In Solidarity – “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies”

judy

최근 성소수자 길벗들과 동행하는 여러 그리스도인들이 어려움을 당하고 있습니다. 지금 바로 그들을 위한 기도 릴레이에 동참해 주세요. 그 고난이 정의와 기쁨의 노래로 변하도록 함께 해 주세요. 우리는 서로 이어져 있으므로 강합니다.

I was tagged to participate in a relay campaign on Facebook so I wrote the following and added one of my favorite poems by June Jordan, “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies.” The accompanying image below is of Koga from last year who’s wearing the tongue-in-cheek protest sticker, “Homo who will change the country” or put differently, “Queers for social change.” I should make him a sticker that says “Doggies for queer liberation.”

For this blog post version, I have made a few edits and added hyperlinks to news sources for further reading. (All are in Korean, mostly from the wonderfully critical Christian news source, News N Joy.) If you’d like to participate in this relay campaign on Facebook:

  1. Choose a poem, prayer, Bible verse, or write your own message in solidarity.
  2. Feel free to copy and paste the description below for background information.
  3. IMPORTANT: use the hashtags (#) so the organizers can see your posts.
  4. Tag your friends by typing their names (they’ll appear as clickable links)
  5. Post and share with friends!

* * *

This is an urgent request from dear friends at Rainbow Yesu (@rainbowyesu on Twitter), a group of courageous Christians and allies in Korea working to end homophobia. They are under heightened attack for advancing social justice and embracing LGBTQ folks in their church communities and beyond. Despite some amazing accomplishments in recent years, they continue to face an intensely hostile climate. Seminary students are being persecuted for raising the rainbow flag in solidarity, student groups are being banned from campus, and clergy and church workers are being targeted for personal attacks (even including their family members) and being threatened with excommunication and loss of employment all because they refuse to condemn homosexuality. These are not fringe developments. Even so-called mainline denominations are demanding that Christians join their hateful campaigns to endanger queer lives and ask no questions. Rev. Lim Bora of the Sumdol Hyanglin Church, one of the only LGBTQ affirming congregations in Korea, has even been accused of heresy. (Also see this interview.)

Your solidarity and prayers would be most appreciated during this difficult time. Please post a prayer, a poem, a Bible verse, or a message in solidarity, and tag at least 3 friends on Facebook so that they can carry on this relay campaign. And very importantly, please copy and paste the tags below. Thank you.

#Pray4ChristianLGBTQIA
#Pray4ChristianAllies
#nomoreHates #watchingJoo
#사랑이이기네 #함께맞는비


— one of my all-time favorites —

I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies

June Jordan (1977)

1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:
fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or
condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?
Shall we pick a number?
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

I must become a menace to my enemies.

3
And if I
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries

And if I
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.
I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.

http://www.junejordan.net/i-must-become-a-menace-to-my-enemies.html

 

Doggies against homophobia