The Political Imagination

"I think your imagination may be getting the best of you."

She calmly said this to me as my canthi welled.

"People get what they work for; there isn't some great conspiracy to keep certain people down."

I felt how wrong she was, but I didn't know why. I couldn't back up my suspicion with proof–just a hunch that the world wasn't as meritocratic as people claimed.

I had tried to explain to her the disparity in treatment that I had witnessed between the "haves" and the "have-nots" at our school and how I suspected this dynamic carried over into the "real" world, but she shut me down.

She was one of the guidance counselors at my high school and a student government advisor. She also doubled as a health teacher and aerobics instructor.

She is white, middle-aged, and upper-middle-class.

I didn't know at the time, but her positionality would make her the last person a child should speak to about wealth disparity and unequal treatment of Others, let alone about futures, health, or bodies.

Through her behaviors and ignorance, she taught me just how biased and prejudicial the world could be.

She may not have been aware of the presence of structural oppression, but the lack of critical thought in her response led me to believe there was something more going on.

I knew I was right after Mike Tucson died.

It would be this teacher, yet again, assuring me that people could be fucked and the world was often unfair.

Mike Tucson was a quiet boy in our school. He was Black, gay, and a little goth. I performed in choir and had a few classes with him, but I didn't know him well. He had a separate friend group from me, although I was mutual friends with some of his buddies. We knew the other existed but knew essentially nothing about each other.

When I heard he killed himself, I understood nothing of the reasons why he might do something so tragic. I was confused, sad, and remorseful for not knowing him better.

When I heard he killed himself because he came out to his family and was disowned, I felt even worse.

Someone struggling with the same thing I was struggling with had succumbed to the very temptation that I had been fighting for years. The only difference was Mike dared to face his fears and tell his family. I had yet to do so.

I grieved as though I had lost a friend but kept those feelings to myself.

No one could know that I related to this boy. No one could know I was gay.

When the time came to collect senior pictures for the yearbook, Mike's photo was one of the first in the box. He must have turned it in weeks before he died. I was part of the senior class student government and organized senior pictures for the yearbook. As I sorted the images before me, I saw Mike's face.

A bright smile and glasses framed him pleasantly before a simple draped backdrop. He had used the school photo as his senior picture, but it didn't matter. It may not have been as fancy as some other seniors' shoots, but he looked kind and inviting to me—a beautiful image.

I collected all the photos, stacked them neatly on my desk, with Mike's contribution on top, and walked them to our advisor's room. The woman previously mentioned was in charge of all senior-class student government functioning. I had to clear the pictures with her before submitting them to the yearbook for editing.

I showed her Mike's picture first.

"In the past, we've done dedication pages for students who died. Should I talk to the yearbook staff about doing one for him?" I said as I handed her the picture.

She took it from my hand, placing it unceremoniously in her top desk drawer.

"I don't see any need for that. He won't graduate with you. We can take it out." She carelessly quipped, maybe for me, maybe for herself.

As the drawer shut, I remained silent, holding the image of the beautiful, bright, queer Black boy in my mind.

I remember looking at my hands holding the other photos of my peers—mostly white, mostly straight (or so I thought) faces–before giving them to her.

After that day, I wouldn't come to her by choice again. She made her stance and values clear to me and affirmed what I had known but couldn't articulate, despite her initial lie: there is a pecking order, and identity is at the heart of it.

Racism, homophobia, and classism are a few of the prevailing issues facing our world. The relationship between them and the dynamics of misogyny and misogynoir influence every aspect of our lived experience. The painful and often debilitating ramifications of that influence reverberate through generations and lead us to a place where the Mike Tucsons of the world are not celebrated or made to feel safe and loved. That doesn't mean these social issues must always be present or that they will. It means we must always do better than those who came before us.

My imagination works just fine. It always has.