What a beautiful day. After dropping off my students (admittedly still in a hurry, still in a whirlwind of rush that I guess just cannot be helped) I headed to the theater for Kenji Yoshino’s talk. What I admired most about his talk was again, the influx of usable vocabulary. Centering his talks around the terms conversion, passing, and covering, Yoshino related these terms specifically to gay rights’ societal progression but more generally to civil rights as a whole. I doubt that there was a person of color in the audience who didn’t understand those terms–even if they had never used them before.
With a smiling, peaceful demeanor, Yoshino reminded us of the obligation to continue working in our respective roles of power to continue the battle, to continue the alliance, to continue the reminder that progression is always a journey. When we feel ourselves discouraged, it is precisely that moment to re-energize, to “mine the treasures within” that make the “imagined realities” move that much closer to the actual. Yoshino’s book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, is available on Amazon through the link provided.
