Today is Harvey Milk Day

He was born today in 1930.

Outside of my family, I don’t have many heroes.  But Harvey Milk is one of them.

I began coming out of the closet, timidly, in high school.  By the time college was over I had destroyed, exploded, knocked down and set on fire those closet walls which had tortured me so horribly during my childhood and adolescence.  For me, this process was inextricably linked to learning my history.  My gay history.  A history that not only had I not been taught, but that I didn’t even know existed.

As a Jew, Jewish history was passed on to me through Hebrew school and over the dinner table.  It was part of the fabric of who we were as a family.  It was always there ~ in everything we did.  To this day we speculate as to what famous person or other might be Jewish.  (I’m pretty sure that all Jewish people play this game.)  We discussed Jewish contributions to culture, athletics, politics, medicine, science ~ whatever ~ with pride.  With ownership.  My brother and I learned that these contributions were a part of us.  That through our veins flowed a shared experience that bound us to these great men and women of Jewish history.  Of course there was more to my family than just this one feature, but it was always there ~ Jewish pride ~ pitched at a frequency that vibrated through our very identity.

As a gay person, however, I was taught nothing about my history.  In this respect, I was completely alone in my own home, as are many of us.  There was no familial tie.  No shared experience of culture, tradition and identity.  I was not taught to take pride in this aspect of my being.  If I wanted to learn where I came from as a gay man ~ if I wanted to feel a part of that history ~ to claim ownership of that part of myself ~ I was on my own.  It would not be handed to me with the matzoh ball soup at a seder.

By the time I got to college it was as if I had been dehydrated for 18 years and someone gave me an unlimited supply of water in the form of knowledge.  I guess when most kids go to college they go crazy drinking and partying.  I certainly did some of that, but what I really did with absolute reckless abandon was learn who I was and where I, as a gay man, had come from.  I simply couldn’t get enough.  I immersed myself.  Devoured every book.  Watched every movie.  Read every newspaper and magazine I could get my hands on.  To the exclusion of any other topic.  To the exclusion of my schoolwork.  People would ask me, “Don’t you have any other interests?”  At the time, I did not.  And neither did I question it nor apologize for it.   It was simply a need in me.  There were things I simply needed to know.  Looking back it seems quite clear that I was looking for a reflection of myself in those pages.  I was looking for a part of me that I had never, to that point, seen anywhere.

It was during this period of learning that I first came across the name Harvey Milk.  Learning his story cast one of the first rays of light into the darkness of what I believed my life would be.  It was one of the first times I understood that the limits placed upon me ~ both internally and externally ~ simply did not exist.  They were a fabrication.  It was one of the first times I realized that every single thing I had been taught about being gay was a lie.  A lie.

Happy Birthday, Harvey.  You will never know the impact you’ve had on mine and countless other lives.  Unfortunately, I never had the honor of meeting you, but I would like to thank you for teaching me what it means to be gay.  And what it does not mean.  I want to thank you for allowing me and every gay person to claim you as a part of our history ~ for letting us own your memory, your work and your message.  Thank you, Harvey.  And happy birthday.

To learn about the Milk Foundation, click here.

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Ian In: Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics
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