men

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Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:22:25 PM

i was listening to a story today about the lord's resistance army, a self-proclaimed christian guerrilla force in africa known for its brutality and widespread human rights violations. its leader, whose name i do not wish to keep in my head, claims to be the voice of god and the holy spirit and believes his army to be an established theocratic state. the group had initially targeted the ugandan government, but turned on civilians 18 years ago when civil defense militia were sent into villages to protect the communities living there. yes. this war has been going on for more than 18 years. the philosophy behind the rebellion is not clearly understood, other than to establish the ethnic cleansing of non-believers.

aside from murder and mutilation, the army is best known for the mass abduction of children and sexual enslavement, including the prevalent public rape of women in front of their own families and communities. in addition to psychopathic behavior, this is believed to be a political tactic, a warfare weapon, to apply overwhelming humiliation and fear. the children who are stolen from their homes are often forced to kill their own siblings and parents, so that they will never be allowed to return to their villages if they manage to flee from the army's malicious grasp.

i was stuck on these images for some time, and didn't catch what is being done to stop this.




i have to keep my headphones in when i'm biking. i pass by three rescue missions along park avenue twice a day, and there are so many eyes and voices. i will not avoid the crowds; i have to see the people who have been damaged and tossed away, or i will forget them. i will forget their faces and my relationship to their lives. this, of course, is not the same as doing something. i know i am not doing anything to understand them, to help them. when i moved to denver in 2004, i planned to spend a summer interviewing the women waiting in the lines for beds. writing about them, and their childhoods, and the pigeons.

but the men cackle. so many men, punished by life, and dirty, and mean. so many stumbling through the streets, shouting things at me through holes in their teeth, through leathered faces and red glassy eyes. i was naive once, and smiled at them; they thought i wanted something and shocked me with terrible words. i am not brave enough to face this.

when i ride by, i think about their formless eyes on me, their heads turned widely. tracking me. i feel naked every time and wish that i had worn more clothes, or been very ugly. invisible, or feared. i make sure my music is up before crossing 21ts street, so i won't take their foul invitations home with me. so that i don't consume myself with how i should have answered, so i don't feel silenced and used. so that i don't leap from my bike and swing my fists to their flapping mouths. i dream of this, you know.




i don't know what it is, but all of these men have been hitting on me lately. whistling from their cars, singing about me from their counters. telling me their names, asking me mine. smiling with their eyebrows and presumptions and handing me my purchases. slowly. with gratitude.

i am appreciative, i suppose. but so unmoved. there is so much entitlement in men. i fixate on this constantly. the ways they make assumptions, use up space, declare their knowledge and opinions and nearsighted truths. they look at me with the confidence they were born in. and they walk too close to me, and see themselves everywhere, and invite their importance into my thoughts.


it is all so obvious, i know. too obvious. but it festers sometimes when i don't call it out.

and we don't call it out. we let our boys grow into men who feel unrestricted, who impose their presence and demands. sometimes accidentally, and sometimes carelessly, and sometimes with incredible, soulless violence.


i want to know how this happens. i want to know if there will always be the manifestation of a dominant force that is oblivious and hurtful. i want to know how i accept this, and impersonate this, and protest this in my life. i want to know where my power is at all times.




my nephew was born tuesday morning at 8:42 am.

i hope it is more than likely that he will develop great and profound compassion in all of his approaching years, and will not be absorbed instead into society's troubled way of explaining manhood.









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