a year later

it's been a full year since the last time i was seriously physically gay bashed.  maybe a year and a month or so.  the thing about it is that it has never felt like such a big deal, except for remembering how important it was to fight back and how important it was to get home. 

being gay-bashed is something that is not shocking or new to me, homophobia is something i deal with everyday, along with racism, transphobia, classism, and the ever-present effects of imperialism and colonization on my family and sense of self.  however, the bashing that happened last year was particularly memorable because of how physically debilitating it was.  and because it left me pretty much incapacitated for days.

a year later i think back and realize that i did everything the way i would do it again today, and i am proud of myself for that.  and i am no longer ashamed of saying that i fought back, and i fought back hard, and i fought back at young guys who were probably the same color as me, and maybe a couple of years younger.  i fought back and i am alive, i fought back and i needed to, i fought back and i am stronger because of it. 

i have been struggling to reconcile how wrong it is to play into the war between men of color in this world.  that it's not a radical way of thinking about liberation or restorative justice. that fighting gets nothing accomplished.  but i am of the always-fight-back school and i ALWAYS fight back.  because i also know that i have to survive and i have to feel safe and i have to get home at the end of the night and i have been fighting back with my heart and my mind and my many forms of resistance since i was a kid, and i have been building myself up inside and i will not just let anyone break me and take that away.

because i know that i am challenging that violence and bullshit in my relationships and in the way i interact with people.  and because i know that i will continue to mess up and continue to learn more about the power i wield and the violence that my body and words put out into the world. 

but fighting back to me is not about putting more violence into the world, but about gathering all the strength from my experiences and the legacies of survival that have kept my people here, and really gripping onto what is mine; my body, my life, my right to survive, my commitment to survive and my right to feel safe in this world. 

i always say there is a line and a moment when we need to stop trying to be martyrs and educators and just take care of ourselves.  to come from a place of loving ourselves and loving being here and harnessing that in why we fight back, instead of fighting back from a place of hatred or anger.

so a year after taking several blows to the head and being fag bashed by three people, and still being able to make it home alone and take care of myself, i am learning to let go of the anger and the fear, and learning that it's alright to fight back with your body when your body is being attacked.  this is a huge step for me, and for many of us with colonized bodies, or bodies that have been invaded and in which we have been taught to feel powerless and to not own. 

... more later...