Last night I was privileged to attend a speech Lt. Dan Choi presented at Texas A&M University to students, faculty, staff and the public on the topic of Truth or Consequences of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and sponsored by the the GLBT student resource center at Texas A&M.
Choi defiantly declared in his speech
I am still standing. I am still speaking up. I am still telling the truth about who I am. I am still proud of who I am. I am still speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. And let there be no doubt, I AM STILL GAY.
Choi opened his speech with the standard aggie greeting of "Howdy," instinctively followed by a "Howdy" response from any aggie within earshot. He explained he'd been told to start off by doing three things when he came to Texas A&M, "Say hi in the form of 'howdy,' say something about how big Texas is (followed with an instinctive aggie "whoop") and say beat UT-Austin (followed by another more boisterous "whoop" from the crowd)." Now being a University of Texas alum and ardent Longhorn, I tend to avoid being surrounded by whooping aggies, especially in College Station. When in such situations I always think of the statement Henry Jones, Sr makes to Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the two are watching Nazis at a rally in Berlin: "We are pilgrims in an unholy land." Thankfully this was a gathering of friends, and all collegial joking aside, I was quite glad to have the opportunity to hear Lt. Choi speak about Don't Ask Don't Tell and his assessment on its repeal and advancement of GLBT equality in general.
I was very impressed with Choi. His intellect, charisma, his ability to speak extemporaneously, or at least without a script and hold a crowd was impressive. He was able to weave his speech together setting up themes and anecdotes that would tie everything together. I'll also say if he does get discharged and is never again able to serve in the armed forces, he could have a future in stand up comedy if he wanted because he has a sense of humor and the level of presentation to succeed. But then I am convinced he could succeed at anything he puts his mind to.
Choi recalled a day when he and his unit were in a humvee in south Baghdad and they started to hear what they initially thought was a call to prayer from the minaret of the mosque. Choi's gunner tapped him on the shoulder, dismayed that what they heard though was quite different than the call to prayers. It wasn't a call to prayer, it was a Shia political speech. Choi and his unit didn't even know it was a Shia area, but thanks to Choi's skill and training in Arabic, he was able to understand the speech, know it was a Shia speak and his unit could adjust accordingly.
But the deeper meaning behind the speech being delivered by loud speaker from the minaret resonated with Choi. He explained that for decades, perhaps centuries in the area,
Nobody would ever proclaim who they are, especially if they are Shia. See they were discriminated against throughout their entire existence. They were called heretics. They were called less than, and worse than infidels. They were going to go to hell because of who they are and what they believe about themselves. It was so rampant, that discrimination, that some of the Shia leaders, these Ayatollahs and these tribal leaders, informed and trained their people. They say, 'I know you're Shia and we're proud of who we are but if its ever a condition where you are threatened with your life or you might lose your job, or for the sake of political expediency, when it is comfortable for you, you can lie about who you are. You don't have to say you are Shia. God will forgive you. Better that you live, that you survive, that you prosper than to admit that.' God will be OK with this...
For me, when I was in Iraq, our mission was very simple. One of the parts of our mission was to increase the ability of the Iraqi people to have their own government. So while we were here preaching about democracy, transparency, equal rights for all groups in Iraq, whether you're Shia or Sunni, I couldn't help but feel like such a hypocrite because I was hiding something deep down inside myself. I could talk about democracy and transparency and being proud of who you are, but I was hiding. I could die at any moment in the triangle of death. I was hiding something. We could have been blown up at any second by a road side bomb or an RPG, but I was hiding something. Sharing intimate details with the people on my left and my right, men and women, but I was hiding something deep down inside. When I would go infront of these tribal leaders, and they would love to see this Asian guy...speaking Arabic. Once they got over the fact they thought I was a spy for North Korea, they'd say 'wow, this guy can speak some Arabic.'
I wanted to share with them their own cultural message: The most famous poem in all the Middle East and all of North Africa, written by al-Mutanabbi. (reciting poem in Arabic, then translating into English) 'The horse and the night and the sands of the desert, they know who I am. They know me. The sword and the spear, the pen and scroll, they know who I am. They know me. I am the one that can make the blind to read my poetry. I am the one that can make the deaf to hear my prose. They know me.' There is no reason to be ashamed because that poem was a great poem of identity. Never be ashamed of who you are. They know you. Never hide. But I had to hide.
Choi then spoke about the effects of what Don't Ask, Don't Tell forces on not just the soldiers who cannot disclose their orientation, but the far reaching effects of the policy.
Now I could talk to you about all these things about Don't Ask, Don't Tell that are so pernicious and are so anti-American and recite all the statistics: 13,500 that have beee kicked out, 800 mission critical. $1.3 billion we've spent just on the process of kicking people out for telling the truth. Four thousand people quit every year. Every year they quit because they can't handle lying anymore. I am one of 60 Arabic and Farsi linguists that have to go through that kind of a Don't Ask, Don't Tell discharge. We can talk about how it hurts us in our national security. We can talk about how it hurts us in our taxes. We can talk about everything that is bad about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. We can talk about all our NATO allies we're serving with right now in Afghanistan and Iraq. They don't have Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It is a shame that our country has that right now. We don't have to go to all those countries. We can go to our own country. Talk about the Secret Service or the CIA or the FBI or the State Department. They don't have any of these. They have all the same kinds of requirements that we do in the military, to serve their country, just like Israel does, like Canada does, just like Australia and Great Britain do.
I don't want to talk about that. For me, that misses the point. The worst thing about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the most devastating thing about Don't Ask, Don't Tell is it is the only law right now in this country that enforces the closet. It enforces shame. It enforces hiding. In this day and age, in 2010 it is the only remaining law that does that. And that is what is so shameful about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It doesn't end there because when your talking about the individual shame and the individual burden, it can be very exacting and very heavy.
But beyond that, you have to think what does Don't Ask, Don't Tell do, particularly to partners. Because right now, tonight, there is a gay or lesbian partner whose worried sick about their deployed soldier overseas. They don't know if they are going to get that phone call tonight. They have been getting that phone call or email to know they are OK, but if they don't get that phone call tonight, than what do they think? Is my loved one going to die. And if they do die, they won't be notified. They won't get that phone call. They won't get that respect, that common courtesy. They'll have to hear about it on TV or on the radio. It does not stop there, because what does it mean when the flag draped coffin comes back from overseas. What does that mean when we see those images? And a general takes the folded flag and on bended knee and give it to that partner and says 'On behalf of a grateful nation, we honor and respect you and your service member for all of their sacrifice. We honor that. We're grateful for that.' So what does that mean when that does not happen? That is the message? The message is absolutely clear. Even though you were there for this soldier, supported this soldier and helped this soldier and helped this soldier to grow, we don't care who you are. It not just the solder who has to live in shame, but it is the partner has to live in non-existence. Even though all the sacrifices you have made for your soldier, we don't care because to us, you don't get dignity. Your first name is faggot. Your middle name is cocksucker. Four first name is dyke. Your middle name is bitch. And the message is very clear: Faggot, fuck you. We're not grateful for who the fuck you are. That dignity, its not there for you. and the commitment of the Veterans Affairs to take care of the families of those who sacrifice for our country doesn't extend to you. We don't care about sacrifices you've made.
And it doesn't end there. We've got to be real clear about this. I can talk about 13,500 soldier who have been kicked out and call them the victims and even talk about their families and talk about the injustices that are exacted upon the gay community, but who are the real victims of Don't Ask, Don't Tell? When I talk about 13,500 people who've been kicked out of the military, you've got to realize, that's 13,500 units, military units full of straight people who are the victims. Because they are going to war with one less doctor, with one less combat medic, with one less Arabic of Farsi linguist, with one less pilot. We talk about going to war without the full armor, that this should be important. You talk about supporting our troops and allowing them to have every resource that we can and must provide in a time of war. We talk about supporting our troops and you have Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell enforces shame and paralysis on the straight soldiers as evidenced today, they are afraid talk and consider the issue. They have to hide their view. They don't even know that this kind of injustice is happening in our country because they're afraid to even talk about it. They're uncomfortable. They hide behind the closet of homophobia because they believe if they talk about it or let their true feelings out they're going to be gay. That fear and that shame. It is weakening our entire country and look at what you see.
What are we telling our soldiers. Wait for one year. Don't make any comments about this. We don't need to think about it. Wait for a year while we study it because we are all in this older generation and we have the wisdom and we don't know what gay people are about, but even though you might, we are the one that are going to study it. And in that entire year, four hundred, five hundred, maybe even a thousand soldiers are going to get kicked out of your units and you're not allowed to say a damn thing about it.
You see the evidence today. I believe the commandant of the corp of cadets here at Texas A&M was invited four or five times explicitly to hear of the injustice of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. No response. Silence. Shame. Confusion. Maybe he didn't know what he could do in the bounds of all this, because its a political issue. "Maybe my solution is just to hide from the truth" And so he is not here. So so many people don't attend. But what I've learned in my training, particularly training for when we went to war, is that a leader stands up for those people below him. And if there is some kind of injustice the leader who is respected the most is the one most expected to stands up. He's not afraid to understand the full ramifications of the injustice. Shame on any leader who for the sake of comfort or their own political expediency, like the Shia are taught, feel as it is more important in their duty as a leader to hide from an issue they think is controversial. Where are you? And what do you stand for? ...I think is it absolutely critical for people to understand if you're going to be a leader to know the injustice that exists in your own country. What does that say? What is the message we are sending other countries about democracy, and equality and protecting what's yours and what is in your own communities and neighborhoods? You buying into some kind of theory that you shouldn't talk about it because you don't know where your bounds might be.
Choi continued by telling the story of why and how he finally came out to his parents, first his mother and then his father. It was at this point that Choi introduced much hilarity into the presentation, talking about his mother's desire for not just grandchildren, but Korean grandchildren that Dan would have with his Korean wife. The pain of his lie of omission about his sexuality finally compelled him to tell her the truth about himself. Having grown up in a Southern Baptist tradition (yes, Southern Baptist...this was a source of some of the comedy. His father is a Baptist minister) he had been taught to pray to God to deliver him from his sins and that he had tried to "pray the gay away" and said, laughingly, it didn't work even when he prayed for God to give him a boner for Michelle Pfeiffer. He joked his mother's response was that his problem was he didn't pray to get a bone from Lucy Liu, that then He would answer your prayers. He came out to his father as his father sat down at the kitchen table. Upon hearing this, Choi joked he stood right back up asking "Since when?!" Choi talked about living with them for six months after coming out and slowly working on his parents, working to get them to accept him as gay. He joked about one morning when he sat them down at the kitchen table and asked them "What do you want for breakfast and what do you think about me being gay?" He had to fight the battle with his father over homosexuality being the worst sin and how that was in contrast to the sermons he heard his father deliver growing up. Choi spoke about his how his sister had implored for him to wait to tell them in the first place, to wait a decade or so. He talked about how within those 6 months of coming out, his parents views changed radically and made huge strides toward full acceptance, far more progress than would have been made in a decade of massaging them from the closet on the issue and how that parallels with our handling of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and its repeal. This took us into hearing about the repeal effort (or rather lack of effort). Choi remained respectful but firm in the need for a repeal and for taking action that will further repeal.
He spoke at length about civil disobedience, about Socrates and Dr. King. He passionately explained how even in drinking the hemlock, Socrates displayed civil disobedience. Of Dr. King, he said
Martin Luther King and everything that he did, it wasn't because he was a great speaker alone. It was because he had been to jail fourteen times before he had ever gotten known nationally. Been to jail for what? You can't go to jail for being black. Not in the 60's, not just for being black. He had to agitate. He had to go to places. He's not from Birmingham, Alabama, but he goes to Birmingham and he says "I am going to make sure that it is in the conscientiousness of all people that this is what is going on. I am going to make it so." So agitation is what he did. And he was called a rabble-rouser. He was called a troublemaker. He was called an agitator. "You brought this on yourself. Don't bring up your uppity self-righteousness to me because you didn't have to go to jail." Through out all of history, all of these people have done these things and agitated, but we remember them, not because of their money, not because of their degrees, not because of political friends they have, or the knowledge they have. We remember them because of their sacrifice, because of what they were willing to do. And all of our soldiers today who are willing to defend our country, to sacrifice whether they are gay or they are straight, for them, whether you called it civil disobedience or not, for them I cannot stay silent. I refuse to wait.
At the end of the speech, Choi took questions from the audience. Here is the video from two of those exchanges:
When asked about role models, Choi's response