The evidence? A few Instagram posts I made soon after the October 7th attacks, where I sought to explore the internal dissonance one must integrate when one is Jewish and pro-human rights and also has family in Israel, implicating the people they love most in the violence. Ironically, my intended message was about building a foundation of empathy for vital discourse about these subjects.

I have long felt that I should carry around a sign that reads, “Yes, Israel. Yes, that’s my real name. Yes, I am indeed Jewish. No, I am not *from* Israel, just my last name. No, I do not speak Hebrew.” As a perpetual traveler (or outsider, or immigrant, or expat—you decide), the questions are a near-daily occurrence.

Now I would add to my sign: “No, I do not support or endorse genocide. Yes, I realize it is happening in my literal name. No, I do not consent.”

Yes, Toby Israel is my real name. I travel regularly to Israel to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and little niece and nephew. On my most recent trip, the immigration officer looked at my passport, looked back at me, and said, “Wow, that’s a very … patriotic name.” She meant it as a compliment, and it’s Israeli immigration, so I kept my face neutral.

However, every time I introduce myself with the “patriotic” name I have carried my entire life, I question what it means to belong to a nation, to belong to a people. I wonder if we can ever truly disown that—or if we should.

I know there are people close to me and many more like them who care about human rights and justice, but perhaps feel that their safety must trump someone else’s. That their survival depends on another’s destruction.

It doesn’t work that way.

As “Jewish Currents” editor-at-large Peter Beinart put it last week on The Daily Show, “Palestinians and Israeli Jews, and in some ways Jews around the world, are bound up in a single garment of destiny. […] In the long term, Israeli Jews are only going to be safe if Palestinians are going to be safe. And Palestinians can’t be safe unless they’re free.”

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 hostages.

Since October 7th, 2023, as B’Tselem’s new report confirms, “Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.

“The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system and other vital systems necessary for the population’s survival,” in other words, genocide.

There is no excuse or justification for genocide. Ever. The actions of the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank are unconscionable; this has been true for a long time.

The actions of Hamas on October 7th were also unconscionable.

To be clear, these are not equivalent situations. Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack has killed over 60,000 Palestinians and displaced over 90% of Gaza residents—a disproportionate use of force enabled by decades of military occupation.

When I call both situations unconscionable, I seek to reiterate the simple truth that every life lost is a tragedy.

Certainly, antisemitism is on the rise. The Anti-Defamation League reported a 360% rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. since the events of October 7th. The world seems to be regressing; in 2024, ADL reported that “younger Americans are more likely to endorse anti-Jewish tropes” than previous generations. Similarly worrisome trends have been observed with anti-Muslim sentiment.

Certainly, I worry about my family’s safety every day, and I ruminate constantly on the world that my niece and nephew are growing up in and into; it is not the world I want for them or anyone.

However, a genocide will not make me or my family safer. It is time to put that rhetoric to rest.

And, spreading disinformation—about Jews or Palestinians, or anyone else for that matter—or directing our outrage at individuals is not a useful strategy when it is our governments that make, sell, and drop bombs.

I am telling these stories about my name because I think they are indicative of the deepening trend of polarization and flattening of discourse.

A title is not the whole story of an article; a name is not the whole story of a person. In both cases, the content probably didn’t choose its labeling, but rather an editor or a parent. I think we know this, yet how many of us have read an article title and immediately jumped to outrage, or disinterest, or solidarity? We do the same to people. We see their name and decide we know who they are: Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, friend or foe, for or against, victim or aggressor.

A name is an inheritance. So is, for many of us, our religion, culture, history, and trauma. We do not choose these things, and yet, they so often define us—unless we decide to define them.

I grew up hearing my mother on every phone call to the bank, doctor’s office, or school spelling out our family name: “Israel-like-the-country? I-S-R-A-E-L.”

Nowadays, what could I say that is not fraught? “Israel-like-the… well, you know.”

I have considered leaving out my last name in introductions or meetings to avoid discomfort, so heavy it is to carry this inadvertent endorsement in my Zoom calls, my byline, and my daily interactions. Yet, that feels like a cop-out.

No, I am not my government. I can—and I do—denounce the government of the United States for its direct responsibility in Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestinian life and safety as the largest purveyor of arms to Israel. I can and do denounce the Israeli government for its ongoing genocide, as well as its decades-long practice of settler colonialism.

Still, Israel enacts that violence quite literally in my name. They claim me—they claim us, Jews, descendants of survivors—as the justification for their actions.

The truth is, hiding my name would only obscure the most public face of the issue. My inheritance as a Jew and as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors is woven into my DNA, my heart, and my worldview. I cannot change that with the flick of a pen—nor would I want to.

It is precisely that inheritance that informs my sense of social justice, my passion for peace, my deep-seated belief in the sanctity of every human life. Why would I ever want to change that?

We don’t choose our inheritance. We choose what we do with it.

As a Jew born and raised in the diaspora, I believe that “never again” means never again for anyone—or it means nothing at all.

As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I reject the callous and cynical use of my story and my trauma to justify war, apartheid, and genocide.

As the great-granddaughter of Jewish refugees who chose the name “Israel” to begin their new life in the U.S., I decide what my name will represent today.

I am by no means a religious scholar, but in my Judaism, there are many ways to interpret a story, and even a word, not all of them literal.

In Jewish tradition, names carry profound weight. “Israel” was the name Jacob received after wrestling with an angel, literally meaning ‘one who wrestles with God.’

When I refuse to let the Israeli government’s actions speak in my name, I’m not (only) playing with words. I’m engaging in the centuries-old Jewish practice of wrestling meaning from inheritance.

What if the promised land were the safe, hallowed ground where we came together in community—anywhere in the world—to break bread, laugh and cry and pray together, and remind ourselves that we belong to one another?

What if the promised land were not a place, but a state of being: peace and safety for all of us, each of us sacred, whole, and worthy of life and dignity?

We are so far from that land today, but my name reminds me of my ancestors’ hope:

One day, we will arrive.

It may be a luxury to play with words while some are dying, but I believe we must expand our imagination of what is possible if we ever hope to build a different reality.

And, if it reminds me—or you—of our shared responsibility to be a voice for peace, then it has been of benefit.

I hope you remember to read beyond the titles and labels around you. Remember that much of the most important work—listening, educating ourselves, deconstructing the identities we inherited, and having difficult conversations—may be invisible, but it is the foundation of sustained social change.

I stand by my words from nearly two years ago: I do not pretend to know about solutions, but I know empathy has to be part of the puzzle, if not the table the puzzle is assembled on.

Something that isn’t talked about frequently enough, in my opinion, is the fact that high levels of success are almost always preceded by a string of failures. And failure, particularly in the perception of those around us, is a very scary prospect for many human beings.

It makes me wonder: if you have someone who loves you no matter what, and believes in you no matter what, is it easier to fail?

There are, of course, those who fall on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. They had absolutely no support and no love from the parental figures in their lives. And, in an odd way, I think it had a similar effect. There was no one to disappoint. There was no love to be taken away or withheld in the face of failure. No silent treatment. No avoidance of eye contact. (Just me?)

But, for many of us, we had a lot of lukewarm support. Parents who loved us sometimes but also were very critical and withheld that love at other times. One parent who was very loving and supportive, and another who was pretty narcissistic and exhibited the strangest, unpredictably erratic behavior. And we often ended up in similar romantic partnerships later on; those where the behavior was erratic, and the love and support were used as a tool of manipulation. (Which could also be because we came to believe that this is what love looked like, but that’s another article.) Did this perhaps train us to believe that we only received love when we were perceptively successful? And, therefore, create in us a terror that any form of visible failure would lead to love being taken away?

Most things I find come back to love and money. And money is really just paper, so when I say money, I’m referring more to the security it provides. But I also believe that an unconditional love, an attitude from a partner or a parent of “we can figure this out no matter what, I believe in you,” can substitute for that same security that money itself provides. Which is perhaps why success seems to come more easily to those who believe they have it?

What would life be like if we all truly believed we would be loved no matter what? Would we all be wildly successful beyond our wildest dreams?

I think we might.

My father was an alcoholic—recovering, mostly—until my mother left him when I was twelve. The details are fuzzy (as trauma tends to make them), but what I remember is this: alcohol wasn’t something I longed for. It wasn’t even something we kept in the house. Whether that was a rule from my mom or a boundary my dad set for himself, I’ll never know.

Drinking started, like so many things do–with boredom and with a desire to belong.

I held out through high school. I was too busy. I went to a magnet school far from home, worked a part-time job, and took two buses to get anywhere. Even on days I’d skip school, it was to catch up on sleep or see my boyfriend. He went to an elite all-boy school, and I have to admit that his commitment combined with my ambition kept me motivated. I desperately wanted to do something special with my life.

While my neighborhood friends sipped Zimas and Mike’s Hard Lemonades at parks and parties, I stuck with Cherry Coke and weed. A few puffs to take the edge off and feel less like a square. But by 18, I caved. My friends and I would gather at parks at night or at someone’s place, technically adults but technically underage, chasing the high of feeling bigger than our lives. I liked the way alcohol made me feel—taller, louder. Like a giant inside a body that had always felt too small.

And like many relationships I’d later reflect on, I stayed in it longer than I should have.

In college, alcohol felt like part of the package. Dorm room pre-games. Basement parties. Bars that didn’t card. Drinking helped me forget I felt out of place. That I was far from home with no visitors, hardly any phone check-ins. It numbed the pain of being the first in my family to walk this path–and the loneliness that came with it.

And I can’t pretend it didn’t have its good moments. It made everything a little more fun. I met fascinating people from all over the world while drinking. Men lined up to buy me one or three. I picked up pool. Got really good at Texas Hold ’Em. Learned how to read a room. I paid attention to what powerful men ordered–usually whiskey or scotch. I watched women become bolder after a cocktail, myself included. Alcohol made things easier. Until it didn’t.

Because beneath the laughter was the truth: alcohol has hurt my relationships. It’s left me waking up with bruises I couldn’t explain and shame I couldn’t shake. It dulled the parts of me I love most—my sharpness, my intuition. It made me more vulnerable to people who didn’t deserve access to me.

And that’s what makes it complicated. Alcohol gave me fun memories but it also put me in harm’s way. It took things from me I can’t get back.

It’s easy to dismiss alcohol’s impact when it’s so normalized—especially if you’ve never had a “problem.” But research shows even light to moderate drinking affects the brain. A study from Nature Communications looked at brain scans from nearly 37,000 people and found even one or two drinks a day correlated with smaller brain volume. Other studies suggest light drinking may reduce the risk of dementia in older adults. But the research is nuanced and still unfolding—and truthfully, most people aren’t drinking wine for the antioxidants. If you’ve ever blacked out, if you’ve ever had a hangover—you’ve already had a clear indication of harm to your brain.

People will cherry-pick data to fit their habits and support their strongly held beliefs. But I know this to be my absolute truth: the way I’ve used alcohol in the past isn’t working for me now. I’m not that lonely girl trying to belong anymore.

Family history doesn’t ask for permission to follow us. My childhood shaped my relationship with alcohol before I ever made a conscious choice. And I’m realizing now how many of those early thinking patterns—formed long before I had language for them—are still inside me.

Ultimately, I want to have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I want to toast with champagne at weddings. I want to enjoy a glass of red wine with dinner. But I want to do it from a place of wholeness, not habit.

So, before I pour a drink, I ask:

• Why do I want to drink right now?
• Am I drinking to celebrate, to cope, to numb?
• Have I eaten, slept, or hydrated today?
• Do I feel safe right now?
• Will I feel proud of this decision tomorrow?

I’m doing what my father couldn’t. I’m asking the hard questions now because I want to live a long life of purpose with clarity. I want to be present for every moment I get with my daughters. The two brilliant girls who are always watching—who want to be just like me.

And if they’re going to follow in my footsteps, I want those steps to be solid. Because I’m not just their protector. I’m mine, too. And that’s non-negotiable.

Originally posted on Substack

So alright, let’s solve the JFK assassination. Or, let’s solve it as far as we can without the new files and let’s see what we need from those new files. First of all, the assassination was a conspiracy. Here is the evidence to show that. 1) It happened in Dallas. Kennedy had many enraged enemies in Dallas and Adlai Stevenson even warned him against going to that city. 2) The motorcade route was different from other presidential routes in the past, making it easier for assassins to hit Kennedy. 3) Oswald referred to himself as a patsy because he was; his only purpose was to take the blame. 4) He was interrogated by the police 3 times in one night and they did not take notes. Oswald was singing like a canary and naming names. 5) Oswald was then killed and took his secrets with him. Jack Ruby soon began saying he wanted to tell the truth but was too scared.

There is no doubt this was a conspiracy. All evidence points to it and a majority of Americans believe it. It could even be argued that the Warren Commission Report was a falsified document implicating all involved in the criminal cover up of the murder of a president of the United States. There were probably three assassins waiting in Dealey Plaza in a triangulated ambush, who either took advantage of the chosen route or were part of an organization that helped change the route to facilitate the assassination.

Let’s further analyze the 5 points above: Dallas was a hotbed of anti-Kennedy hatred. Recall the infamous Wanted for Treason posters and the attack on Adlai Stevenson a month before the assassination, in which he was spat on and physically assaulted by a mob. Texas oil barons had been benefitting from a massive tax break called the Oil Depletion Allowance, which let them write off much of their income from oil production. Kennedy vowed to eliminate or reduce it as an unfair gift to the super-rich. Texas oil barons saw Kennedy as a threat to their wealth and seethed over him.

Indeed, JFK planned massive tax reforms ending corporate loopholes and raising taxes on the ultra-rich. Many business leaders, including oil and banking leaders, saw him as an enemy of capitalism and a semi-socialist. Dallas was the absolute worst place for Kennedy to go in November 1963; this was the place where people who were gunning for him could accomplish their aim.

The motorcade route is essential to the assassination. Past motorcade plans had a straightforward route, but this one went through Dealey Plaza, requiring an abrupt turn that slowed the motorcade considerably, a perfect situation for an ambush. The route was announced on November 18, 1963, four days before the assassination. In fact, the motorcade had to make a 120-degree turn from Houston onto Elm, thus slowing the car down to about 10 mph. This placed JFK in a totally exposed situation in Dealey Plaza, the perfect situation for an ambush.

Other presidents had visited Dallas before, but Kennedy’s motorcade route was unique. The Dealey Plaza turn was unorthodox, not a standard route for presidential visits. No other president had traveled this type of route through Dealey Plaza before JFK.

This is one of the most compelling points: Oswald openly called himself a patsy, and he was the perfect fall-guy. He had CIA and FBI connections, had defected to the USSR, and was involved with pro- and anti-Castro groups. He became the perfect “lone nut” to blame. His quick arrest and the manner in which the police handled his interrogation are suspicious.

The fact that the police interrogated Oswald without any notes or recordings is, in fact, more than suspicious. They didn’t want a record of what he said because he was obviously naming names. If he was just a lone nut, why not document everything carefully?

Jack Ruby shooting Oswald is the most obvious evidence of a cover-up. Ruby claimed he was devastated over Kennedy’s assassination and needed to spare “Jackie” the pain of a trial; this is absurd and he changed his tune once in jail. Ruby had strong ties to the mob, FBI connections, and access to the police. He silenced Oswald before he could talk. If you watch the shooting, it even looks as if the guys escorting him knew what was going to happen – they were slow, careful and deliberate. It was staged. Perfect camera angle.

The JFK assassination was, basically, a coup. The evidence points to a number of malevolent stake holders including the CIA, FBI, mafia, Texas oilmen and Lyndon Johnson himself; they all had something to gain from Kennedy’s death. The motorcade route, Oswald’s quick arrest, his silencing murder by Ruby, and the Warren Commission’s effort to promote nonsense and cover up the truth all suggest a high-level murder and cover-up.

So we know Oswald was not the lone killer, if he even shot at Kennedy at all. His Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was a cheap, unreliable piece of junk. Even expert top marksmen have struggled to recreate Oswald’s three shots in under six seconds, at a moving target, with an outdated bolt-action rifle. The magic bullet theory is ridiculous, and the headshot trajectory clearly indicates a shot from the front, not the back.

Oswald was in the perfect place to take the fall, working at the Texas School Book Depository, where the “sniper’s nest” just happened to be found, and this broadcasts that this was a setup. The guy had CIA and FBI connections, was in and out of the Soviet Union and interfaced with Cuba-linked groups (pro and anti Castro), and then he gets awkwardly silenced by Jack Ruby before he can go to trial or talk to a lawyer? Classic patsy narrative. Once you see Oswald for what he really was, the rest of the story has to be a conspiracy. Pros were going to handle the killing and Lee Harvey Oswald would take the fall.

So who did it? There are 5 equally disreputable suspects: LBJ, the Texas Oil Barons, the FBI (at that time), the Mafia, the CIA (at that time). You can also throw anti-Castro Cubans in there.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was as dirty as they get. He had a history of voter fraud in Texas, was involved in the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals, and had strong connections to the oil industry and military-industrial complex. He desperately wanted to be president, and it is difficult to ignore that Kennedy’s death put him in the White House.

According to some accounts, Johnson and his close associate Bobby Baker even threatened to expose Kennedy’s Addison’s disease and extramarital affairs to secure the vice presidency for Johnson. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a substantial dossier on Kennedy’s personal life. Hoover and Johnson were close, and some believe LBJ used some FBI dirt to compel Kennedy to pick him. After LBJ was announced as VP, Robert Kennedy was outraged and wanted to undo the decision. JFK supposedly told his aides, “I’m 43 years old. I’m not going to die in office. So the vice presidency doesn’t mean anything.”

LBJ’s involvement in the assassination gets even darker when you consider his ties to Texas oil tycoons like Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt, both of whom despised Kennedy for heretofore mentioned reasons. J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ’s neighbor and ally, was in danger of being forced into retirement by Kennedy. Hoover helped make sure the investigation was geared totally toward Oswald.

Mafia kingpins Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, and Santo Trafficante had strong motives to hate JFK. They helped him to become elected through vote-rigging in Chicago, and then the Kennedys turned on them. Bobby Kennedy’s assault on organized crime was merciless. Carlos Marcello even said, “If you cut off the dog’s head, the tail dies too.” Kill JFK, and Bobby goes away, as Lyndon Johnson will not want him.

It could be that it wasn’t just one person or group that assassinated Kennedy, but an alliance of groups with mutual hatred. The CIA wanted him gone after the Bay of Pigs and due to Kennedy’s plan to possibly dismantle the CIA. Kennedy had fired the vaunted director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, who was, unbelievably, appointed to the Warren Commission to examine who killed JFK. Author David Talbot (The Devil’s Chessboard) argued that Dulles controlled aspects of the investigation and prevented scrutiny of intelligence agencies.

The CIA wanted revenge. The mob wanted revenge. Big business and Texas oil wanted to keep their financial advantages. J. Edgar Hoover hated Kennedy and had a blackmail file on him. LBJ wanted more power and had the connections and means to get it. It’s like an Agatha Christie murder mystery where you look for the killer in the room and discover that everyone in the room probably had something to do with the murder, or at least wanted it to occur. Collusion of these aforementioned entities cannot be discounted.

When they postponed the opening of the Kennedy files for decades, they thought people would lose interest. Surprise, surprise, surprise. It is the duplicity, the lies and the cover ups that have kept this a hot topic. If the folks at the CIA and FBI want this to stop, the best thing they can do is to reveal everything; assuming most of the more salient documents have not disappeared already.

We can now definitively say that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was a fall guy. Can we say, with confidence, who were the planners of the assassination? If the Kennedy documents have not been tampered with over all these decades (what do you think the chances of that are?) then hopefully we can learn the names of the people Oswald wanted us to know before they silenced the patsy. As it stands, the list of possibles (the CIA, FBI, Mafia, Texas oilmen and Lyndon Johnson himself), is so dripping in corruption and immorality that they are all, in a de facto sense, guilty of the assassination.

I remember growing up and constantly hearing the phrase “boys will be boys.” As if everything that a boy did was somehow excusable because, well, he’s a boy. And boys will be boys. But, what does that phrase even mean? You never hear anyone say “girls will be girls.” You sometimes hear “girls just want to have fun,” but even that has a stigma attached to it that has never been attached to a boy.

And I get it. The anger we are seeing from men right now in western culture. It has to be such a bitch. To be told your entire life that nothing you do is your fault and your mother will center you, and baby you, and pamper you from the time you’re a child until you are grown up enough for her to pass the reigns of taking care of you on to another woman who will also center you, and baby you, and pamper you. I mean, look at what is happening right now in the United States. Babies. Babies running the country. Babies who seem to think they are entirely unaccountable for their actions.

And, the competition and resentment we consistently see between women is a direct result of the fact that it can’t be the man’s fault. Because it never has been. So it has to be the other woman’s fault. Or his mother’s fault. Or his wife’s fault. Because you’re not going to get any accountability from the man, so you have to look to the women around him to place the blame. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that my own mother’s relationship with my father’s mother improved dramatically after they were divorced. I’m pretty positive that any issue that my grandmother raised to my father was immediately shifted to my mother. That’s the thing about the patriarchy; it not only holds men blameless for their own actions, it also encourages the competition and the blame from woman to woman. If you look at history, even priests have excused horrendous actions taken by men by simply saying, “It’s not your fault. She tempted you.” I mean, really think about that for a second. This is, by their own account, and agent of God “himself” literally excusing violent and vile actions. So whose fault is it? Who should we look to to point the finger? Men? Religion?

You know whose fault I think all of it is? Eve. It all goes back to that fucking apple. I’m saying this tongue in cheek, because I don’t even believe Eve existed. But, really, it’s all of us. Women shouldn’t allow themselves to participate in the Patriarchy. Men shouldn’t allow themselves to participate in the patriarchy. All easier said than done, of course. Especially when the beliefs and stories of Religion are so incredibly pervasive in society. So, maybe as we evolve, it would probably be appropriate for the mythological stories that we base society on to evolve with us. I can’t help but wonder in all my years of Sunday school why no one ever said the words, “And Adam CHOSE to eat the apple.”

When it came to baseball, football, basketball or any other sport, there was never any question whether I could have been a contender. By eight or ten, I would join Donnie Nigro and other kids up the block in the Nigros’ back yard, tossing a football around and running for all I was worth, but at a certain point I would drop the ball (if I had it), and head home. My skin was itching, burning, and I just couldn’t take it.

More than fifty years later, a dermatologist at UIC told me, “Oh, I know what that is. It’s cholinergic urticaria. It’s related to prickly heat.” And then she asked whether she could scratch something on my back with her fingernail. “Oh my God,” she said, calling down the hall to a group of her colleagues: “Here’s a case of dermatografia; come and take a look; we don’t often get a chance to see this.” She had scratched in a word or two on my back and my skin had raised up in legible welts.

That was the first time I had any idea of why I had ended up as last chosen whenever teams were picked for any activity at all in the elementary school gym at St. Giles. It wasn’t a moral inadequacy; it wasn’t a personal failing; it wasn’t “all in my head.” It was a physical disability, genetic, not freely chosen, not a matter of consciousness or snobbism or books versus pigskins.

It was seventh or eighth grade and the class was playing dodgeball. I can’t remember the rules any more, if I ever actually knew them. I couldn’t keep my mind on what was going on during dodgeball, because all sports left me feeling bored, humiliated, “not one of us”. Sports? There was no way that I could ever be a contender.

But one day during dodgeball, the ball bounced of its own will directly into my hands. Surprise. Delight. The whole world was watching. I had absolutely no idea of what to do next.

Enter my classmate, Phil Grem, a skinny non-Italian with a high forehead and blond buttered noodle hair. He stepped right up to me and said, “Pass me the ball, Mike. Pass me the ball.” I immediately recognized him as a member of the non-Italian elite at Giles, the kids who hung out together after school. He rarely made eye-contact with me. That would have been an act of charity. But here he was adressing me directly as though I were an equal. A pal.

So of course I tossed him the ball.

What I didn’t realize was that Phil Grem was on the other side, the opposing team. But I think every other kid in the gym did realize that. There was a deafening roar of laughter resounding off every window, every door, every wall of the St. Giles gym.

Even today whenever I set foot in that gym for any religious or secular event, I immediately focus if only for a moment on exactly that spot where I was standing when I tossed the ball to my higher status classmate, the one I thought I could please, the one whose friendship I might have prized.

Okay, some you win, some you lose. Although I couldn’t imagine it at the time, the world is bigger than the St. Giles gym. As it turned out, not everyone agreed that I could never be a contender.

There was my mother’s mother, Mama Gay, for example. Mama Gay was convinced that I’d make it big some day on Jeopardy, her favorite daytime game show. By the time she was in her sixties, exhausted from her daily round of helping her two daughters deal with their combined total of sixteen messy kids, Mama Gay had become an authority on what she called “my stories”, capable of quoting with some conviction from the pages of The Soap Opera Digest, a copy of which she kept tucked away in her knitting basket, beside her favorite African violets.

In any case, the black and white TV game shows were wedged between the afternoon soaps, and Mama Gay was convinced I’d make it big. The evidence might have been rather thin for anyone else, but Mama Gay was a true believer. It was Mama Gay who listened to me spell my spelling words. She was the one who listened to me recite my Facts to Remember.

In those days there were Facts to Remember at the end of every chapter in every textbook, even the textbooks we used for religion class. St. Giles was a Catholic school. Facts to remember was the mechanical heart, the inorganic soul of religion back then, easily as important as showing up for the children’s Mass in the big church on Sundays, not eating meat on Fridays, and not talking back.

Mama Gay was impressed. I might just make it big on Jeopardy.

And then there was Sister Clarissa, the nun who taught piano lessons in the two piano rooms on the first floor directly below the convent chapel. You entered through the garden door, just past the boxes of seeds that the nuns asked you to pick out of the dry remains of flowers.

Though I never set foot in the convent chapel, I knew every square inch of the piano rooms both by direct and peripheral vision. While practicing your scales, you could look out the piano room windows directly across the street over the asphalt parking lot across Columbian Avenue in front of the big church. That was where the seventh and eighth grade boys played baseball after school and on Saturdays. You could see them and hear them, the boys, the crack of their bats against a hardball, their distant banter.

After years and years of piano lessons, years and years of memorization from sheet music spread out on the spinet piano in the sourtheast corner of our living room at home, Sr. Clarissa had me playing Chopin waltzes and Prokofief variations. My father’s father was a professional musician, the kind who played in the neighborhood vaudeville theaters that entertained the working class in the days before those theaters began to feature talkies. But the Rosanovas had moved into Oak Park, where there was no shortage of lace curtains. And music was not a matter of jam sessions.

It was Sister Clarissa who accompanied me to the studio of an accomplished professor of piano (McDougal? McDouglass?) on the fifth floor of The Fine Arts Building, the one next door to the Sullivan and Adler Auditorium Building at the corner of Congress Street and Michigan Avenue. In the Fine Arts Building in 1964, you rode up to the fifth floor in an elevator with a cage door and a round handle managed by a uniformed bell hop who shifted the gears and called out the floors, whether they were “second floor going up” or “fifth floor going down.”

The occasion was a Chicago area piano competition. The piece I had memorized was La Grande Valse Brilliante, a very long and intricate work by the Polish composer Chopin during his early days in Paris. The melody is carried mostly by the left hand, which abandons the base line, flying continuously over the right hand. In my presence and the presence of my medieval Sister Clarissa, McDougal (?) McDouglas (?) was rather distant but not unkind. “He hasn’t missed a single note,” he observed about my playing. “But where’s the feeling between the notes?” And despite that or perhaps in reaction against it, I took third place, thinking all the while that I wasn’t really there.

In the world where I was living in that day and age, no one seemed to be asking that question: but where’s the feeling between the notes? Many many years later when I was newly arrived in my seventies, my ciné-club group at the Alliance Française viewed and discussed “Shoot the Piano Player”, a wonderful black and white New Wave film by François Truffaut. It’s about a concert pianist who drops out of the big time in order to play jam sessions in cheap bars in the hidden corners of Paris. That film meant so much to me.

Mama Gay and Sister Clarissa weren’t the only ones who were willing to place a bet on me when I was in eighth grade, age fourteen, at St. Giles.

There was an essay contest sponsored by the Catholic Junipero Serra Society. I don’t remember what the theme was, but I do remember working like a dog on that essay, rewriting and editing and bringing everything to bear that Sister Benoit had imparted to her third grade nine-year-olds about proper 19th Century English grammar: when to employ the subjunctive mood, when to shade hesitation with a semicolon, when to clarify connections as though you were diagramming a phrasal verb.

The Canaparys’ mom, Anne, was still volunteering to lead reading club discussions in those days, and I remember asking her to confirm that I’d written something worthwhile. When she read it, she said essentially what the piano guy had said: “Not a note missing, but where’s the emotion between the notes?” And then she said, “Why don’t you say what you mean without words, I mean, just draw a picture and then take another look.” She didn’t change a word herself. I don’t remember showing the essay to her again before I handed it in to be judged.

I didn’t win. The prize was a gold watch. I didn’t win it.

In 1986 my father died of an incurable lipoid sarcoma. By then I had gotten through college, grad school (which I wanted) and law school (which my father required). I had a wife from Europe, a one-year old daughter, and a townhouse on Maple Avenue one block south of the Green Line in Oak Park.

The funeral was held at St. Anne’s in Barrington because my sister had her ophthalmology office there across the way from the church. Mary Anne had invited Father Ahern from St. Giles to celebrate the funeral Mass. When he ascended the pulpit, Fr. Ahern had a good deal to say, including a child by child review of each of the Rosanova children.

When he came to me, Fr. Ahern said, “In 1964 there was an essay competition, the Catholic Junipero Sera Society. Mike entered an extraordinary essay. I was on the panel of judges. When we read it, at first we were very impressed; but then we discussed the essay, and we scratched our heads and asked, how could a fourteen year old kid have written something like this? So we came to the conclusion that Mike must have plagiarized it or stolen it from somewhere. That’s why Mike didn’t win. We all thought he lied. But I can’t tell you how embarrassed we all felt, everyone on the panel, including me, four years later when we heard that Mike had graduated with top honors from Fenwick and that he had been accepted at Yale. Maybe we were wrong.”

What was it that people say about big brains and broken hearts?

Does being smart with school smarts immunize you, magically defend you from irony or even traffic tickets? Does hard work and ceaseless determination guarantee reward?

No, I never got to see or touch or wear that gold watch; but time has continued to flee from me at the age of seventy-four as it does from everyone, whether they wear a gold watch or any watch.

The gold watch is not the important thing after all.

As a married gay man with adopted children, I’m worried about the proposed Parents’ Bill of Rights and how it aims to delegitimize my union, parental status, and family structure. It is, unequivocally, a bad time to be queer, a person of color, a Muslim, an immigrant, a woman, a disabled person, a trans person, or any other minoritized group in America.

Three weeks before the election, I got my first tattoo. It’s a chibi version of the X-Man Nightcrawler, teleporting from my right calf to my left forearm. He’s very cute, and I am very proud to wear him on my body. As a 90’s kid, the X-Men are an outsize cultural touchstone for me. The metaphor of mutants being hated and feared for who they were born as (or who they manifested as as they became adults), resonated with me as an immigrant boy who found himself attracted to other boys.

Nightcrawler (aka Kurt Wagner) was a special favorite of mine. He was a teleporter (always my favorite power), whose X-gene manifested at birth, making him blue and furry, with three fingers and toes, a devilish tail, fangs, and bright yellow eyes with no discernible irises. The best part about him, though, was that he always celebrated his demonic appearance, and let it play into his personality as the team’s jokester and moral compass. He was a swashbuckler, a philosopher, and an insanely horny dude all rolled into one fuzzy elf. Overall, Kurt was who I aspired to be: proud of my identity, and a joyful warrior for those I cared about.

As the Trump Administration floods the zone with ever more devastating policy, I’ve found Nightcrawler’s presence on my body to be a source of comfort and encouragement, reminding me of what the story of the X-Men has meant to me over the years.

The mutant metaphor is a clear analogue to the struggle for civil and human rights in the US. Central to that struggle has been the conflict between two core leaders of mutantdom, Professor Charles Xavier (‘Professor X’) and Magneto. Professor X’s vision is one of respectability politics – mutants will gain broad acceptance by proving their value to society and using their gifts to protect humans (even bigots) from destructive forces (often other mutants). Magneto’s philosophy, on the other hand, started off as mutant terrorism and evolved into a more nuanced, but still radical approach: that humans will never love mutants, so mutants must embrace solidarity and mutual defense when necessary.

Over the decades, the X-Men discourse has largely been weighted toward Charles’ point of view, favoring a very Clinton-era version of respectability politics. However, since MAGA’s nascency, ‘Magneto was right’ has become the more valid and urgent take on the subject. On the Magneto episode of the encyclopedic X-Men podcast Cerebro, host Connor Goldsmith and national security reporter Spencer Ackerman discuss how ‘As long as you are willing to concede that the Marvel universe is a place where mutants are vivisected, hunted, subject to extermination… Magneto is right.’

While Ackerman and Goldsmith primarily frame Magneto’s philosophy from the lens of anti-semitism, and Israel and Palestine, they also acknowledge that any struggle for liberation and sovereignty is applicable to the idea that Magneto is right. Liberation, whether for queers, people of color, gender non-conformists, etc., has never been about assimilating, because hiding who we are won’t make the hate go away. Nor will joining the haters, (just ask the sobbing woman who never thought the leopards would eat her face, or the Asian Americans who supported an end to Affirmative Action.)

This feeling can be summed up in a line from Episode 7 of the Disney+’s excellent reboot of X-Men ‘97, where a genocide has just been perpetrated against the mutant nation of Genosha. “Perhaps the Professor’s vision for the future was too nearsighted and begging for your tolerance was our first mistake.”

My Nightcrawler tattoo has more salience now. It means that I, as an out gay man, who cannot hide his family, nor his parents’ immigration status, nor his political leanings, have no choice but to wear my identity on my sleeve, and say to the public that I am not going anywhere. And if the administration tries to take my rights away, tries to take my kids away, or tries to take my life, I will not stand quietly by while it happens. There is no liberation down that path.

So here’s my plea to my fellow mutants of all shapes and sizes. We know we are hated and feared. We know that our oppression is a tool of the regime to extend its control. We must not get into a defensive crouch. Keeping our heads down and waiting for it to pass will not help us. We must fight for what is right and speak loudly about the injustices being done to us in the name of America, and not go quietly back into the closet, into marginalization, or succumb to genocide. We must all wear our X-Genes on our sleeves.

I had my next tattoo appointment scheduled for three days after Trump’s second inauguration. It’s another X-Men reference: the Red Triangle Defense. A tool created by Charles Xavier, taught to those he cared about most, to protect them from psychic incursion in case Xavier were ever to be corrupted. It states, simply, in the strongest geometric shape, ‘RESIST’.

“We live in sexually interesting times, meaning a culture which manages to be simultaneously

hypersexualized and to retain its Puritan underpinnings, in precisely equal proportions.”

        -Laura Kipnis, Against Love: A Polemic

This paper’s title was inspired by lyrics from a song “Is It You?” by Cassie. As in any other traditional love song, the speaker expresses their need for “a lover, not a friend” (line 1, my emphasis). The speaker describes certain qualities that they are seeking for in their potential lover. For instance, the speaker says that they look for someone who is “not afraid to say the way they feel about you,” “someone who understands how [they] feel,” “someone to share [their] pain,” and “someone who [they] can cry with through the night” (lines 4, 19, 21). In the chorus, the speaker repeatedly asks whether “you” are the one for them who can fulfill all of these “requirements.” I recall listening to this song when I was in junior high as a thirteen-year-old kid. Funnily enough, back then, I was secretly in love with a boy who was in his final year of middle school. My much younger self seemed to have liked the song without any critical reflection on the lyrics, most likely because I was too preoccupied with relating to the song as someone who was clandestinely fantasizing about having a special, loving relationship with someone I admire. My crush was not viewed in a favorable light by people around me. A lot of my acquaintances treated my feelings as immature and shallow because I was admiring someone that I do not know very well. They believed I could not “truly” love somebody without spending a long time with them to learn about who they really are. A crush was not perceived to be deep and genuine enough to be “love.” Thanks to YouTube algorhythm, I happened to listen to this song again over a decade later, after experiencing many crushes in life. Then, I realized how ludicrous the lyrics are. The spaker is asking this one person, whom they call “a lover,” to take on the roles of a friend, parent, and caregiver—What a ridiculous amount of commitment! Furthermore, I have noticed that such love songs are a type of cultural product that perpetuates the bullshit idea of true and pure love forever stemming from an exclusive, romantic relationship with a lover.

Over time, going through my twenties, I began to question why so many people crave the specialness of a long-term relationship between two, generally heterosexual, individuals. People in South Korea, my mother country, are notoriously curious about other people’s love life. At times, they fail to respect the boundary and ask why someone is not in a romantic relationship when they are old enough to get married. Anyone who is not enjoying a coupledom are, often times, viewed with suspicion, as if they lack attractiveness as a human being or any other key attributes required to be a “marketable” being in the cis-heteropatriarchal romance-centric world.

Furthermore, I found the following to be the most problematic: There is also an implicit hierarchy amongst romantic relationships. I noticed that short-term relationships are frequently regarded as an incomplete or shallow, and have failed to develop into a longer and more meaningful relationships—no wonder why my crush was dismissed as a childish feeling that I would grow out of soon. This series of realizations about romantic relationships caused me to cast doubt on the idea of mature and pure love per se. Along the way, I discovered the concept of amatonormativity. Justin L. Clardy defines this term as “the belief that a central, dyadic romantic relationship that leads to marriage is the ideal romantic relationship, a universally shared goal, and should be pursued above all other relationships” (4). Regarding the ideology of love, there are several naturalized notions concerning sexuality, such as compulsory heterosexuality. Amatonormativity is also one of the romantic ideologies that drives individuals to enter a stable, exclusive dyadic romantic relationship and ultimately form a nuclear family that contributes to capitalist futurity.

Drawing on Clardy’s definition of amatonormativity, this essay seeks not only to dethrone complusory monogamy but also to dispel the myth of “true love”—the belief that humans are designed to seek romantic relationships and only a long-term romanitc-sexual relationship culminating in marriage is the ideal form of coupledom. I argue that such belief excludes individuals who do not participate in (dyadic) romantic relationships, whether they are aromantic, remain single by choice, or for other reasons. Non/monogamies free one from the shackles of the obligation to prioritize romance and marriage in their life, allowing them to value even short-term relationships as opportunities to learn about themselves.

Nevertheless, I would like to note that my objective is not to address non/monogamies solely in a celebratory manner. I admit that even among non/monogamous communities, certain non/monogamous relationships are deemed superior over others, contingent upon the degree of “seriousness” or the level of exclusivity in the relationship. For instance, consensual non/monogamists who practice polyamory, polyfidel, or consensual open marriage may judge those who refuse to engage in romantic relationships but only desire sex such as one-night stands or threesomes as superficial. Nathan Rambukkana criticizes this act of “privileging” certain forms of non/monogamies. He underlines that “polyamory’s focus on the notion of ‘responsible non-monogamy’ does not deconstruct privileged hetero- and mononormative assumptions about non-monogamy in general but instead carves out a space of acceptability within non-monogamous intimacy” (119). In other words, individuals engaging in consensual or “responsible” polyamory may be practicing another form of romantically and sexually exclusive relationship, which could be viewed as an emulation of monogamous marriages. Such interconnectedness between monogamy and non/monogamies implies that non/monogamies are not inherently radical or innovative alternatives to compulsory monogamy as long as they are enmeshed in the ideologies and practices of love that circulate in amatonormative societies. Therefore, pushing back against amatonormativity is an attempt to critique dominant ideologies of love that lie not only in mononormative societies but at the intersection of compulsory monogamy and non/monogamies.

I am going to share one informal interview I had with Elmo (a nickname), who is a twenty-five-year-old art teacher living in the Midwest. They identify themselves as non/monogamist and this conversation provides us with some insight regarding how to view love and love life and how we can go against the amatonormative society’s ideology of true love.

Unruly Love: Conversation with a Non/monogamist 

My conversation with Elmo began by listening to their story of how they became non/monogamous and what was their first experience in non/monogamous relationship like. I asked Elmo when they started to identify themself as a non/monogamist and whether there was any special occasion that drew their interest in practicing non/monogamies. Elmo explains:

Elmo: What led me to identify as a non/monogamist was my experience in a monogamous relationship. I was in a monogamous relationship with a man before for four and a half years, and he wanted a very traditional kind of relationship where we get married and maybe have a family and all of that, and I experienced a lot of feelings of guilt in that relationship, for even having feelings for other people, for having crushes on other people, and I would really get in my head about that, and then on his ends, he was very jealous of my friendships with other men, and I remember him like calling my male friendships like “oh…go talk to your other boyfriends” … he would throw that at me so that relationship ended in 2019, and then, after that, I very quickly realized that I wanted a different kind of relationship. Then, in the next relationship that I was in, I started to have those conversations about, “What do you think of polyamory?” And the next person I was with was interested in it, and it took a totally different approach to relationships than my past partner, and what I really appreciated about this relationship was that I actually liked talking about other people with this person; I liked hearing his stories about other partners and other experiences. I liked telling about mine! And this was like what I haven’t had before, and I think that made us closer as we were able to share more about ourselves. So that was my first experience exploring polyamory. 

This conversation highlights how the traditional monogamous relationship, which ultimately seeks to “settle down” by marrying, may feel restricting to certain individuals. Instead of feeling entitled to keep their partner(s) entirely to themselves at all times, Elmo prefers talking about other people that they have feelings for to their current partner(s), indicating that Elmo is not pursuing exclusivity to make their romantic relationship unique and special but rather asserting that a person’s attraction to multiple people does not diminish their love for their current partner.

Elmo further explains how the practice of non/monogamy helped them change their life.

Elmo: I think it has changed my life by making me more open to the different types of people that I have been having relationships with. Because opening the door to polyamory for me meant that I didn’t have to put the pressure on myself to find a person that could be everything for me. And I can experience these relationships with different people and appreciate them for who they are instead of trying to stress out whether, “Will this be a long-term thing?” or “Are you the right one for me? Can you do this and this and this for me?” But instead, I can be with…just be with them, get to know them, and then just appreciate each relationship for what it is, instead of like trying to find the perfect person …

What stands out in this response is the fact that Elmo has freed themselves from the idea of “long-term relationships” or an obligation to find “the perfect person,” but they have learned to be “open to different types of people.” Elmo’s reponse suggests that giving themselves a chance to start a new relationship should not be bounded by the idea of long-lasting relationships. Possessing the expectation that a relationship will last into the future can be constraining since it forces people to estimate the length of the connection in advance and prevents them from giving it a chance if they believe it will not last long. What matters to Elmo is what they can learn or earn from each relationship, regardless of its length. Focusing on the uniqueness of each person one dates is deeply linked with contesting the belief in “perfect partner.” Elmo’s preferred style of dating recognizes that one does not have to feel entitled to such “a perfect person,” as they can date more than one person with different strengths and attractiveness. The change in life Elmo experienced by becoming polyamorous suggests a possibility of growing into a well-rounded person by gaining a full self-understanding through diverse love experiences with multiple people.

Joey: Could you tell me more in detail about learning to be alone rather than considering a [love] relationship a huge part of your life? I think that part is closely aligned with this project.

Elmo: Ok so, I guess like comparing my long-term monogamous relationship to my polyamorous relationships, in my monogamous relationships, there were a lot of conversations about our role that we’re going to have in each other’s life in the future and will we be able to fufill those roles for each other, and so there were conversations like, “Oh! He’s going to be a doctor. Will I be able to be the type of person who can be kind of a doctor’s wife-kind-of-person and socialize with all of his fancy friends with everything…” Because I have always been a bit more eccentric and loosey-goosey, and so that I can see, there was the pressure of how I was going to mold myself into this future person’s… to be this person’s partner for the rest of my life. And then now, in relationships, I think I’m more focused on things like quality time. [I like] spending this time with this person and just enjoying each other’s energy and being in each other’s presence. And, yeah, we don’t always have so many conversations about the future and how we’re going to… what roles we are going to play in the future and how they are going to play out. But [I am] just focusing on enjoying the time that I have with people. And I think that has also probably taught me to enjoy the time I have with myself too, and just like experiencing the present moment with myself.

Elmo’s experience with a traditional monogamous relationship that posits marriage exemplifies what happens if we decenter traditional dyadic romance from one’s life.      

The point about spending time with oneself is particularly noteworthy in this response. Elmo says that when they were in a traditional monogamous relationship, they often pondered how to play the role of the ideal partner that suits their partner’s material conditions, including his profession and social life. However, as a polyamorist, Elmo is now freed to enjoy the time alone rather than planning the future with someone else. Elmo’s anecdote implies that amatonormative worship of marriage can limit one’s self-formation by confining them to permanent relationship with one person. Non/monogamies, which are not bound by the idea of  “happily ever after,” shed light on the fact that living alone does not mean that the individual is susceptible to loneliness. Rather, the individual can engage in a more independent self-formation without being hampered by the amatonormative relationship’s insistence on perpetual responsibility.   

Joey: Do you feel conflict between your understanding of love and dominant ideas of love? Have you ever tried to manage that conflict?

Elmo: One conflict that I have felt is that the length of a relationship is equal to its worth. So like seeing a relationship that lasts for a decade, that scene is like the top, like what you’re looking for. And then, relationships that last maybe a couple of months—it seems like those don’t even matter. That’s nothing. And what I have found is that relationships lasted even a couple of months taught me so many things about myself. Just being with those people unearthed a different part of myself that I didn’t know existed. And I carry that with me. So the different relationships that I had have all done that. I think because when I get to know someone else on an intimate level, then I also get to know myself intimately, and every person is so unique and different, so that learning happens in a different way with each person, which I really appreciate. So that’s part of how I fight the sort of dominant ideas, like the length of the relationship being [considered important.] What’s important is that I really value these relationships that I’ve had even for short periods of time.

Elmo critiques amatonormative beliefs in “long-term and serious” relationships, which circles us back to my anecdote on crush. Elmo reemphasizes that even though one of the relationships lasted a couple of months, they learned a lot about themselves. Elmo’s emphasis on learning allows us to presume that non/monogamies are more than just about the relationship; they are also about learning about oneself and shaping one’s selfhood. Simply put, self-making through the practice of non/monogamies is a mode of resistance against the amatonormative myth of long-lasting relationships as a true and mature form of love. I would like to conclude the interview section by introducing Elmo’s lovely metaphor:

Elmo: Sometimes I thought about… you know how a cat will want the door open even if they don’t actually want to be in the other room or on the other side of the door? They just want the door open so that they know that they can go into the other room. Like, they’ll stay at the aisle of the door, then you open the door, and then they just stay in the room that they’re in … Yeah, that’s the comfort to me in polyamory. The freedom of knowing that I have these paths even if I’m not actively trying to go down every path.

Even if one identifies as a non/monogamist, they may not practice it right away. However, they can reassure themselves that there is another road they can follow any time if they feel suffocated while living under the pressure of compulsory monogamy—what Elmo refers to as “the freedom of knowing.” The non-compulsory nature of non/monogamies frees one from amatonormative constraints and allows one to unearth previously unknown tendencies and preferences, leading one to a more dynamic and multidimensional love life.

Though this may sound overly obvious and outmoded, my conversation with Elmo, as well as previous studies conducted by other scholars of non/monogamies, prove that love can be practiced in a variety of ways. On that note, I would like to thank all the scholars who have bravely performed research on non/monogamies as a way to combat amatonormativity, despite all the prejudices and criticisms they may have faced for defying mainstream norms. Above all, I would also like to thank my numerous younger selves for always overcoming devastation and confusion caused by seemingly “immature,” “silly,” and “inauthentic” love relationships that they exposed themselves to and landing on this unconventional style of relationship that will lead them to new adventures. If I could travel through time and meet my 13-year-old self, I would tell them that they will have a lot of heartbreaks and they will have a hard time pulling themselves out of the fantasy of love withheld by many other people around them (perhaps that might a bit brutal thing to say to a middle schooler). Nevertheless, I would also give them hope by saying that they will meet a lot of comrades (namely, Foucault, perhaps, a good friend who will torture them when they get into graduate school) who will grace them with knowledge they need to navigate the complex web of amatonormativity and cis-hetero-patriarchy. I truly wish all the best to non/monogamists and their relatas.

Works Cited

Clardy, Justin L. Why It’s Ok to Not Be Monogamous, Routledge, 2023.

Kipnis, Laura. Against Love: A Polemic, Vintage Books, 2004.

Elmo (redacted information). Interview. Conducted by Joey Junsu Hong. 21 March 2024.

Rambukkana, Nathan. Fraught Intimacies: Non/Monogamy in the Public Sphere, UBC Press,

2016.

Knowing I’m much better with moderation than abstinence, I joked with my friends that I would do “damp January” and check in at the end of the month. I just set out to drink a little less alcohol by practicing what I call mindful drinking. 

What is mindful drinking? I thought it was something I made up, but a quick Google search shows it’s been around for a while. Like everything, though, I’m putting my spin on it. Mindful drinking for me means bringing the qualities of my personal mindfulness practice to illuminate my personal drinking habits—and use it to make adjustments.

It’s mindful drinking that made giving up alcohol completely possible when a serious health concern came up last summer. And it’s what sustained me. 

And now, with the Surgeon General announcing that even small amounts of alcohol aren’t safe to drink and may increase your risk of cancer, more people may be thinking of cutting back or cutting out alcohol completely. The research is clear, but the how-to can be daunting.

Enter mindful drinking: a simple, practical method that starts with just one question, “Why do I want this drink?” For me, the answers pointed to a routine I hadn’t noticed.

Day was done–pour a glass of wine for myself. Sit down to dinner at a restaurant–order a bottle of wine for the table. Meet with friends–get a round of dirty martinis. Drinking was embedded in my life. It was routine and mindless. 

This all changed with mindful drinking. After asking the starting question, I followed it with others–all designed to make me fully aware of why I was drinking, how I felt about drinking, and the effect on my body and mind.

Here are the questions I asked myself:

1. In this moment, why do I want this drink?
2. Do I actually want it, or am I just used to having it? 
3. How is my mood affecting my answer? Am I stressed, annoyed, happy, anxious? 
4. Can I have just one drink or am I going to want four more? 
5. Even if it’s just one, can I drink some water or something else instead that will actually hydrate me and then go do something to balance my mood? 

Once I paused and answered these questions, I was able to make a decision and feel good about it. It wasn’t an easy process immediately but like mindfulness overall, the more I practiced mindful drinking, the easier it became. I was already aware. The best part for me was that I never felt restricted or like alcohol was off-limits. 

It was just a simple nope, I’ll have that drink tomorrow if I want it. Eventually tomorrow became the next day, and then the next, and then on January 27th I realized that I hadn’t had a drink in 7 days. And, I’d gotten through it without feeling miserable the entire time.

The next best thing was that when I did decide to drink, I enjoyed it in a new way. At dinner one evening, I asked myself all the questions and decided to order a glass of Syrah. And that one glass, paired with my short rib and truffle pasta, was heavenly. I didn’t need another. I wasn’t drinking to relax. 

When I came home on a Tuesday after a busy day of work, and I just wanted to open that bottle of screw top wine to pair with my sad salad (no judgment!), having something non-alcoholic and interesting on-hand saved me. I muddled lime and mint into sparkling water and poured it into a festive gold-flecked wine glass, just to entertain myself. In no way was I tricking myself into thinking I was drinking—I feel a certain amount of rage towards advice that suggests it’s possible to trick your brain—but it was amusing and keeping my mood light helped me continue. 

Once I started feeling the benefits of drinking less, saying no thanks to a second round at happy hour stopped feeling like a big deal. More energy, less anxiety, better health, and clearer skin? Yes, please. I also stopped sweating the small things at work. I started reading more. I stopped melting into my couch while binging Law & Order SVU for the fifty-leventh time (I love you, Mariska, but I needed to move on). And I was in an overall better mood.

And I continued this well beyond January. But when summer rolled around, and it was time for rosé on a rooftop, I happily joined friends in the sunshine and downed that bottle with them. It took a month to realize I was back to my routine. It was just warmer, and the drinks were colder. 

Cue the mindful drinking questions. 

When a new health condition surfaced that alcohol aggravated, I realized that I had to give up drinking altogether. Initial panic set in. There was no way I could do it. But there was. I’d done it before. The questions just took on new significance. 

Even if I still wanted a drink after going through the questions, by that time, I had slowed down enough to realize that the ultimate answer was, “It’s just not worth it.” And it didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like saving myself.

Please know that I’m not a health care provider or a counselor. If you’re struggling with substance use, visit www.samhsa.gov or call SAMHSA National Helpline Confidential for free help, from public health agencies, to find substance use treatment and information 1-800-662-4357.

As families of all ages watched the movie, my attention was focused on my daughter growing in my partner’s belly. I couldn’t stop thinking about a question posed at the start of the film, similar to one I often pose in my own research: Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?

I love questions. As a university professor and researcher, it’s my job to ask and answer them. Yet, this inquiry was different. It felt more personal, more emotional, more intense. I kept thinking about the conditions that my daughter might grow up in. And will she believe that, as a woman of color, a Black woman, she is wicked?

I love researching the moments and movements of the past. They help me fill a void in the learning from my own educational experiences. Some call them counter-stories—the narratives counter to the mainstream narratives we learn about as children. Legal scholar Richard Delgado reminds us that stories create bonds, cohesion, meaning and shared understandings. Often created by dominant groups, stories hold power. Counter-stories, on the other hand, challenge power and perceived truth.

In school, when I learned about Black history it was only during two time periods—enslavement and civil rights. I can remember returning home from school to my parents curious to know what I had learned. My father would often frown at the social studies content I recited. Day after day, year after year, he and my mother would introduce a different social studies to me, counter to the lessons I was learning about in school. These counter-stories gave me a sense of pride in myself, my family and my culture. They helped me to locate the wisdom and beauty that I come from, even when others around me shunned, laughed at and erased my culture.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where young women, particularly Black women, are told they have no worth. They are sold images—in their feeds, on billboards and in their schools, that present one notion of beauty. Emergent studies have linked exposure to social media images and videos to eating disorders, mental health issues, and even suicide among teen and adolescent girls. And for Black girls the data is more alarming. A 2017 study by the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity found that adults view Black girls as less innocent, more adult-like, and in need of harsher in-school punishment than their peers.

With no intervention will my daughter—a Black, Puerto Rican, and Pakistani child—think that her difference is wickedness? That’s a question that inspires me to action. I’ve decided to write a love letter, maybe it’s a counter-story, to my future daughter, and other daughters navigating the hostilities of the world.

Dear daughter,

We don’t have a name picked out yet, but I hope we find one that reflects your beauty, your wisdom, your agency, and the power of your ancestors. No matter what messages that world sends to you, about you, about women, about Black women, Pakistani women, and about Puerto Rican women, know that you don’t have wickedness in you and neither does anyone else. That wickedness comes from the conditions that surround our lives. So, when life has you down, turn your attention toward the systems and structures that harm you and others like you, not toward yourself.

We often celebrate Black women after they die. Whether at the hands of police violence, diet, or patriarchal violence, I wonder what praise and celebration women get while alive? What might it mean for you to celebrate yourself every day? And what might it mean for those around you, including your mom, me, your teachers, and your friends, to celebrate your life? In the celebration we find affirmation. These affirmations may, even if momentarily, move against the tides of oppression that tell you that you don’t matter, that you are wicked. So, even if no one else does, take a moment today, and every day to celebrate you!

Sometimes the world will only notice your anger, your frustration, your rage. For years, Black women have been framed as over-emotional, as angry. See, this is how patriarchy works. It teaches us that expressing our emotions, our feelings, is somehow a sign of weakness. And for Black women, who have endured over 400 years of anti-Black and patriarchal violence, emotions are even more surveilled and punished. When the world tells you to be emotionless, be emotionful. Share all of your feelings! Your pain, your joy, your laughter, and rage with the world.

They will try to steal your magic and claim it as their own. Don’t let them! Know that you have the answers to the questions, the missing pieces to the puzzles, and fuel to the fire. They will observe you with distain, but know they just want what you have. They will bash you, put you down, and tell you that you do not belong. But trust, you are leader we’ve been waiting for!

When the world is presented to you as complete and objective, fixed and permanent, know that you have the power to transform it. When you recognize the world, and yourself as incomplete, you will also realize your role in making it more complete, more fair, more just, more free.

They may call you repulsive, a distortion, wicked. But remember who you are, where you come from, and where you are headed.

So love the ways your skin reflects on the moonlight and the waves of your hair that mirror the tide of the ocean. Love your body, your face, your eyes, and your lips. Love your feet and your kneecaps. Love your teeth and your belly. Love you and everything you are! Love you and everything that you are becoming.

You can do anything and no one needs to remind you of that!

When you fall, defy gravity.

You aren’t wicked. The world is.

Love,

Dad