Blanco discusses his homophobic, abusive grandmother

[operafan]

Such an interesting article. It is pretty overwhelming but he does say that he wouldn't be the kind of poet he is today if he had had a different upbringing.


I'm six or seven years old, riding back home with my grandfather and my Cuban grandmother from my tía Onelia's house.


Her son Juan Alberto is effeminate, "un afeminado," my grandmother says with disgust. "¿Por qué? He's so handsome. Where did she go wrong with dat niño?" she continues, and then turns to me in the back seat: "Better to having a granddaughter who's a whore than a grandson who is un pato faggot like you. Understand?" she says with scorn in her voice.
I nod my head yes, but I don't understand: I don't know what a faggot means, really; don't even know about sex yet. All I know is she's talking about me, me; and whatever I am, is bad, very bad. Twenty-something years later, I sit in my therapist's office, telling him that same story. With his guidance through the months that follow, I discover the extent of my grandmother's verbal and psychological abuse, which I had swept under my subconscious rug.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richar...b_2507024.html

[GiancarloC]

I can kinda relate... some of my relatives haven't accepted me. One so much so called me a "maricon". I guess I was lucky that my parents and siblings do accept me.

Experiences do indeed shape your life direction... that's for sure.

[Harke the Boeotarch]

"I no taking you to dat Enrique's house neber again. He's a Mamacita's boy. I don't want you playing with him. I don't care what you say, those GI Joes he has are dolls. Do you want to play with dolls; is dat what you want señorita?"

Hilarious. Thank you for sharing.

Reminds me of this:

[nycguydowntown]

On the up side--besides Blanco's poem--it was a big day for gays when the president mentions Stonewall in an Inauguration speech something big happened ---many commentators and historians were amazed he went there.

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

let commntators ans historians nose huma ape can walk on 2 feet
get ta 3 feet worlds awsusm get lollypop keep a thumbs happy

bless

[csb999]

boys who play with dolls - guys who are forced to be gay because they aren't "masculine" enough . FORCED into gayness out of simple self-preservation . Victims . As Quentin Crisp , there is a small group of boys that are consistently brutalized . Again there is no evidence/proof that Matthew Shephard was gay . Brutalized by the culture as a whole - emphatically including women . "Bullying" as a school problem reprenting a social problem .

[hungprep]

Tolerance.

[ruivinho]

Wow this is heartbreaking, i don't even know what to say

[Benjoe]

Tolerance.

Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.
Accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.

I hate the word 'tolerance'. Gay people don't need to be tolerated, they need to be accepted. The entire term is a way of putting down the gay community.

[Hard-up1]

How excellent that he shared the account, and has risen to the national stage.

Think of the six or seven year olds out there who will face a better world because this is being discussed in the news, and hopefully by their parents today in private.

The mother or father of a son who is gay has the responsibility to stand up for him, and if that means cutting off access to Grandma, then so be it.

Tragic.

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

^ world a eons no got share nothin
but wen eva national stages eva figa wot holda ups
mind chagin da scripts

ha

[Coward92]

Wow, I feel for the por guy.
My paretns do the very same thing to me.

[xbuzzerx]

Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.
Accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.

I hate the word 'tolerance'. Gay people don't need to be tolerated, they need to be accepted. The entire term is a way of putting down the gay community.

Hmm... I agree I think. Whenever I think about things I tolerate... I think about things I sincerely can't stand, but have the maturity to ignore. I'd like to think we're moving past that point where a majority of people in western countries are seriously disturbed or bothered by the fact of being gay and moving more into them simply accepting it as normal. (I know we're not fully there yet.)

[bobobo]

My brother, who, curiously, was stunned when I came out to him, filled much of my childhood, de-sissy-fying me. He critiqued how I carried my schoolbooks, how I screamed, how I sat. He arranged fights for me ("X said you're a sissy. You have to fight him.") I know he did this out of love for me, and I'm sure in part out fear of being sissified by association. And I forgive him for it, but it built a pattern of thinking in me--hiding my true self from the world and ultimately from myself--that has taken decades to break through. I wish I had been able to turn that process into art as Blanco has.