The End of May

There is a lot to be said about endings. And I think that's where I'll start, today. The end.

This year my annually broken heart cringed at the loss of the civil rights battle over proposition 8.

One year ago on May 30th, at around midnight... One of the sweetest people I knew overdosed on heroin and died in his bed in the living room of his best friends house.

May of two years ago I was mourning the loss of an aunt ( around the 10th ) to uterine cancer. I found out that it runs in our family and that several other women in our family have experianced the battle with cancer.

May also houses my birthday, and the birthday of my best friend. I turned 21 on the 5th.

May has ended many, many things in my life, beyond what I've listed. I am glad that it's over. Glad that that month has come and gone and at least this time around no one died. American citizens shit on civil rights ( again ) but really it's like trying to teach an old dog a new trick. They'll get it eventually, even if they are a little slow. In the mean time a few million GLBT folk can just deal with the discrimination and broken hearts and I mean hey, their busted up families thanks to California can just pretend like they never had rights to begin with, right? America isn't about equality anyway. What country do these people think they're in!

... Yeah. No. Honestly. I don't get it. I mean, I get it. I get why they don't want gay marriage. Religion.. And I don't remember who it was that said this but I'd believe in religion if it made people nicer to one another but it doesn't. It breeds wickedness. And maybe I'd be alright if the Bible they follow so blindly wasn't more graphic and violent and incestuous than 4chan and every rated r horror film combined filled with all the preachings of a freaking cult leader. Oh wait. Not to mention the entire thing is trippy as hell. And I say this having been raised Christian, and also having renounced my religion.

I have the utmost faith in the GLBT community and the supporters of this community to overturn Prop 8. Maybe not in 2009. Maybe not in 2010. But they will. And when they do, not if, but when, it will be a gloriously happy day. I've always been picky about the battles I fight and support, and this time around the fight for civil rights is the good fight and it is the right one.

I know this has nothing to do with my art and my thoughts on or about art, not directly. But it has a lot to do with who I am and what my beliefs are. And if I neglected those things I would have no art to speak of. Throughout history art has often reflected the current polotical situations in society. And right now and for the last 40 years, and even beyond, equality between citizens of the United States, my country and my home, have been and probably will always be, an emotional and powerful point of inspiration in my life due to my somewhat unique upbringing. I grew up in a primarily black neighborhood, but went to a white private school. I grew up with a racist father and an overly accepting mother. I left the ghetto and moved to suburbia where my life could not have been worse unless I'd been raped. I was thrown out of my house and lived in a crack ghetto again as a minority, not racially, but mentally. While I've grown up living back and forth in different racial situations, and having experianced racisim to the point of hate crimes and police negligence, the battle for the right of marriage for the GLBT Community isnt something I grew up with, but something I grew into and something that became a part of my every day life the way that race and gender civil rights have. It is as much a part of my beliefs as roots of a tree are to the earth.

I can only look to the future for all of these things. Living in the past will get me nowhere, and I have shed these horrible memories one by one like leaves in fall. And as the wounds scar and fade in time the memories and lessons I've learned will never go away. I don't think any other community currently in the United States has moved forward so progressively as the GLBT community and I find a great peace of mind in knowing that they are there and that they will continue to move forward unlike many others.

Much can be said about endings. And I think that just as much can be said about beginning again. The GLBT community is resiliant and maybe this fight has been lost for now. But there are many other fronts to turn to, while this particular front has closed its doors temporarily. Progress is being made every day, in many other places and I know this great loss will do nothing in hindering progress elsewhere.