Bash'd

Tonight my writing comes with weighty words. I went to see Bash'd tonight. It is a gay rap opera telling the story of fictional star-crossed lovers married in Alberta after gays and lesbians gained the right to marry in 2005. Jack is lives in the city, raised by gay dads, and likes to frequent the bar scene. Dillon is from a small town, moves to the big city after coming out to his parents, and meets Jack at his first visit to the gay bar. They fall in love, move in together and marry.

As the two characters state in the play, I wish the story stopped there. But it doesn't. Upon leaving the bar one night, Jack is gay bashed. He survives. After struggling with how to cope, Dillon storms out of their home one night and in his anger, bashes three straight men. Jack finds him as the police arrive, and while in a loving embrace, Dillon raises the gun and they are both shot and killed by the officers.

What's impressive about the show perhaps isn't its story as much as its telling. T-Bag and Feminem rap for an hour, reclaiming words (namely faggot and cock-sucker), identities (on the whole spectrum of gay) and an entire genre of music in the process. Rap began as a social justice movement, requiring only a good beat, clever rhymes and an empassioned artist speaking out about racism. In our era, it has become a site of intense homophobia and violence- against women, gay men and people who identify as trans.

I haven't fully digested it all just yet, but the sadness of it resonated. At the end I was sobbing, which I'm fairly used to doing in public by now. I was not okay. Maybe what resonated most was the unnecesary cycle of violence begun by Jack's gay bashing and continued by Dillon going out to straight bash. Maybe it was recognizing the failure of various institutions at so many points along the way- Dillon's Dad's hatred, the homophobia of the gay bashers, the failure of the couple's supprt group to address and support the couple, the failure of the medical system to adequately provide for Jack in the aftermath of his traumatic beating and, most profoundly for me, of the criminal justice system to fail to find Jack's bashers while responding with such immediacy and bluntness to Dillon's act with their own extreme acts of state-sponsored violence- shooting the two men in what is easily read as self-defense. And maybe it was the realization that the world would hold Dillon out as a criminal, when what is actually criminal is the injustice and inequalities of the lived experience of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and their allies across the world.

What brought me to tears and kept me there was the recitation of the R.I.P.s at the end of the show. It was a reminder that my queer brothers and sisters (and gender-identities in between and outside of that binary) are being beaten and killed ALL THE TIME. There is NO excuse, justification or explanation. When one person experiences violence, we all do. An attack on one is an attack on us all. When we do not speak out, we are as guilty as those who perpetuate the violence. The failure of anyone in the passing cars driving by to stop the bashing from occuring, and actually doing the bashing, all lead to the same result - a man is left bleeding on the sidewalk.

Inaction is action. Its a choice too. There is no neutral in this world. As we move forward, it is important to not take away the voice of those who are discriminated against, but to stand as allies supporting in the fight. There are limits to my whiteness, your heterosexuality, and our ableness, but if we can all recognize that our liberty is bound up in each other's collective lived experience, maybe we can begin a new page in our collective history.

I will leave you with my new favourite quote:

"If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin." -Lila Watson (Australian Aboriginal Activist)