine in the name of "security"; that indefinite detention is perfectly fine for the sake of "safety"; that decency is for losers. This is what we are fighting politically - that mentality. I know it well because I was very personally victimized by it a way that literally changed my life. It wasn't politics (at the time) as we think of them today - but it was politics in its own right.
I've seen a few of the worst offenders from my past recently. I've even talked to them. They are living their lives with spouses and drama and children and divorces just like the rest of us. They tell stories of jobs and sometimes college, experiences that occurred in a realm outside of high school. Once out of that bubble, they started to live their lives. Perhaps they got ahead by stepping on those around them - I don't know - but I know that I came through that whole experience with my integrity intact and with an inner strength that, without the torment, would not be there. I am positive of that. These people gave something to me even as they tried to take things away from me. It took me years to be able to see that, and years more to be able to talk about it.
One final note in conclusion: I didn't quit the cheerleading squad. I stood there and I took it and knew that quitting would be the wrong thing to do. They may have won in that short-term world that was high school - they certainly succeeded in driving me to the very edge - but I won overall. Because there are more of ME out here in the world than there are of THEM. And I would leave you with this - there are more of US, those who believe in some fundamental values and principles that simply cannot be compromised, than there are of THEM who believe that everything is negotiable. It doesn't feel like that right now - but that's just because we are going through a period of time that is incredibly comarable to my time in high school. We're in a bubble of badness. But I know from experience that it won't break us and it won't last forever.
Hang in there.