Friday September 22, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 38 |
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Sunday, Jul 06, 2008
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Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A review, and words with author Kevin Jennings |
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| Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A review, and words with author Kevin Jennings | ||
| by Liz Meyer
- SGN A&E Writer
Ideally, a journalist tells a story as it is. He or she relays the most accurate depiction of truth possible, not what he or she wishes to see. Most importantly, to maximize impartiality, a journalist maintains at least some semblance of distance between his or her self and that topic being addressed. I am no journalist. I realized this after reading Kevin Jennings' memoir, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, and losing not just a little, but all of my cool. Despite blurry vision caused by several cathartic cryfests, I was able to determine that the book is a fascinating, inspirational rags-to-riches tale. Certainly, the tale has been told before (in fact, it spawned from a speech Jennings often gave at schools around the nation). However, it is written with such genuine care that one would be hard-pressed to dismiss it as clichéd. Told, as Jennings says, through the lens of how he came to create GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, a national education organization dedicated to ensuring safe schools for all students, the tale is much more than a simple coming out story. Rather, Jennings' story of growing up in a poor, Southern Baptist home (or in several different trailer parks, to be more accurate) lends itself to a very engaging examination of the ways race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect. Especially poignant are his depictions of his relationship with his mother, a hard-working, fiercely smart woman who overcame both a lack of formal education and her own prejudices to become her son's biggest ally. It was from this incredible woman that Jennings inherited a lifetime passion for learning. For years, school served as both his scourge and salvation; it was in the classroom that he first heard taunts of "faggot," but it was also where he earned a ticket to Harvard, becoming the first in his family to receive a college education. He became a high school teacher, and it was from his own experiences with homophobia, as well as those of his colleagues' and students', that he came to eventually found GLSEN. For me, the book was also an affirmation of sorts. The psychic and psychological aspects of being queer are often some of the hardest to deal with. Often, as a result, we're our own worst enemies. Learning to silence this tendency to expect the worst from people, and to really accept ourselves, is a theme central to Mama's Boy. I spoke with Jennings before his recent reading at University Bookstore. SGN: What ultimately inspired you to tell your story KJ: This story actually started as a chapel talk (a traditional talk given at one of the high schools where Jennings taught). It evolved into a speech I would give whenever I was invited to talk. People would come up to us and say, "Hey, you should write a book." Two years ago after a speech, a woman in Boston came up to me and said, "No, I work for a publisher. You're writing a book." The book in some ways is an extended tribute to my mother. Before she died, I raised the idea of doing a book with her. I told her that it would mean that a lot of things that we tried to keep secret as a family were going to be public knowledge. She got very quiet, and said, "Well, it's all true, isn't it?" Her passing gave an added sense of urgency. We don't get enough hopeful stories out there. I would hope anyone reading the book would feel inspired to know they can make a change. SGN: Your mother is a fascinating figure in your book. Especially striking to me was how she really exemplifies how someone's race, class, gender, sexuality and other factors can really determine someone's lot in life. What do you think LGBT activists could learn from your mother's inspiring story? KJ: That people can change. You would stereotype my mother as the type of woman who would never change. She was an evangelical Christian, she had no formal education. She hated the fact that my brother married a black woman. Yet at the end of her life, her she was volunteering at a center for AIDS patients, the majority of whom were black. Mom imbued me with really strong values. Life has a purpose, and we're here to make the world better for others. Everything is about making sure the next generation has it better. She was never going to get the opportunities she was entitled to. I want to make sure the next generation of youth has it better than I did, and that is my tribute to her. SGN: In writing about how your mother shied away from a PFLAG chapter she had started, you talk about how she felt as though she had almost been ran out by richer families with more education, and to whom she couldn't really relate. How can the LGBT community better incorporate voices' like your mother's, whose input is too often ignored or silenced? KJ: We need to recognize that the LGBT community is not immune to issues of race, class, sexism. I think there's the tendency to say, "I'm Gay, I get it. I understand what black people go through." No, you fucking don't. I would hope that anyone who has been excluded would have a sense of empathy with other people. I recently had an interesting exchange with my only remaining friend from high school in North Carolina. She has a mental illness, and was talking about whether there will ever be a movement around mental illness and the stigma attached to that. It was really a moving email. We're just the flavor of the moment. Thirty years from now, there'll be a new cause. We have to sign on for the mental illness movement or whatever is next, and make sure they get theirs, too. SGN: One theme that was particularly striking to me in the book was how much your own fears of how people, particularly your students, might receive you as a Gay man, were almost always worse than the reality. How much do you think this problem is universal, and what about it might you attribute to it being some sort of uniquely "Gay" experience? KJ: Well, you're not raised by people like you. It's a very different experience than being a racial minority. There's a profound sense of isolation, of not belonging, a trademark of the LGBT experience. An experience a lot of people can relate to. I was taught to be ashamed of who and what I am. The gift that LGBT people can give to the world is that we can help show people that you can value who you are. SGN: How would a Gay teen's life be different today than it was for you? KJ: I think it's so dangerous to say Gay teens have it easy these days. School is by no means a safe place for LGBT students. Being more visible makes you a big target. Even though these young people are being treated atrociously, they are able to access support. That helps them withstand. It's a buffering effect. Doesn't mean we should say, "they're fine, they have a Gay-Straight Alliance if they get picked on." In my generation, those supports didn't exist. We made the issue visible. We have helped create something of an infrastructure for supporting and working with these people. Now, 87% of teachers said they felt they had an obligation to keep LGBT students safe. SGN: What do you think might be the biggest challenges in upcoming years for the LGBT community, particularly queer youth? KJ: Two laws of Gay history are: the more visible we are, the more we'll be attacked, and the more we'll be attacked, the more we fight back, more we win. In 2003, the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws. The number of GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliances) in the country have increased 400% in 4 years. That kind of progress generates progress. Our victory is a historical inevitability. We are going to win, but when we win depends on how much we fight for it. I'd like to win in my lifetime. SGN: Finally, which of your achievements makes you most proud? KJ: That GLSEN has put the issue of LGBT students on the map, and it's never going to go away now. It's on the agenda of the LGBT community and the education community. GLSEN Washington State, the local chapter of GLSEN National, can be reached at their office in Seattle at 1-877-GLSEN-WA or visit, www.glsenwa.org. |
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International Readers |
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