I love roller coasters. I love the sharp, awkward turns of wooden coasters, the rough, jostling movement and the clank of the chains pulling the cars to the top of that first hill. I love metal coasters, with the smooth, almost effortless ride and the feeling that the cars will life off the tracks at any moment and fly away. I love inverted coasters, the loops and spins, and my feet hanging free while the harness presses hard into my chest.
The last three days have been a roller coaster ride for me. A coaster with a great hill, faulty turns, rusty bars and unexpected bursts of speed that jostle you rather painfully into the side of the car.
So this makes a bit more sense, I am a substitute teacher in blood-red, Conservative with a capital C, small town Texas. One of the areas that stayed stubbornly red while the rest of the state began edging blue. I had the same group of high school sophomores and freshmen on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Tuesday, I didn't say much. Being queer, atheist and liberal in this area is a bit like being the bunny in a dog race. If the bunny is smart, they make like they are an eagle. The kids talked about the election, but they also talked about the upcoming football game, the test they were taking, who was kissing whom after school and what was on the lunch menu.
One student was wearing an Obama shirt, but only because it was free. Most of the kids were McCain supporters and were passing around the same tired smears and jokes. During fifth period, the boy wearing the Obama shirt asked me who I had voted for. It was actually rather amusing. He and his friend were already walking away, confident I was going to say McCain, never expecting me to say Obama.
I might as well have said the Devil and gotten the same reaction. Sheer incredulity. The two boys and another boy began grilling me. Did I know he was Muslim, did I know he wasn't an American, did I know he was going to change the National Anthem to some other, unspecified song, did I know he refused to salute the flag.
Did I know he was going to loose.
Most of the things they said, I laughed off or answered with the truth. It felt like I was exposing myself in public, but I couldn't back down now that I had dropped myself in it. I made a bet with them that Obama was in fact going to rock the polls and McCain was going to slink away with his tail between his legs.
Tuesday evening I watched the returns with a great deal of enjoyment, imagining what the boys were going to say when I saw them the next day. Most of them were surprisingly good-natured about it, one even going so far as to tell me he thought it was 'cool'. A couple did say they thought he was going to ruin the country and his election was a mistake, but that was to be expected. Several think it will be a 'good thing' when he is assassinated - it seems to be a foregone and even hoped for conclusion among certain people - and one girl hopes he will be impeached quickly. I've heard adults say many of the same things, which is obviously where these kids are hearing it all.
Blood red conservative, church on every corner area, remember. On the radio this morning, the DJ basically outed himself as a survivalist who is stocking up on provisions now that Obama is president.
Wednesday was a spectacular failure on so many levels. Not only did California write discrimination into their constitution - call it what it is, folks - but I discovered exactly how hateful and small-minded the people in this area can be.
If Sarah Palin ever needs a coterie of ready made Palin-bots, she will find them among the drill team and dance class at this high school. I guess they will make good minions as long as they don't actually have to do anything but look pretty. (That was harsh, but so were some of the things they said.)
At the end of the drill team practice, the girls gathered for a team building exercise where they get in a circle and share something good that has happened in the last 24 hours. One girl said 'Obama won!' and she was booed by her teammates while the teacher looked on and said nothing. Later, during the dance class, some of these same girls were discussing just how much of a mistake the election was.
Among other things, I heard:
"Have you chosen your Muslim name yet? Because he is Muslim!"
"He's not even an American! His birth certificate is fake!"
"He's pro-abortion. That is not right and never will be!"
"When a woman gets pregnant, she has to carry the baby, no matter what!"
"If a woman is raped, that is her own damn fault!"
"He wants to legalize the gays. That's disgusting and they are all going to hell!"
They start teaching hate in the crib around here, taking it in with their mother's milk, as they used to say. By the time they are teenagers, these girls have sublimated so much hate for themselves and their gender that it makes me angry just thinking about it. I couldn't let these things go, so I was discussing most of the issues with them, but I wasn't making much headway.
When I called the girl out about Obama being an American, she said she would never believe it. He had obviously faked his birth certificate and nothing was every going to convince her otherwise. Every time I refuted their claims or brought up different points of view, they changed the subject and refused to discuss it with me.
When I heard the one girl say that rape was always the woman's fault, I just wanted to weep. How do you confront so much hate? She's fifteen goddamn years old and she hates unreservedly. You might think I am overstating it, but I'm not. As far as she is concerned, pregnancy is the price of being a woman and any woman who becomes pregnant has agreed to that price, whether it was consensual or not. Hate, I read recently, is the lack of empathy. I think that about describes her attitude.
On a personal note, several of the girls are planning on getting pregnant right out of high school. One of them said 'that's all I can do in this life, have children' and the rest agreed with her. They weren't being sad about this, or regretful or even angry. To them, that was their purpose and they saw it as the way things are supposed to be. Say what you will, but I will never agree that a woman's greatest purpose is to have children. This attitude is one of the things that needs to change. Woman are worth more than their internal organs.
Today, Thursday, was better mostly because the initial uproar had died down, though I still heard plenty of jokes and asides. On the radio, I heard a report of graffiti in a nearby town, pertaining to Obama's racial origins. I've read blog entries about African Americans exclaiming with joy "My president is black!" In this area, those words are an epithet.
Gay marriage, oddly enough, was the major topic of discussion. Fag and gay were the slurs of the day and I sent several students to the office when they would not stop using them. The gay students kept their heads down, whereas yesterday and the day before they would have camped it up a bit for laughs.
Just before lunch, one of the boys with whom I had made the original bet brought up Prop 8 and I told him it was discrimination. He asked me how that was and I told him 'when someone says, you are not as good as me and I will make sure you never are' that it is discrimination.
I nearly outed myself - bad idea - when talking about how everyone has the right to love and marry whomever they choose. Another student asked me if I was married and I said no, that I liked being single, but I had several friends who wanted to get married. Oops, a bit too close for comfort that.
To give these students a hat-tip, neither of them are among the 'gays are grozzz' squad and actually discussed it like reasonable people instead of bigots.
They were about the only highlight of the last three days. Change takes time, I know and it will take a lot to change attitudes in this area, but after the last few days, I wish I had some sort of ray gun, maybe that Point of View changer from the "Hitchhiker" movie. Let them see the issues from the POV of a queer, atheist, liberal woman.
Say what you will about the South, I will most likely agree with you. I've been known to rant on for hours about this area and the South in general. I could use some new material. DO NOT under any circumstances say I should move or just shut up and deal.
My family first came to Texas when Texas was still part of Mexico. The farm is part of a land grant stemming from the Texas War for Independence. My family is here, my past is year and goddamn it, my future is here. When I die, many years hence, I will die knowing that Texas is open to anyone who wants to live here, no matter their gender, orientation, political affiliation or religious beliefs.
I love my state and I love my country, even if they don't return the feeling at this moment in time.