Roots
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I’ve read a good amount over the years.
Once you’ve read a certain amount of material in the same vein or genre, it becomes harder and harder for that type of writing to surprise you, to shock you, to grab you by the neck and reorganize every idea in your head. There’s nothing wrong with that - it’s just how the mind works. This is equally true whether the material you’re reading is an endless series of romance or detective novels, or an endless series of academic essays in queer theory. You learn to appreciate craftsmanship; you might enjoy a particularly well-turned phrase; certain ideas stick with you. But that shock, that jolt that can happen when you first discover something - that tends to fade.
Given this inevitable consequences of habit on the workings of the mind, Eve Sedgwick’s work holds a special place in my heart for two reasons. The first and, frankly, more banal reason is that I read Between Men and The Epistemology of the Closet in quick succession right before I went off to university, and each of those books separately and together changed my thinking permanently.
Between Men introduced me to the idea - surprising to me at the time - that homophobia and violence against homosexuals is closely linked with and related to misogyny and violence against women. This was the first time I’d encountered the idea that the political investments of feminists and gay men might align in important ways; it was also the first time I’d encountered the idea of Foucauldian power - the notion that different oppressions and different identities might be organized in different ways by the same kind of structures or the same kind of socio-political pressure. Between Men, in other words, teaches its reader the danger in distinguishing unilaterally between closely-related phenomena.
The Epistemology of the Closet, meanwhile, worked in some ways to undo the lessons of Between Men; by generating a set of conceptual and critical tools for what she called anti-homophobic inquiry, Sedgwick not only played a key role in teaching me the value of strategic alliance but also the important of careful and rigorous distinction, the ways in which the presumption of identity and alliance can hide crucial linkages between forms of power, discourse, and oppression. The Epistemology of the Closet, in other words, teaches its reader the danger in unifying without reflection closely-related but fundamentally distinct phenomena.
That these two books complement rather than contradict each other is a testament to the brilliant refinement of Sedgwick’s mind, her concepts, and her intellectual project. Each of Sedgwick’s books takes risks, goes in unexpected directions, creates infinite possibilities at every turn. She was never afraid to change, to dare, to revise, and to me, that bravery - that self-reflexivity - is the most important mark of a true and committed critical thinker. There are many smart and insightful critics; there are far fewer brave critics, and in this regard, Sedgwick stood head and shoulders above the vast majority of her contemporaries.
But for me, the most incredible aspect of Sedgwick’s work as I sit and write about it today isn’t how brave it was in its day - that part is impressive, but boldness isn’t necessarily a testament for the ages. What’s incredible about these books, today, is that they haven’t lost a single iota of their ability to jolt, to excite, to inspire, and to challenge me. Gender Trouble, Of Grammatology, Ecrits…so many of the books that used to shock and awe me as an undergraduate have largely lost their effect. Many of them I’ve had to reject entirely. But Sedgwick never gets old, or dull, or predictable. Even the essays I’ve read 5-6 times still have the power to surprise and illuminate.
A key part of Sedgwick’s enduring appeal, to me, is how prescient she was; like most truly great thinkers, Sedgwick was light years ahead of the curve. Where so much ’90s queer theory is rapidly become quaint and even naive, the full implications of Sedgwick’s ideas are just beginning to unfold. So yes, yes to this article. We need Sedgwick’s insights and wisdom. We need them now more than ever. If you’re interested in the topics I write about, in the way I approach them, or in the kind of concepts I generate, you need to go read Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s work.
![tylercoates:
thematerialworld:
[Photo by Adam Feldman]
Last night, Adam Feldman (theater critic for Time Out New York) organized a midnight vigil for Mark Carson, the Black gay man who was killed in the West Village Friday night. We gathered on 6th Avenue and West 8th Street, on the corner where he was shot in the face. It was an intense, emotional event. I’m bad at estimating these things, but I think there were around 100 [edit: 300] people there. While a few speakers betrayed an upsetting short-sightedness about how violence operates in our society, most were eloquent and inspiring. In no particular order:
Performer and playwright Justin Sayre started things off with a volcanic, passionate sermon about the perceived danger of queer love — how the straight world fears us for the very thing that makes us most powerful, and so the only response is to love harder, love louder, and love more than ever. His tone set the stage for the event, and allowed people to fully feel the emotions we’d all been locking up tight.
Photographer and ACT UP vet Jon Nalley revealed, shockingly and emotionally, that Mark Carson is also the name of a fallen ACT UP comrade. Jon schooled the crowd about the true cause of AIDS death (not the HIV virus, but government neglect and institutional heterosexism), highlighting the connections between one Mark’s death and the other’s.
Long-time activist and Stonewall vet Jim Fouratt pointed out something that SHOULD be obvious, but which hadn’t occurred to me — that there used to be a hospital TWO BLOCKS from that corner, but in the wake of St. Vincent’s closing, Mark had to be rushed to Beth Israel all the way across town. Perhaps, in the distance between these hospitals, Mark’s life could have been saved. In that sense, the politicians that allowed St. Vincents to be converted to a luxury condo high rise — politicians like lesbian mayoral candidate Christine Quinn — may have gay blood on their hands. Jim helped us understand how depriving a gay neighborhood of a hospital is inherently homophobic and violent.
A trans woman who was once homeless in that same neighborhood spoke intensely about how vigils shouldn’t be the only time we come together, and how we must take our struggle to the U.N. to fight for queer safety internationally, and hold the U.S. to the highest possible global standard.
Eugene Lovendusky, a member of Queer Rising read a first-person account of the Stonewall Riots, in which a gay rioter’s head was injured on that very corner, his blood pouring into the street. Another rioter screamed into the city, “THIS IS THE BLOOD OF YOUR BROTHERS!” It was chilling, to consider the bloody history of that location.
Another Queer Rising member, Ben Strothman, pointed out that this murder was allowed to happen because the killer had access to a gun, and that the supporters of gun rights, deep down inside, are primarily afraid of the specter of the Black gunman, who will infiltrate their towns and homes. These gun rights advocates feel they need weapons to protect themselves from their racist fantasy. It underscored how racism fuels violence against ALL peoples.
Khaela Maricich from The Blow was like: we’re all going to die anyway, and it’s better to die being yourself and expressing your love and your identity than hiding it and living longer. Her comment was somewhat insensitive to queers in greater danger than her, like trans people and people of color, but I understood what she was trying to say.
An older trans man shared that he was attacked in Manhattan only a few days ago, and reminded the crowd, with tremendous grief in his voice, that trans people are killed CONSTANTLY in this country.
A straight mother spoke because her adult son in another city asked her to, so she could share her love and support with us.
Interestingly, a straight young woman who lives on that block confessed that her initial impulse was to text her gay friends, warning them to “dial it down” so that no one on the street would know they’re gay, but that, after hearing the speakers, she realized that this was the wrong lesson - that we should “dial it up,” to demand our right to exist. ”DIAL IT UP” became a chant, briefly.
A Black gay man spoke with great anguish, commenting on how not many other men of color were in attendance, and laying out so clearly how different queer people have unique challenges and specific circumstances — that Mark Carson’s life as a Black gay man was significantly different from the lives of the white gay men who made up the majority of the crowd.
A few speakers mentioned the importance of hate crimes legislation, and thanked the police for their cooperation with the vigil, and one speaker even said, “THANK YOU TO THE NYPD OF TODAY FOR NOT BEING THE NYPD OF 1969!” and though I had been resisting the urge to speak, that was my last straw
I got up on the box and said something like this:
I hope this doesn’t sound callous, but I was not surprised by this death. Queer people are killed in this country all the time. I have always thought of myself as someone who is vulnerable to murder. Four trans women were killed in the month of April alone — four in one month! So when things like this happen in our neighborhoods, we need to ask ourselves what this violence means. And we have to be skeptical about solutions like hate crimes legislation, which just feeds the prison industrial complex — an industry that profits from the imprisonment of queers and people of color. One third of all adult Black men in the U.S. are in prisons, and trans people are disproportionately arrested and locked up. We cannot continue to support this! And while I’m sure individual NYPD officers were polite in the lead-up to this vigil, we cannot forget that the NYPD ritually harasses trans people and people of color in this city! Trans women are arrested simply for walking down the street! So when we talk about how queer people need to be “safe,” we have to ask ourselves what “safety” really means — because the NYPD does not makes us safe! It harasses and imprisons us! We must reckon with these connections — that Mark Carson’s death is an extension of the violence that oppresses so many others, from the institutional violence of governments to the random violence of a crazy guy with a gun.
I make a living speaking in front of people, but talking at this vigil was terrifying. As I spoke, I felt myself hyperventilating, and I worried I would vomit. After I stepped down, I sat on the curb a few yards away from the crowd, catching my breath.
I wish I had specifically named the Stop & Frisk policy that makes queers and people of color vulnerable to police harassment. I wish I had called out Christine Quinn for supporting this policy.
I wish I had acknowledged a previous speakers’ disappointment about the lack of people of color in attendance. I wish I had pointed out the sad truth: that our queer “community” is still so segregated, such that when a white person organizes a vigil and spreads the word through his social networks, that message will not automatically filter into Black queer circles. When I mentioned this afterwards to Ted Kerr from Visual AIDS, he added that many queers of color are not willing to make [edit: cautious about making] themselves vulnerable to the kind of police surveillance that surrounded the event. This hadn’t occurred to me, and reminded me that so many aspects of our queer condition are so complicated, and we all have so much to learn and understand about each other.
When the event was over, I was surrounded by friends and colleagues. People whom I respect, and who inspire me on a regular basis — the people I came to NYC hoping to meet, and the people who keep me here. I was proud of Adam for making this happen, and proud of my community for showing up.
But I was sad too — not just about the senseless death of this man — but that there didn’t seem to be anyone at this vigil who knew him. It seemed indicative of the intense divide amongst queer people in this city.
Tomorrow night, there will be another rally — this one sponsored by the (often idiotic) LGBT Center and featuring Christine Quinn herself — the lesbian mayoral candidate whose policies hurt queer people and may have allowed Mark Carson to die. I will not be in town for this event, but I am fixated on it. Will there be resistance to the party line? Will Quinn be heckled? How can we best honor Mark Carson’s death? What comes next?
[CORRECTION: The earlier riot on that corner was not Stonewall, as I write in this post. Here’s the clarification from John Knoebel:
“This was not an incident from the 1969 Stonewall Riot […] but happened at the somewhat larger riot of the next summer in August 1970. This was when hundreds of activists pulled off a large demonstration in Times Square against police harassment of gays and lesbians there and then ended up marching all the way to the village where a violent confrontation with police involved many more hundreds from Sheridan Square to 8th Street.]
Dan Fishback is an amazing person who is able to put our anger and frustrations into much more powerful words than I am.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/2d1b1b6f1b0982d748684bc8d31274a1/tumblr_mn1yrlp0bD1qh92wyo1_1280.jpg)
