March Blog Post

Cody Martin

Comm 160

Christina Ivey

March Blog Post

            In my pursuit of finding “the sentence” during the past weeks of the course, there has not been a set of words that have spoken to my soul. Reflecting on recent material covered, my mind kept wandering back to the Lorde article, The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House. This article will not leave my mind. And I believe that it has tied into recent material. In regards to interpersonal communication, it is quite relatable. Lorde states the following.. “Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters.”

            This sentence resonated with me on a deep level. Growing up in a small conservative southern Idaho town of only 3,000 people, and a graduating class of 103, any differences amongst the community was simply intolerable. There was only one African American in our high school, and not a single person who declared themselves to be of homosexual orientation. Making fun of anyone who was different was something that people did. No questions asked. Sadly I went along with the norm and played along with the jokes and unnecessary slander that took place. I lived within the same community for three years after graduation and my circle of friends continued to make the same defamatory jokes. I continued to participate. It wasn’t until I moved up to Boise to finish my bachelors that the tides began to turn. Despite being only two hours away from home, I had no family to turn to during the loneliness that moving to a new town entailed. When I moved up here I had my tax returns to live off, after that I was broke. I searched relentlessly for jobs for the first two weeks, tried to make new friends but a breakthrough was seemingly distant. It wasn’t until I found a job that things began to seem more promising. I soon made a circle of friends at my new job, many of which are still important in my life. One of my best friends to this day I met at work. Her personality was one that drew people in. She instantaneously brought light into my life, and was a person I knew would be around for a long while. A month into hanging out with her outside of work, I discovered she was a Lesbian, and that moment, my preexisting prejudices vanished completely. My world opened up ten fold. I told her, “I don’t want to seem offending, but I have never had a friend of your orientation”, (as redneck as that might have sounded to her), she laughed, I asked if I could learn about her, and how she viewed the world. What she proceeded to tell me, broke my heart for her, and hearing about the struggles she had endured for years simultaneously made me fall in love with her and value her friendship even more. Since then we have become inseparable. Today she is the one I talk to about anything and everything, knowing she is a soul free from judgment, and she has helped me develop compassion for individuals who are different from me. My acceptance toward those who joke at, or bash the LGBTQ community is nonexistent. Despite my being a straight white moderately conservative male, I will fight tooth and nail to defend anyone within this community. Politics aside, we are still human and must never lose touch with the power of love that is instilled in our very core.  Interdependency is essential to the human experience and survival. Sometimes the most effective teachers of tolerance come at a time we never expect.