Posted March 14th, 2004 by Michelle

My brother Sean wrote a great blog today. I don’t have time to link it; if you are one of the two or three people who read this and don’t know my brothers before you know me, just look to the left and click “Sean”. Sometimes when Sean goes on a diatribe, it gets really loud and I get confused. But all of the time when he goes on a diatribe, the heavens open and the truth rains down. Awwww, yeah.

Okay, so maybe that was a little much. Anyhoodle…

When there is too much to say, I can’t write.

My best friend Anastasia called me out the other day on one of my blogs. I was writing about my last day in the hospital with my mom, and how there was a grumpy, mean nurse taking care of her. There was nothing good that I witnessed in the exchange between said nurse and my mom, and I wrote about it saying exactly that. But I also called this nurse a “queen”. Now there is nothing, in my book, wrong, about calling anyone a “queen”. Many of my friends have called themselves by that very term, and batted their eyelashes at me when I did the same. But here’s the problem: there are those in this word who use that term and use it as an insult. Or negative. Or ugly. Even more importantly, I used that term while describing someone in entirely negative terms. Now here’s the thing. What if the nurse had been African-American? Would I have described him as a “bitter, mean, bitchy black man”? Or, even more heinously, a “bitter, mean, bitchy nigger”? Hard as it is to write, there are people who think that the “N” word is entirely acceptable. There are also those who think that “queen” is a good descriptor for people they hate. Now I would NEVER, EVER, EVER have used the “N” word and NOR would I have described the ethnicity of this nurse if he had been black or asian or… or really anything. Because his ethnicity, which is as nature-given as sexuality, would have had nothing to do with the fact that he was an asshole. So why was it okay for me to describe his sexual orientation?

The fact is, it’s not. It’s not okay to throw that in there surrounded by derogatory, ugly terms. It’s not okay, and I did it. That says something to me. Language is important. If I support gay rights, if I am willing to fight for them, if it means anything to me outside of hanging out with my largely straight, white friends and talking about it, then it is not okay to use these words in a way that smacks of ugliness. It means gay jokes aren’t funny. It means real, deep, meaningful relationships and words. Words are important. I need to live by this.

That’s it for now. Oh, but one message to my friend Anastasia who is currently relocating to Vanuatu: Hey, Stace: remember that conversation we had at that restaurant in Kansas City in the summer of ’97? A conversation that has continued for years, in a way? Well. It’s about to come full circle. You are the best friend a woman could want.