“Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out”, edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu

Pg. 306

Why is the possibility of “passing” so insistently viewed as a great privilege… and not understood as a terrible degradation and denial?

– Evelyn Torton Beck, Nice Jewish Girls

…

pg. 320

When I share
my racial and cultural roots
people scoff
“you can’t be!”
“you’re kidding!”
“no you’re not!”
then proceed to tell me
then proceed to define me
then proceed to invalidate
what is really real for me.

What gives anyone
the right
to tell me who and what I am?

I never want to hear
that I don’t look Hawaiian
that I don’t look Japanese
that I’m lucky I don’t look my age
that I can’t be, that I couldn’t be
Why make such a big deal about it?
Why is it so important?

I never want to hear
that I am not a bisexual
that there is no such thing
that if I haven’t been with a man for a while,
I should call myself a lesbian
that I am hurting lesbians
that I am confusing
an already confusing situation for heterosexual society

Why make such a fuss?
Why don’t I just keep it quiet?
Why is it so important?

Don’t tell me who I am
Don’t tell me what my experience is or has been
Don’t tell me my personal is not political
Don’t ask me why it is important or what’s the big deal

I won’t be silenced
I will make a fuss
and I will tell you why it is so important…

I claim it all and have no shame for it is the truth.

“Bridging the Class Divide: And Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing”, by Linda Stout

Pg. 87

Oppression is part of the fabric of everything we do and experience — what we’re taught in school; what we see in the media and on billboards; the images of beauty we absorb from our culture. In school we learn about white men who supposedly discovered everything and invented everything. In a majority of churches, women in the Bible are presented in negative ways; we’re taught that men are supposed to have power over women. Men are always shown as the powerful ones. Heterosexual couples are always shown as the basis for a family; theirs is the only acceptable kind of love. Poor people are shown as stupid and lazy, often as Southern, so many people actually associate Southern accents with being dumb. All these images reflect institutionalized oppression…

the great weight of the system operates as if the oppressive images were true instead of lies and distortions. For example, if you are poor and you want to buy a used car, you soon find out you’ll have to pay more interest, make higher payments, than for a new car. So you end up having to buy a new car… Institutionalized oppression is when a prejudice is supported by all the systems of society with all the power to back up that prejudice, so that it becomes the canon — the accepted way.