Rick

Now that I am straight I figured it was time to learn about some of the things that straight people should be frightened of. Fortunately a visit to the public library last month provided ample opportunity. Right at the front entrance — where children might see — there was a bookshelf full of Pride-related books. Given that I do not know very much about gay culture (which Spo-fans will recall is how I got into this mess in the first place) I picked up a few and took them home and read them.

One of the books was titled Rick by Alex Gino. It is ostensibly a children’s book, published by Scholastic. I suspected it was one of the many books challenged by parents at school boards, and sure enough I was right. Although I am not a free-speech absolutist I am pretty close, but after reading the book for myself even I have to admit that the Concerned Parents have a point. This book does not seem appropriate for children at all.

This blog entry is going to be pretty spoilery, so if you want to experience the surprises contained in this work of literature for yourself (and are emotionally-mature enough to handle the subject matter) then you might want to stop here and pick up the book before continuing. Otherwise let us spoil away.

The protagonist Rick is either pre-pubescent or in early puberty. He is headed off to middle school and is anxious about it. Fortunately his best friend Jeff is going to middle school too, so Rick won’t be alone. Jeff gets into trouble sometimes and bullies people, but Rick and Jeff enjoy playing violent video games together, and Jeff is nice enough to Rick, so they get along okay.

One thing that upsets Rick is that he makes objectifying statements about girls in their class, such as calling girls hot and questioning whether they have boobs. Rick does not find girls hot and does not question whether they have boobs, so he feels out of place. Then he learns about the school “Rainbow Spectrum” club, which I guess is what the kids call Gay-Straight Alliances these days. He is scared to go but goes anyways, and he meets a bunch of weirdos with all kinds of identities. At some point Rick decides that since he does not like objectifying girls (or boys) he must be asexual. Nobody believes him because he is in early puberty, but he sticks to his guns and accepts that if things change later it will be okay. (I for one hope he holds lightly to that identity. There are certainly asexuals in the world, but for most of us once the hormones kick in it is game over. I wanted to avoid sex too and look what happened to me.)

Together the club decides to put on a talent show/cabaret to raise money for LGBTQ+ books in the classroom. They put up some posters to advertise, but — oh no! — some homophobe defaces them. It turns out that the homophobe is Jeff, who even asks Rick to cover for him as he attempts to light a sign on fire.

This revelation makes Rick feel torn between his old best friend Jeff and his new best friends in the Rainbow Spectrum club. But eventually Jeff gets found out, and Rick dumps him as a best friend, and instead allies himself with the weirdos. Meanwhile Rick gets suspended for a whole week, and justice has been served.

There is also a subplot about Rick getting to know his cosplaying transvestite grandpa, but that is less relevant to my Concerns.

After reading this book I was quite frankly horrified. They allow children to read this?

I understand that Rick and the Rainbow Spectrum weirdos are supposed to be the heroes of this book, but let’s consider Jeff. The message of this book is that if somebody acts in homophobic ways you should dump them and not try to be their friend anymore, and that you should be relieved if they are suspended from school. Has anybody in this universe heard of the school-to-prison pipeline? This is how it happens. Kids are troubled, they act out, they get in trouble with their school administrations, they lose their friends for being difficult, and then…? And then they get into more trouble, because they are hurting more, and sooner or later the cops get involved, and then they get criminal records and life gets even more difficult.

I understand that it is the fashion these days to ostracize those who are difficult, but having been in proximity to quite a few people who are on the bottom rungs of society, I can say that charisma and navigating systems are not their strong skills. Instead, they have been hurt and abandoned and hurt and abandoned over and over again. You don’t help these people get better by abandoning them further. You help these people via stability and trust.

Furthermore, I also happen to be a troubled person (who, as Spo-fans know, is still deeply troubled) who through no skill of my own landed in a situation where I was accepted for all (well, most) of my flaws. I am still a deeply broken mess, but the trust and stability others demonstrated towards me gave me the space to heal, at least a little.

There is little in this resolution that is about resilience. It is true that Rick maintains his friendship with Jeff longer than other people think he should, and it is true that there are circumstances where people need to ditch others for their own well-being. But those of you in long-term relationships understand that there are always things in your partner that you find distressing, and that you will never ever change. So what do you do? You can dump your partner for their flaws, or you can accept those limitations and appreciate the ways in which this person is of benefit to you. There is a wide, wide gap between choosing not to be besties with somebody and dumping them forever, and this book is content to take that polarized view.

I appreciate that most of you have little sympathy for Jeff (what if I told you he was black?), but there are other considerations here. Jeff has just been punished and ostracized for defacing some posters. What do we think happens next? Does Jeff become enlightened and stops hating gay people? Or does he get more bitter and more resentful, especially since he has lost his best friend to the Rainbow Spectrum weirdos? How does that increased bitterness make the rainbow community any more safe? It doesn’t, that’s how. Without friends or supports to keep him centred, it is entirely plausible that Jeff is preyed upon by recruiters on the far right, who are all too happy to tell Jeff that he is the real victim, and those snowflakes on the left are to blame. Lots of kids like Jeff end up on alt-right Reddit or the manosphere or (G-d forbid) Kiwifarms, and that does not make gay people any safer. Maybe additional supports would not fix Jeff, but they could at least be supportive, which might make it less likely that he is radicalized later. The earlier one intervenes the better, but this book abandons Jeff completely. There is nothing in the book about Jeff seeing a counsellor, or getting other supports (not that such supports are that effective, because abandonment). He just gets dumped and then mostly disappears.

Let’s talk about homophobes. Jeff has committed homophobic actions, but that in itself does not make him a homophobe. I do not like conflating the actions people take with their identities, and in the case of homophobic actions this is almost always a mistake. People who act out for attention frequently say and do the most offensive things they can — not because they believe these things, but because that gets them the most attention. Jeff probably does not have much love for queer people, and his actions made queer people feel unsafe, but that does not mean he hates queer people. The sooner we can get that into our heads, the more opportunities we have to address people’s homophobic actions so they are less dangerous to the queer community. Are people homophobic because they are trying to be offensive? Then we try to understand why they are trying to be offensive. Are they homophobic out of tribal loyalty? This is a tough nut to crack, but it starts with people moving from “all gay people are disgusting” to “all gay people are disgusting, except for my friend Jimmy. He’s not like those other gays.” Then hopefully it moves further. Are they homophobic because they have been emotionally scarred by an experience? Then we try to process that experience. In none of these cases is giving up helpful, but that is the way the pendulum has swung.

Who knows? Maybe all of you are right, and we can use punishment and ostracization to cure homophobia. Coercion is a powerful technique in the short term. But coercion leads to backlash, and backlash comes with all kinds of collateral damage. Sometimes force is necessary, but it is not a great first resort. Should Jeff face consequences for defacing posters? Sure. Should he face consequences from Rick for behaving badly? Yes, but the way Rick handles this is far from salubrious: he dumps all the complaints he had for the past several years on Jeff, and then unceremoniously dumps him. That is certainly a strategy, but keeping your feelings bottled up until you explode has consequences too. (Ask me how I know this.)

Look. I don’t have kids, and despite my new orientation I am very unlikely to ever have kids. (Can we take a moment to thank every single goddess Debra worships that this is the case?) But if I was a parent I would be Concerned about this book. It seems very much in the mainstream of modern queer discourse, but there are aspects of that discourse I find quite upsetting, and the hyperpolarization of tribal memberships is definitely one of them. I do not think this book is worthy of censorship, but it does not surprise me that Concerned Moms would want it off the shelves.