Jeff's Journey 1111: Check Boxes

I’m breaking one of my personal cardinal rules with this post.

Clipartmag.com

I’m going political. Sort of.

I’ve always felt political (and religious) views are personal as they invite discourse which often leads to heated discussions which in turn escalates into arguments and often disenfranchises families and friends. Someone once close to me voiced his opinion on same-sex marriage and we no longer speak. He also threw in his opinion of other aspects of gay rights, how we ‘behaved’ and some other political donkey manure and I was only too glad to walk away and respect my blood pressure.

This past week has been monumental for the United States for a number of reasons. First of all, the departing of a tumultuous, difficult, and fascist president. Yes, I’m being too kind. I could go on but then I’d digress from my point which I guess I already am.

Well, here goes my political rant.

I’m tired of hearing one particular word.

I’ve heard it a lot lately.

To the point where I might scream. Well, only if I hear it in this particular context. After all, it is an important word.

The word is first.

I keep hearing it, and have been hearing it, with respect to Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Vice-President
Kamala Harris
(Public Domain)

I want it to be clearly understood that I respect her, I am very elated she was asked to run and that Joe Biden and she won and were safely inaugurated this week. (Can one be very elated? Are there levels of elatedness?)

I also respect Joe Biden for recognizing the need for selecting a woman of color as his running mate. It is about damn time.

Yet, I tire of hearing that she is the first.

First Woman
First African-American
First African-American Woman
First Indian
First Asian
First South-Asian
First child of direct immigrants

How many other firsts can we attribute to her? Imagine if she were Jewish and Lesbian.

I also want to be clearly understood that I believe this moment is long overdue in this country. I applaud her victory. I recognize her achievements and what this means to other children of color and to other young girls.

I also recognize that we must honor these first achievements. Without recognizing these trailblazers there is no hope for future generations of marginalized people, especially the children.

When I was growing up, not yet struggling with my identity, gay men were often depicted in the media as sad, lonely, sociopaths, pedophiles, women-haters, overtly effeminate, a victim or suicidal. Or promiscuous. When I began to confront myself, those images were already etched in my subconscious. Those were very depressing impressions of what I was supposed to be if I were truly gay. First impressions can be lasting. They can be quite damaging as well, especially if you don’t see yourself fitting any one of those portrayals.

I’ve also been hearing the word or remembering hearing it attributed to many other people:

Ilhan Omar (D-MN) one of the first two Muslim women elected to the US House of Representatives
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) one of the first two Muslim women elected to the US House of Representatives
Barney Frank (D-MA) the first openly gay man elected to the US House of Representatives
Harvey Milk, first openly gay man to be elected to the San Fransisco Board of Supervisors and first openly gay elected official in the State of California
Alex Padilla (D-CA) the first Latino Senator from California
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) first openly lesbian elected to the US House of Representatives and later to the US Senate and first woman elected from Wisconsin to either chamber of Congress
Danica Roem, first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature, the Virginia General Assembly.

I could go on...

Shirley Chisholm
(Public Domain)

While recognizing these firsts as milestones, as historic, as important, we must also recognize they will fade from our memories.

Two come to mind. The first is Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to the US Congress, representing New York’s 12th District in the House of Representatives from 1969-1983. She also became the first African-American candidate to run for a major political party’s presidential nomination and the first woman to seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. If it hadn’t been for Ms. Chisholm’s first, Kamala Harris might not have had her first.

Charles Curtis
(Public Domain)

This second one didn’t spring to mind, but was the result of some research after reading that Ms. Harris isn’t the first person of color to occupy the Vice-Presidency. She is the second. The honor of being first falls to Charles Curtis, Vice-President (1929-1933) under Herbert Hoover, which puts him a bit before my time. Mr. Curtis was born in 1860 in the then-Kansas Territory. As a member of the Kaw Nation due to his mother’s membership, he is the highest ranking person with Native American ancestry to hold an elected office. Other Native Americans had held elected office prior and many after Mr. Curtis. Mr. Curtis’ father was of European ancestry, making him also the first biracial person to serve as Vice-President.

With the election of Ms. Harris and her inauguration falling just after the Martin Luther King holiday here in the United States, some lines from his famous “I Have A Dream” speech are echoing in my head:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

I, too, have a dream. I have a dream that one day we will stop checking off boxes to see how many firsts we can check off when a non-white cisgender heterosexual male accomplishes something.

And we can simply applaud their achievement.

That day is coming.