Published in The Siskiyou, January 17, 2006

Note: I received many compliments about my article entitled “Unconventional Love,” however, I also received two letters to the editor stating that they felt I was objectifying gay men. This article is in response to those letters.

People assume the quiet student is the smart student. If her mouth is shut she must be too busy pondering the state of the universe to bother emitting any useless jargon. But perhaps it’s not as philosophical as that. Perhaps she just doesn’t want attention, doesn’t want to have to deal with stares or further questioning or…. criticism. Yes folks, silence can just be preservation.

In this era of political correctness, I am a high-yellow turned Negro turned black turned African-American. (Well, biracial really, and even that is politically incorrect since my ethnicity includes more than just two races.) I prefer the term Caucasian to white, and I can’t stand the big “N” word. I’m sure you know which word I mean. It’s just an arbitrary symbol, yet it is the only word in the English language that I am physically unable to say. Fag is another tough one. My friend, who is a fag turned queer turned gay turned homosexual, has no problem uttering it but I just can’t, because it seems like such a heated word against him.

I feel privileged to have the Siskiyou receive letters to the editor about things I’ve written. My gay friend, who loved the October 31st article about him, had an insightful response regarding those who had the intention of speaking in his defense. It is such a heated issue, he says, that people are uncomfortable with any mention of it that could be taken negatively. I could say, “What ridiculously sensitive people they are,” but then I’d be forgetting that I’m the same way.

Last summer while flipping through People magazine, I came across a Dove ad which stated, “Let’s face it, firming the thighs of a size 2 supermodel is no challenge. Real women have real curves.” I and an equally skinny friend of mine were deeply offended. We logged onto their website and posted comments on their forum. All women are real women, we countered, and saying that size 2 women are not is a type of societal reverse discrimination. Though they had never directly said “Real women aren’t a size 2,” my sensitivity had filled in the gaps.

To work with words is to work with knives. You can throw them up in the air and make a beautiful circular juggling act, and people will applaud you for your risky artistic endeavor. But one knife might just fall down and cut someone right through the heart.

To all those I’ve offended and to those I’ll offend in the future, it’s not intentional. Perhaps misunderstanding is an unavoidable consequence of living outside the brackets of safe speech. Perhaps the burn of criticism is a noble right of passage. Perhaps in our country, free of the devastation of war, words have become the arrows which pierce us, the things beyond our control which threaten our peaceful existence. We battle blindly against an unseen enemy, not realizing that each side is using different language to say the same thing.

Though my topics may be heated, I’ll keep writing. Though I may offend, I’ll keep speaking. I’ll keep throwing my knives up into the air and do my best not to cut anyone’s heart out. Silence and self-preservation may be safe, but they’re no life at all.

Copyright © 2006 Shannon Luders-Manuel