Creating Identity Panel Discussion

Commission on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identities Author

12/03/2020 Added

26 Plays

Description

Join us for an exciting panel discussion as we look at what it means to create one’s own identity through the lens of intersectionality. Our panel will bring together a diverse group of perspectives from across the university. Our panel will be moderated by Pat Tetreault, Director of the LGTBTQ+ and Women’s Centers and includes: - Timothy Shaffert, Professor, Department of English - Derrick Gulley, Program Coordinator, LGTBTQ+ and Women’s Centers - Emily Cheramie, Student, Department of English - Gary Kebbel, Professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communications

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[00:00:00.350]Of all the panelists.
[00:00:01.490]And then I'm gonna turn it over
[00:00:03.240]to the panelists who will all do
[00:00:05.960]a more in depth or extended introduction for themselves.
[00:00:11.400]And then we'll open it up to a Q and A.
[00:00:14.410]So our first guest is Timothy Schaffert,
[00:00:18.047]who is professor in the Department of English.
[00:00:21.800]He's also the, and Women and Gender Studies,
[00:00:27.170]and also the Director of the Creative Writing Program.
[00:00:30.520]His sixth novel, "The Perfume Thief,"
[00:00:32.890]will be released in August and is based on his research
[00:00:36.500]into the queer resistant fighters of World War II Paris.
[00:00:39.970]I actually really enjoyed
[00:00:41.270]getting everybody's bios and reading them.
[00:00:43.520]So I also learned things.
[00:00:46.750]Derrick Gulley is originally from Omaha.
[00:00:52.840]He's also called UNL his home for the last six years.
[00:00:57.730]And during this time, Derrick
[00:00:59.220]has received a Bachelor's Degree
[00:01:00.990]in Human Development and Family Studies,
[00:01:03.700]and most recently a Master of Art
[00:01:05.580]in Educational Administration
[00:01:07.290]with a specialization in Higher Education Student Affairs.
[00:01:12.500]Derrick has 10 years of event planning experience
[00:01:16.250]and loves to create new exciting ways to engage students,
[00:01:20.490]and Derrick identifies as a gay man
[00:01:22.600]and uses he, him, his pronouns,
[00:01:25.530]and is the Program Coordinator
[00:01:27.770]at the LGBTQA Plus and the Women's Centers.
[00:01:32.360]Emily Cheramie is a student athlete on the rifle team
[00:01:36.250]and is also captain.
[00:01:38.220]She's a senior English major
[00:01:40.300]and a member of the Chancellor's Commission
[00:01:42.210]on the Status of Gender and Sexual Identities.
[00:01:45.150]And there is a list of awards on the webpage.
[00:01:49.370]So I'm just gonna share a couple of them with you.
[00:01:53.160]Emily holds the school record
[00:01:55.610]for the highest air rifle score
[00:01:58.270]and is also a Big 10 Distinguished Scholar.
[00:02:01.250]So I'm just gonna stop there.
[00:02:04.464]And then Gary Kebbel, professor Department of Journalism
[00:02:09.040]and Mass Communications is also
[00:02:11.980]a former dean in the college.
[00:02:14.290]He's a founding editor of usatoday.com and newsweek.com
[00:02:19.660]and was a homepage editor of washingtonpost.com.
[00:02:23.540]He's also news director at AOL.
[00:02:26.410]So Dr. Kebbel is a two-time Fulbright Senior Specialist
[00:02:32.250]and worked in South Africa and Ethiopia.
[00:02:35.600]So welcome panelists, and,
[00:02:39.620]you can start in whatever order,
[00:02:41.310]but you could also go in the order that I introduced you
[00:02:44.170]just to make things easier.
[00:02:45.660]So maybe Timothy, if you wanna go first?
[00:02:50.470]Sure, as you mentioned, I have a novel coming out
[00:02:54.270]that's based on, it's set in 1941 in Paris.
[00:02:58.720]And although I didn't really begin as research
[00:03:01.840]into the queer resistance movement,
[00:03:03.810]I discovered it in the process,
[00:03:06.070]because the main narrator is a queer woman.
[00:03:09.980]And so that's been fascinating to learn more about,
[00:03:15.500]about how the tradition of historical homophobia
[00:03:20.305](voice cutting out) gays during the war as collaborators,
[00:03:27.110]as being so sort of impressed and influenced
[00:03:31.030]by the manly masculineness,
[00:03:34.984]masculinity of the invading forces.
[00:03:38.350]But in reality, there are any number of stories
[00:03:40.890]of queer people who were,
[00:03:46.010]who fought against the Nazis and succeeded in various ways.
[00:03:48.950]And a lot of that research is coming to light,
[00:03:52.140]and actually since the time that I even started the novel.
[00:03:55.520]So I've been working on that.
[00:03:57.780]And then also on a graphic novel about,
[00:04:00.504]I've been working with two Black gay cartoonists
[00:04:05.120]on a graphic novel about the Black gay cartoonist Matt Baker
[00:04:10.210]from the 1950s, who was a pioneering cartoonist,
[00:04:13.980]sort of lost to history who died at the age of 39.
[00:04:17.440]And so those are the projects that I'm working on.
[00:04:24.300]Thank you.
[00:04:25.300]Derrick?
[00:04:29.890]Just a quick little update about myself,
[00:04:33.330]where I'm at in life?
[00:04:34.780]Cool.
[00:04:36.040]So like Pat said, I'm from Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:04:40.370]I grew up in North Omaha and went to a small private
[00:04:50.200]Catholic elementary school
[00:04:53.700]from pre-K through eighth grade,
[00:04:56.520]which really then kind of shaped my identity
[00:05:00.360]as a queer person of color,
[00:05:04.440]and how I, through high school and undergrad
[00:05:09.140]kind of navigated both religious (voice cutting out)
[00:05:12.802]and queer spaces, especially here at UNL.
[00:05:17.530]I started working for the LGBTQA Resource Center
[00:05:20.800]rather early on as a freshman.
[00:05:25.010]It was like the third week when I started working there.
[00:05:28.120]So it was automatically, I was kind of out in open
[00:05:32.460]as a gay man on campus,
[00:05:35.540]which of course has its benefits, loved what I did
[00:05:39.890]and the work that we were doing,
[00:05:42.980]but also had its challenges dealing with
[00:05:45.260]maybe some classmates that weren't so accepting or open,
[00:05:48.773]or even some faculty members.
[00:05:51.956]And then moving on into grad school,
[00:05:56.780]and still representing the community,
[00:05:59.770]but doing it more within events.
[00:06:04.060]And now as a full-time faculty member or staff member,
[00:06:09.600]looking into a PhD program or a PhD programs
[00:06:14.680]to explore the faculty side of things and looking how,
[00:06:18.700]which programs are more inclusive
[00:06:20.750]to the LGBTQA community or students of color in general.
[00:06:27.830]So it's an interesting group (indistinct).
[00:06:31.940]Thank you.
[00:06:33.460]Emily.
[00:06:35.570]Yeah, thank you, Pat,
[00:06:36.670]for the wonderful introduction.
[00:06:39.010]And hi everybody, thanks for coming out tonight.
[00:06:40.860]And I hope everyone's doing well.
[00:06:42.600]So my name's Emily Cheramie.
[00:06:44.360]I'm a senior on the rifle team, like Pat said.
[00:06:47.320]I'm studying English and with minors in
[00:06:50.090]Math, Art, and Women and Gender Studies.
[00:06:52.130]So kind of running the gambit on everything.
[00:06:55.587]But I grew up in the South.
[00:06:57.170]I grew up in Georgetown, Kentucky,
[00:06:59.640]playing about every sport you could ever imagine
[00:07:02.270]before finally settling on shooting sports.
[00:07:06.500]And like Derrick, I actually went to Catholic school
[00:07:09.049]through middle school, through high school actually.
[00:07:11.420]So that's been a big part of my life
[00:07:12.930]is trying to rationalize that aspect of growing up
[00:07:16.940]in a religious conservative household
[00:07:20.080]and my identity as a gay woman in that space,
[00:07:23.810]as well as within athletics,
[00:07:26.060]because it's not necessarily
[00:07:28.490]the most accepting place.
[00:07:29.900]It's getting better, I'd say.
[00:07:32.520]A lot of places are making leaps and bounds in terms of
[00:07:35.090]acceptance and programs to help athletes find a space,
[00:07:39.107]which is something we're really invested in now,
[00:07:42.040]actually, is that this year we are forming
[00:07:45.520]at Nebraska is student athlete LGBTQ group.
[00:07:49.530]So that's, we just had our first meeting.
[00:07:52.045]It was really awesome to see other athletes
[00:07:54.530]and just create a space for us to exist
[00:07:57.240]and find that community with each other in a typical,
[00:08:01.740]typically almost kind of toxic environment
[00:08:04.760]for people in the LGBTQ community within athletics.
[00:08:09.220]So that's been really great.
[00:08:11.330]As well as hopefully
[00:08:13.510]working with other Big 10 schools
[00:08:15.420]to form a bigger collective so that our voices can be heard
[00:08:18.860]within the conference.
[00:08:21.070]So that's been really fun.
[00:08:22.660]We're working with Wisconsin right now,
[00:08:24.330]and they've been really great to work with.
[00:08:27.210]So that's the plans for the future.
[00:08:30.290]So still working.
[00:08:34.750]Thank you.
[00:08:36.170]Gary.
[00:08:37.560]Hi everybody, yeah, I'm Gary Kebbel,
[00:08:39.960]and I'm a gay professor
[00:08:41.260]in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
[00:08:46.225]And I, frankly, I've been really nervous
[00:08:50.420]about this panel because unlike so many people,
[00:08:55.700]I don't have a particular job that is
[00:08:58.640]focused on sexual identity or focused on intersectionality
[00:09:02.240]or focused on it in my,
[00:09:04.740]so directly in my professional career as so many others are.
[00:09:09.070]And I was asking myself, so what do I bring to this?
[00:09:15.370]And I think, as I wrestled around
[00:09:19.500]and fretted all day about it,
[00:09:21.730]I think what I bring to this is just
[00:09:23.960]the attempt to figure out how do we wrestle
[00:09:32.080]with all these, with identities and intersectionality
[00:09:36.350]because
[00:09:38.320]we all have so many, many, many identities,
[00:09:41.450]and therefore so many competing loyalties
[00:09:44.940]that I'm, I think, probably stupidly looking for advice
[00:09:50.400]and help and rules on how do I decide
[00:09:54.790]whether today I'm a male holding a job,
[00:10:00.440]making sure that that my spouse and my kids have food
[00:10:06.060]and medical care
[00:10:09.420]or is today the day that I'm a gay male holding that?
[00:10:11.920]Or is today the day that I'm
[00:10:14.540]really ticked off at all of that?
[00:10:16.560]And we go on and on and how,
[00:10:21.970]I'm trying to figure out how we,
[00:10:25.550]we deal with deciding what our identities are at the moment.
[00:10:33.480]And if that's destructive, I mean,
[00:10:35.650]should we instead have an identity
[00:10:39.660]that we cling onto and nurture and grow and say that's me
[00:10:44.850]in all cases, or is it healthier to try to say
[00:10:51.410]every day's a new day, and we'll see
[00:10:54.730]what identity I have to deal with today.
[00:10:56.590]I honestly don't know.
[00:10:58.410]And I'm hoping that that might be a topic of discussion.
[00:11:05.470]Thank you.
[00:11:08.800]I did put a few questions together,
[00:11:11.580]so I'm just gonna start with one,
[00:11:13.720]but if there's anybody in the audience who has questions
[00:11:16.790]you should feel free to post those into chat,
[00:11:19.610]and then we'll share those.
[00:11:25.220]One of the things that comes up is there,
[00:11:29.530]we all have multiple intersecting
[00:11:32.050]and some of us have mixed identities as well.
[00:11:35.150]And we probably don't always think about
[00:11:37.560]all of the identities we carry around.
[00:11:40.260]Although, I have to say,
[00:11:41.440]I also went to a small Catholic school.
[00:11:45.060]And so that's one of the primary identities
[00:11:48.580]that I carry with me is that had a big impact on me.
[00:11:53.740]So I think we have a lot of
[00:11:57.530]primary and secondary identities.
[00:11:59.970]They're not always the identities that
[00:12:03.200]people think about, like race or sex or gender or ability.
[00:12:10.150]But I think there's lots of things,
[00:12:11.610]like Emily being growing up in the South
[00:12:14.520]or Eric growing up in the Midwest.
[00:12:17.720]I, having moved, and been in a military family,
[00:12:22.280]I know when I moved from the Southwest
[00:12:24.420]where I spent most of my growing up, I had culture shock.
[00:12:29.750]And so there's so many things that impact our identities
[00:12:33.947]and our experiences, and they interact together.
[00:12:38.000]Are there identities that any of you see
[00:12:41.460]as being more primary and others being more secondary?
[00:12:45.990]Or how do you conceptualize all your identities?
[00:12:54.240]Well, I mean, I could start.
[00:12:56.620]And this also sort of picks up
[00:12:58.420]on what Gary was saying, too, I think.
[00:13:00.380]I mean, I feel like, when I think about identity,
[00:13:02.540]there are a couple of different avenues for me.
[00:13:04.890]There's the very personal, intuitive sense of myself,
[00:13:07.640]and what categories I fall under
[00:13:10.230]and what affects me and my life.
[00:13:12.917]And that's can sometimes feel like it's ever shifting
[00:13:16.230]or completely being revised
[00:13:19.760]and reconsidered at any given minute.
[00:13:22.410]And then there's the avenue of
[00:13:24.390]what you put out in the world,
[00:13:25.620]how you externalize that, I guess.
[00:13:28.030]And how, whether that be for relationships
[00:13:33.150]or for professional development or for political reasons,
[00:13:37.880]that becomes the thing that becomes kind of written down,
[00:13:41.700]the identity that proceeds you, I guess,
[00:13:44.980]in those situations.
[00:13:46.280]And so, I don't know.
[00:13:47.880]I mean, so there's the kind of
[00:13:52.450]all the emotional component
[00:13:55.540]of trying to figure out where all of my personal experience
[00:13:59.250]and how all of that plays in my own sense of self,
[00:14:03.190]going way back to, I mean,
[00:14:04.290]I grew up on a farm in Nebraska,
[00:14:10.333]in the middle of Nebraska in the 1970s.
[00:14:12.920]And I mean, I,
[00:14:14.380]people would tell me that I looked like a girl,
[00:14:17.220]that I acted like a girl,
[00:14:19.640]and my feeling at the time was like, well, yeah, okay.
[00:14:22.230]So how am I not a girl?
[00:14:25.000]So that informed my sense of self
[00:14:28.840]versus how other people saw me as I grew older.
[00:14:31.660]And in the last couple of years
[00:14:36.030]I've thought more also about the role of illness
[00:14:38.490]and how that's affected my life
[00:14:39.940]and how that's become part of my identity as well,
[00:14:42.760]in terms of what I choose to write about,
[00:14:46.780]what I choose to research, how I teach.
[00:14:51.270]In reflection, that's been a large part of who I am,
[00:14:54.040]from the time I was a little kid.
[00:14:56.136]So, yeah, so there's,
[00:14:59.444]perhaps a somewhat muddled response, but.
[00:15:07.780]Does anyone else on the panel want or have
[00:15:11.130]anything to add about primary and secondary identities?
[00:15:19.260]At least for me, in terms of my primary identities,
[00:15:22.590]that I really focus on,
[00:15:24.930]a lot of it is being a student athlete,
[00:15:27.260]but that's because it's what takes up my time.
[00:15:30.350]I think that's what we think about a lot is,
[00:15:33.270]who are we in this moment?
[00:15:34.360]And what is consuming us and taking up our time?
[00:15:39.350]Are we parents?
[00:15:41.120]What is our job title?
[00:15:42.730]How is that affecting us?
[00:15:45.690]And where are we putting our energies?
[00:15:48.280]But I think what I've been trying to do recently
[00:15:51.040]is move into different aspects of my life to
[00:15:56.640]really step up in what I wanna do in my advocacy work
[00:16:00.920]in supporting my friends in MSAC
[00:16:03.090]and trying to push our administration,
[00:16:05.730]our athletic administration to be better
[00:16:07.500]and help them in any way that I can.
[00:16:10.540]And also, help form this LGBTQ group that
[00:16:14.900]I'm really dedicated about and passionate about.
[00:16:18.380]So that's another aspect and identities
[00:16:21.740]is trying to be that good advocate,
[00:16:24.050]and that's definitely something I've dedicated more time to.
[00:16:27.140]And so it's becoming more of a primary identity
[00:16:29.730]versus something that was always kind of there,
[00:16:33.030]but definitely more of a secondary identity,
[00:16:35.540]in terms of who I am, especially publicly.
[00:16:40.530]I also had the parochial school upbringing.
[00:16:43.580]Mine was Lutheran.
[00:16:45.030]And,
[00:16:47.900]I would say, probably because of that,
[00:16:50.210]probably because of my family,
[00:16:51.710]I think one of my primary identities
[00:16:53.930]is thinking of myself as
[00:16:56.610]at least trying to be the best moral person I can be.
[00:17:01.800]And that brings me sometimes pleasure
[00:17:06.290]and sometimes great grief in terms of
[00:17:08.620]the conflicts that it can create.
[00:17:11.040]And it's a gigantic identity that overlays others.
[00:17:18.340]And that's why some days,
[00:17:20.830]like I say, some days I think
[00:17:22.750]the right thing to do is to stand up for being gay.
[00:17:26.530]Sometimes the right thing to do, it feels like,
[00:17:29.010]is to just get back and get to work
[00:17:32.210]and ignore a slight or something,
[00:17:35.530]but you've gotta be prepared
[00:17:38.470]for the choices you make in your identities.
[00:17:41.040]For instance, in my working career at previous jobs,
[00:17:48.890]twice I went to human relations offices
[00:17:53.610]and complained about specific direct homophobia
[00:17:57.390]against me and against other gay people at work.
[00:18:00.260]Once I was also complaining about,
[00:18:02.500]about racial discrimination.
[00:18:05.530]In each of those cases, I was laid off from those jobs
[00:18:09.960]six to eight weeks later.
[00:18:11.960]Now, could be a coincidence.
[00:18:15.840]Clearly the layoff was for economic reasons.
[00:18:19.350]It wasn't for anything that had to do
[00:18:21.660]with company culture or corporate culture.
[00:18:25.570]But that was the day I decided
[00:18:28.770]that my identity was a moral person
[00:18:30.280]who couldn't stand this anymore.
[00:18:32.350]And other days, like I say,
[00:18:38.360]you put up with it, I guess.
[00:18:39.810]So it's,
[00:18:44.950]I think that the wrestling with identities
[00:18:47.750]is something we all should probably,
[00:18:51.900]skills we should be taught that
[00:18:54.300]we're not so much prepared for sometimes,
[00:18:57.990]because there are so many identities and so many,
[00:19:01.060]I call them conflicting loyalties,
[00:19:04.080]because any one of them at any,
[00:19:07.340]I'm loyal to being a journalist,
[00:19:08.800]the profession of journalism.
[00:19:10.210]I'm loyal to the profession of teaching.
[00:19:11.630]I'm loyal to being a moral person.
[00:19:13.420]I'm loyal to being a gay person.
[00:19:15.090]And there's a lot of conflict there at times.
[00:19:18.990]And how do we,
[00:19:23.140]is there a way to systemically
[00:19:25.550]deal with conflicting loyalties?
[00:19:29.890]I actually think that's an excellent question.
[00:19:32.900]So I'm gonna see if anybody on the panel
[00:19:36.010]wants to maybe respond to that.
[00:19:41.530]I may respond to it in my
[00:19:46.430]initial response to the first question.
[00:19:48.690]So it may be covered.
[00:19:50.890]For me personally, it's never a question of who I am,
[00:19:54.590]but who I am to other people.
[00:19:57.700]There's already a prescribed, written out
[00:20:03.740]script for who I am when I walk into a room
[00:20:07.370]just because I'm a Black man,
[00:20:10.337]and what that means and what that looks like
[00:20:11.860]and how people respond to me or react.
[00:20:15.400]And growing up,
[00:20:19.210]no matter what the situation may be,
[00:20:22.670]my mother was priming us for
[00:20:24.500]whatever that situation could be.
[00:20:26.300]If we were going into the store,
[00:20:28.060]here are the rules of engagement
[00:20:29.640]and how you're supposed to react
[00:20:31.330]or respond or handle something.
[00:20:33.120]Here's what you're supposed to do
[00:20:34.310]if you're going to someone's home,
[00:20:35.430]if you're going on a field trip,
[00:20:36.470]if you're walking down the street,
[00:20:38.990]these are the rules for your existence.
[00:20:43.128]And so even when we add in
[00:20:48.130]the additional identity of being gay
[00:20:50.190]and there's always the factor of me being Black first,
[00:20:56.510]a man second, gay third,
[00:20:58.630]and it's unfortunate that it's compartmentalized that way,
[00:21:03.360]but that is the level of survival for me.
[00:21:08.150]I think I could negotiate it
[00:21:09.760]and do negotiate it a little bit more differently
[00:21:13.340]when it comes to religion and faith.
[00:21:16.620]It's one topic that is very firm within my Black community
[00:21:21.250]and Black group of friends that doesn't necessarily
[00:21:24.760]come over into my queer spaces or when I'm within
[00:21:30.720]the LGBTQA community oftentimes
[00:21:33.410]because that's another form of oppression
[00:21:35.270]for LGBTQA individuals.
[00:21:38.980]So that, then, is over
[00:21:43.280]in my Black community.
[00:21:44.650]Being a man, I chose both undergrad and my masters
[00:21:51.930]in a traditionally female-dominated academic space.
[00:21:56.500]I often was the only male or one of the only males
[00:22:02.270]in my academic spaces
[00:22:05.920]and having conversations about our field
[00:22:08.540]or the profession or a subject matter.
[00:22:12.690]And it comes with a very different point of view.
[00:22:17.200]Being a cis man and the privilege that I hold
[00:22:20.860]and how I even carry myself in spaces,
[00:22:24.030]being a little bit more upfront
[00:22:27.310]with my opinions or my point of view on things.
[00:22:31.980]So for me, it's always navigating between it,
[00:22:37.400]kind of constantly switching even within moments
[00:22:40.620]or situations.
[00:22:43.470]But it's never a negotiation in like a broader sense
[00:22:48.850]that I kind of have with myself.
[00:22:50.500]It kinda just happens.
[00:22:57.180]Thank you for sharing that.
[00:23:00.150]One of the things that you mentioned
[00:23:02.960]was the compartmentalization of identities.
[00:23:05.780]And I do think with primary and secondary
[00:23:08.640]and multiple and intersecting identities,
[00:23:11.470]that they all come into play in different ways
[00:23:13.750]at different places.
[00:23:16.420]But we do have a society that focuses on
[00:23:20.530]a few primary identities,
[00:23:22.820]and also tends to look at everything in a binary.
[00:23:26.240]Even though we know that's not the way life is.
[00:23:30.350]But we're trained to think that way.
[00:23:32.830]So it makes sense for compartmentalization,
[00:23:38.590]especially when people work on particular issues,
[00:23:42.780]but at the same time,
[00:23:45.380]our identities are very intersectional.
[00:23:48.380]And so I'm wondering what you think about
[00:23:52.090]how your identities,
[00:23:56.160]live out in regards to intersectionality.
[00:24:00.120]And when we talk about compartmentalizing,
[00:24:02.670]it does make sense for some of our identities
[00:24:05.020]to have a primary in certain situations,
[00:24:09.000]but because there's such a focus on intersectionality now,
[00:24:13.050]I'm also wondering what you all think about
[00:24:15.610]in terms of is intersectionality essential to inclusion?
[00:24:30.440]I think intersectionality is crucial
[00:24:32.640]when it comes to inclusion,
[00:24:34.260]because of the way that identities work together.
[00:24:37.790]You can't just say, you're a gay man or a gay woman
[00:24:43.030]or you're Black or white,
[00:24:45.273]they're connected.
[00:24:47.320]When you're looking at diversity,
[00:24:48.530]you have to think of everyone's identities,
[00:24:51.950]because certain experiences are gonna bring
[00:24:55.900]so much to the conversation.
[00:24:59.790]And they're all gonna be different.
[00:25:01.220]And they affect each other, too.
[00:25:03.115]I think of the Civil Rights Movement
[00:25:07.150]and how that all played into each other,
[00:25:09.740]women's rights and
[00:25:14.580]gay rights and what was happening in the
[00:25:18.860]fight for civil rights, just in general
[00:25:21.610]is all connected.
[00:25:23.230]We all work together.
[00:25:24.280]And without those different parts
[00:25:25.770]and those different identities,
[00:25:29.010]none of it would have happened,
[00:25:30.600]without communication, without that intersectionality,
[00:25:34.690]it's just not possible.
[00:25:35.640]We have to have that community with each other
[00:25:38.260]and lift each other up and look at all those parts
[00:25:40.830]of our lives and understand how they work together,
[00:25:44.570]so that we can be as strong as we can.
[00:25:52.240]I guess this conversation brings to mind
[00:25:55.770]the project I mentioned earlier about
[00:25:57.552]the Black gay cartoonist, Matt Baker,
[00:26:00.050]and that particular project
[00:26:01.330]and my role in that,
[00:26:04.050]I mean, there's so many questions that arise
[00:26:07.180]in terms of writing across boundaries.
[00:26:09.080]And I am one of the writers on this project.
[00:26:11.620]And so writing about this historical figure
[00:26:14.590]has required a great deal of research,
[00:26:16.160]but I've also wanted to make sure
[00:26:17.970]that the artists who are both Black and gay,
[00:26:21.200]that it's their project,
[00:26:22.710]and that I'm in service to them to a certain degree,
[00:26:25.790]even though they brought me onto the project,
[00:26:27.150]because I am a writer, I'm old and they're young.
[00:26:30.420]And so there's been a lot of conversation
[00:26:35.200]that's been vital to the project through communication,
[00:26:39.200]through my looking things up and discussing it with them
[00:26:42.900]and them telling me about their personal experiences
[00:26:44.900]that has been enhanced and even more,
[00:26:47.790]become more urgent over the summer
[00:26:50.100]with the Black Lives Matter movement and with COVID
[00:26:53.860]and one of the artists lost his job and his brother died.
[00:26:57.530]I mean, there's just been so much upheaval
[00:27:01.890]in their lives that they're bringing to the project
[00:27:04.210]that has furthered the conversation,
[00:27:06.291]and it's been fascinating.
[00:27:09.660]And so, for example, we know that there's,
[00:27:13.810]we've kind of blocked out certain scenes,
[00:27:15.540]but then one of the artists, Angelo,
[00:27:17.640]was talking about how he saw photos of his mother
[00:27:19.890]from the 1950s, or his grandmother, rather.
[00:27:22.630]And the way she was dressed and how inspired he was
[00:27:26.010]and how impressed he was with her clothes.
[00:27:27.800]And I thought, well, so we discussed about how,
[00:27:29.890]well, Matt, then needs to have a scene with his mother
[00:27:33.170]so that you can bring these clothes.
[00:27:34.710]You can bring these reflections on your grandmother
[00:27:37.090]to that portrait.
[00:27:38.710]And so,
[00:27:40.620]and what's been exciting, flexible aspect of that
[00:27:45.860]is that there's so little history about Matt Baker.
[00:27:48.700]I mean, because it's the comic books and because so much
[00:27:51.720]of that work was anonymous to begin with,
[00:27:53.650]because he was,
[00:27:55.510]because so many Black artists
[00:27:56.900]of the 20th century have gotten lost historically.
[00:28:00.770]we're working from just a handful of photographs
[00:28:04.540]and the artwork itself and what we know about,
[00:28:07.050]what we can gather about the experience
[00:28:09.670]of him living in Harlem in the 1950s.
[00:28:13.700]And so it's,
[00:28:14.850]I think, to a certain degree that
[00:28:17.140]this is maybe what we're talking about
[00:28:18.860]is this level of sharing experience
[00:28:25.070]and sharing expertise and trying to come to
[00:28:28.280]a common understanding and in collaboration.
[00:28:34.470]I think knowing each other's stories is really essential
[00:28:38.240]to, one, knowing about our community
[00:28:41.320]but also helping to connect with people.
[00:28:46.360]I have lots of questions,
[00:28:48.690]but I just wanna stop and give an opportunity
[00:28:51.700]to anybody who is in the audience to ask questions, too.
[00:28:57.350]So, and it looks like we have one.
[00:29:03.060]This is following off of what Derrick said
[00:29:05.850]and wondering what the panel thinks about identities
[00:29:09.720]that others immediately see and react to,
[00:29:12.730]race, able-bodied, versus ones that we can conceal.
[00:29:17.650]It seems to,
[00:29:21.400]I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to say people's names,
[00:29:23.820]but it seems to this person that having
[00:29:26.720]one of your public identities
[00:29:28.493]being a marginalized one is a very different experience.
[00:29:33.476]And actually I do think visible
[00:29:35.870]and not so visible identities
[00:29:38.860]make a big difference to people's experiences.
[00:29:42.680]So what do you all think?
[00:29:47.870]And thank you for asking that question.
[00:30:02.520]I could jump in
[00:30:03.643]while others are gathering their thoughts.
[00:30:09.010]I guess for me, I mean,
[00:30:10.930]I was talking about how as a kid
[00:30:14.940]that how people would see me in terms of,
[00:30:20.220]I mean, again, there's the 1970s,
[00:30:21.900]so identity wasn't foremost in my thought.
[00:30:24.900]It wasn't even a concept that I was fully aware of,
[00:30:26.890]but I did know,
[00:30:28.400]I mean, we knew boy and girl,
[00:30:29.560]I didn't even necessarily know gay.
[00:30:30.960]I mean,
[00:30:32.186]so that kind of,
[00:30:36.700]that little girl that I was is obviously pretty deep inside
[00:30:41.960]in terms of how I present now
[00:30:45.550]with the gray beard and the bald head and all of that.
[00:30:48.300]And so,
[00:30:49.620]and also I was talking about illness.
[00:30:52.290]I mean, that's not something
[00:30:53.340]that necessarily presents itself,
[00:30:55.860]and it's not even necessarily something
[00:30:57.860]that I'm all that always comfortable in presenting
[00:31:00.876]or speaking to or identifying under
[00:31:03.930]because of the effect that it can have
[00:31:05.550]in terms of how other people interpret that,
[00:31:10.510]how it can affect your job,
[00:31:11.610]how it can affect the way people consider your capabilities,
[00:31:15.150]and so, so yeah, you do have to kind of weigh
[00:31:20.383]how much,
[00:31:21.790]like I was saying, you have the,
[00:31:23.840]before you have these avenues,
[00:31:25.730]this personal, reflective, intuitive avenue
[00:31:28.270]and then the one that you want to put forth,
[00:31:30.150]and it can be a matter of figuring out
[00:31:33.680]what is most most vital to whatever the circumstances are.
[00:31:39.570]And as a 52-year-old white man with an established career
[00:31:46.779]and a job as a professor, I mean,
[00:31:49.110]there are a great deal of privileges
[00:31:51.320]that come along with that
[00:31:52.760]that allow me to be more open in ways
[00:31:55.639]that the young artists I was talking about,
[00:31:58.970]for example, can't.
[00:32:00.930]They have to navigate differently.
[00:32:07.700]When we were talking about intersectionality, too,
[00:32:09.950]and then also the public identities
[00:32:12.140]and what people see first and react to first,
[00:32:15.670]it's just a good lesson, I think,
[00:32:17.590]that teaches us that everybody has,
[00:32:21.580]if we could remember that everybody has multiple identities
[00:32:24.330]and they're not all seen,
[00:32:25.970]particularly at our first, second,
[00:32:27.860]or third meeting with a person,
[00:32:29.990]and that we're always just making assumptions about people
[00:32:36.120]based on their observable first immediate identity,
[00:32:41.600]and then often what that means is stereotypes.
[00:32:45.440]So it's,
[00:32:47.800]we clearly need to be thinking about the fact that
[00:32:51.410]recognizing that we have so many multiple identities,
[00:32:54.400]many of which are not immediately seen,
[00:32:56.640]so does everybody else.
[00:32:58.190]And how do we,
[00:33:00.820]how do we teach,
[00:33:02.570]how do we teach students
[00:33:05.200]the best way to react to,
[00:33:09.290]in these sorts of situations?
[00:33:12.400]When I was really identifying with what Derrick was saying
[00:33:16.600]about people's primary identity,
[00:33:19.650]Black man, Black and male and secondary, tertiary identity,
[00:33:26.410]was gay,
[00:33:27.650]and I realize that
[00:33:34.100]a sign of how people react to our identities is
[00:33:37.570]when I was growing up and really
[00:33:39.970]all not that long ago still,
[00:33:43.880]people would think it's okay to tell racial jokes.
[00:33:48.620]And then finally, I think as society
[00:33:50.890]we reached a point where,
[00:33:52.150]well, if there's a Black person in the group,
[00:33:54.210]let's not tell a racial joke,
[00:33:57.470]but we still, but those same people
[00:34:01.160]who hold back on telling a racial joke
[00:34:03.530]because they realize that culturally
[00:34:05.370]that they're not supposed to do that,
[00:34:08.290]still tell gay jokes and homophobic jokes,
[00:34:11.530]because they're looking at a gay person
[00:34:13.440]and don't know that they're looking at a gay person,
[00:34:16.770]and so there's a true effect to these hidden identities,
[00:34:21.880]and people are still reacting,
[00:34:24.930]and there's pain involved
[00:34:30.620]in the identities that are hidden,
[00:34:33.060]and figuring out how to publicly react to those.
[00:34:39.030]Derrick, were you gonna say something?
[00:34:41.330]Yeah, and for me, of course,
[00:34:43.230]there are salient identities that
[00:34:48.030]I hold in more of a priority or think about differently
[00:34:52.880]or that...
[00:34:54.270]Let me rephrase this.
[00:34:55.946]There are the salient identities that I hold
[00:34:58.160]that, of course, shape my view point
[00:35:02.100]or how I experienced the world from my own lens
[00:35:06.620]or how I kind of just navigate or plan for my life.
[00:35:13.840]And then my point with the compartmentalizing
[00:35:17.940]of whatever identities it may be,
[00:35:21.990]with being Black, I technically am mixed.
[00:35:25.950]I'm one-fourth white.
[00:35:27.080]I have a white grandma.
[00:35:28.490]I have a whole white side of my family,
[00:35:30.990]but walking into a room, being a darker-skinned Black man,
[00:35:36.680]wouldn't assume it.
[00:35:38.020]That one-fourth white does not exist
[00:35:42.137]as a part of my true identity
[00:35:45.000]because it isn't seen, it doesn't compute,
[00:35:49.560]or how I talk about it, it's like one of those
[00:35:52.950]additional things.
[00:35:54.200]Love my grandma to death,
[00:35:55.430]favorite person in the entire world.
[00:35:59.060]But that piece doesn't get brought up often
[00:36:05.593]in day-to-day conversations.
[00:36:06.920]It's not a salient part of who I am.
[00:36:10.070]I also can't even imagine what that whiteness would be
[00:36:14.920]because of how I'm perceived and navigate the world,
[00:36:17.670]being Black.
[00:36:20.390]Being a man, I yeah, say I'm a man,
[00:36:23.257]but I'm also fairly feminine.
[00:36:27.210]With having long hair and just how I carry myself,
[00:36:30.670]people automatically assume I'm gay,
[00:36:33.250]or less of a man because of how I carry myself.
[00:36:37.960]So it just, it's how you navigate it.
[00:36:40.680]There's who I am to my core being.
[00:36:43.525]Other identities, like I also have
[00:36:46.680]a learning disability that shapes
[00:36:51.810]how I plan my day and the routines that I have
[00:36:54.517]and what I need to do just to get going and to function.
[00:37:00.780]But with that being invisible,
[00:37:03.490]it doesn't necessarily get brought up
[00:37:06.020]or something that people would think about.
[00:37:09.790]So it just kind of just dictates on how I navigate spaces
[00:37:14.380]or interact with people or how people perceive me.
[00:37:19.900]And that's kind of where I was going with that.
[00:37:24.960]Thank you.
[00:37:28.790]Our identities don't change,
[00:37:31.190]but our knowledge and our experience
[00:37:33.450]and our perception of our identities do.
[00:37:36.980]How have your perceptions of your identities
[00:37:40.120]evolved over time?
[00:37:48.970]If they have.
[00:37:49.840]Maybe they haven't (laughing).
[00:37:52.360]I feel like a lot of the identities
[00:37:54.220]became invented in my lifetime.
[00:37:56.210]And so,
[00:37:58.180]when,
[00:37:59.570]even when I was in college,
[00:38:01.070]this wasn't a conversation, really.
[00:38:03.080]I mean, or not among the people I was around.
[00:38:05.550]And so growing up in small town,
[00:38:08.370]and I mean I went to UNL as a student as well.
[00:38:11.860]And so I think,
[00:38:17.635]so there's,
[00:38:20.480]so as I've grown older,
[00:38:21.997]I've thought more about
[00:38:26.070]how those certain identities fit
[00:38:29.119]or don't fit and maybe fit differently the older you get.
[00:38:34.667]I mean, I guess I'm also,
[00:38:39.360]since I'm a writer, I mean I think artists,
[00:38:42.410]actors, writers, you take on identities
[00:38:45.340]throughout the various projects that you explore.
[00:38:48.970]I mean, maybe even as a reader, as a viewer,
[00:38:51.180]as somebody who engages with our
[00:38:54.490]shifting identity and perspective and perceptions
[00:38:58.260]and taking on different characters,
[00:39:02.160]or entertaining
[00:39:04.280]the thoughts and designs and attitudes
[00:39:07.350]of people who aren't you.
[00:39:10.180]And I think that's just part of the
[00:39:13.766](voice cutting out) process that we sometimes forget
[00:39:15.870]when we're locked into,
[00:39:17.640]we always explore how social media
[00:39:23.480]affects our interaction and all of that.
[00:39:25.110]And I think to a certain degree that can be narrowing.
[00:39:29.100]And so that to the point where
[00:39:31.180]you're taking on identities aren't yours,
[00:39:33.940]but are yours or based,
[00:39:37.110]or have slim evidence and saying things
[00:39:39.344]that are provoked as opposed to a response to the situation.
[00:39:44.490]And so I think there's something to that experience with art
[00:39:51.380]that's,
[00:39:52.860]that should ideally remind us of our humanity,
[00:39:58.550]and enrich our sense
[00:40:01.557]of other people and other experiences
[00:40:05.950]in a way that's
[00:40:08.510]has more depth and is more sophisticated than
[00:40:11.680]so many of the avenues we find ourselves following
[00:40:16.230]even without wanting to,
[00:40:18.020]I mean, society is a lot of noise
[00:40:20.610]and it's a lot of ugliness and it's a lot of frustration.
[00:40:23.310]It's a lot of stuff you wanna look away from.
[00:40:25.270]And so when you have opportunities
[00:40:28.647]to hear rich stories and to be moved
[00:40:33.180]by other people's experience
[00:40:34.337]and to feel empathy and sympathy,
[00:40:37.420]that's just gonna enrich your life experience
[00:40:41.350]and your sense of self.
[00:40:46.370]That's true.
[00:40:48.370]Does anybody else wanna respond to that?
[00:40:50.620]Or, again, anybody in the audience,
[00:40:54.140]if you have questions you can post those in chat
[00:40:57.040]or send them to myself or Mike.
[00:41:01.610]And in the meantime, I will ask ya another question,
[00:41:06.620]which is how do you think your identities
[00:41:12.220]impact your professional life?
[00:41:15.970]Whether that's how did you create your identity
[00:41:20.080]as a professional, given your identities?
[00:41:23.530]Or do you think that your own comfort
[00:41:27.190]with your identities impacts your career?
[00:41:38.120]This is one where I think
[00:41:42.880]those of us on the panel who are on the older side
[00:41:47.250]have clearly a better experience
[00:41:51.520]to think back and see how much
[00:41:58.950]we have gone through, how much has changed,
[00:42:00.620]how we have dealt with different situations.
[00:42:03.600]And I think it goes back to what Tim was just saying
[00:42:07.450]about the effect of society.
[00:42:09.750]I mean, I think society's effects on us
[00:42:12.520]and our identities are really absolutely incredible.
[00:42:16.874]And as much as we want to think that we're these
[00:42:21.850]wonderful, strong individual human beings,
[00:42:27.760]our social self is just, effected so much.
[00:42:32.600]I mean, I think about how much easier it is today
[00:42:35.510]to be a gay male than it was 30, 40 years ago.
[00:42:40.030]How much easier it is today to be a married gay male
[00:42:44.150]than it was 10 years ago, or I guess 10 years ago.
[00:42:48.640]So society has changed, thankfully,
[00:42:52.900]in some very significant ways, which make,
[00:42:55.940]which give us the opportunity
[00:42:57.630]to let those identities breathe and come out more
[00:43:02.660]and for us to blossom more.
[00:43:07.020]And I think the only thing I can say
[00:43:08.810]about it in relation to your question, Pat,
[00:43:10.660]is that looking back it gets better.
[00:43:14.600]Thankfully the long arc has been moral
[00:43:20.772]and has been more toward the good
[00:43:24.549]as slow as it sometimes goes.
[00:43:29.180]Yeah, that's one of the things that I truly appreciate
[00:43:31.730]about being older is I can like look back and go,
[00:43:35.380]even though we still have a ways to go,
[00:43:38.560]we've come a long way.
[00:43:40.437]And so that's very helpful.
[00:43:42.340]And I think that it's,
[00:43:44.750]I appreciate being able to experience
[00:43:48.020]and witness some of that change happening.
[00:43:52.670]Which, I'm gonna shift back to something
[00:43:55.990]that Emily said earlier on,
[00:43:57.940]which had to do with advocacy,
[00:44:00.720]and in a sense that's basic activism.
[00:44:05.440]And I think that on some level,
[00:44:07.760]all of you have done some sort of activism,
[00:44:10.980]whether that's on an individual level,
[00:44:13.520]speaking up for something or about something
[00:44:17.590]that needs to be changed or addressed,
[00:44:21.290]to also trying to make changes at a larger level,
[00:44:25.910]whether that's institutionally
[00:44:27.870]or through groups or conversations you have with people.
[00:44:34.570]Do you see yourselves as advocates or activists?
[00:44:38.980]And what do you think motivates you
[00:44:41.660]or helps fuel that passion or that drive
[00:44:47.210]to help create change?
[00:44:56.250]I think I definitely now see myself
[00:44:58.510]more as a advocate and getting more
[00:45:01.610]definitely into the activist role,
[00:45:03.170]being definitely more engaged,
[00:45:05.450]looking for opportunities to speak up,
[00:45:07.400]doing my research and trying to inform,
[00:45:10.210]certainly my team,
[00:45:11.320]but especially those who are closer to me
[00:45:13.000]and having those conversations just on a personal level,
[00:45:17.330]with the hope that they go out
[00:45:18.620]and also educate other people.
[00:45:20.120]And it kinda creates that chain reaction,
[00:45:24.430]but it's something I definitely try to grow,
[00:45:27.020]and kind of back into the last question,
[00:45:29.180]I know I'm not very old or have a lot of experience,
[00:45:32.770]in terms of any kind of career,
[00:45:34.380]but I think certainly when it comes to
[00:45:36.360]why I was picked as captain on my team,
[00:45:38.160]it's because I lived my life very openly and very genuinely
[00:45:42.500]and try and be the best person that I can,
[00:45:45.790]for my community, and not just myself
[00:45:48.880]or my team and think about
[00:45:50.550]the wider reach that I have
[00:45:52.660]as a Nebraska student athlete.
[00:45:54.970]Because, even though I'm in a small sport
[00:45:57.180]we do, having that tagline attached to us,
[00:45:59.887]it's automatically looked at with
[00:46:04.010]a little more of a microscope,
[00:46:05.290]but,
[00:46:08.700]yeah.
[00:46:10.010]Well, and what I'd like to say, too,
[00:46:12.620]is to acknowledge that you have had a career,
[00:46:15.520]it's just not quite as long maybe.
[00:46:18.530]'Cause you have a career as a student athlete,
[00:46:21.210]as just, really, I also see being a student
[00:46:25.120]as students' careers.
[00:46:27.720]Because it's like your job to be a student, so yeah.
[00:46:35.110]There's some career experience in there, but yeah.
[00:46:42.490]To answer the what fueled it part of your question,
[00:46:46.210]I honestly think that a lot of the fuel for
[00:46:48.910]how I deal with life and my identities now
[00:46:51.890]is the fact that I went to a parochial school,
[00:46:54.830]and that while they thought they were teaching me
[00:46:57.970]the horrors of anything except heterosexual marriage,
[00:47:02.200]what they were really teaching me was
[00:47:03.950]how to be a good person.
[00:47:06.010]And what is right and what is wrong.
[00:47:09.550]And I still believe
[00:47:15.220]that I'm carrying those teachings forward still.
[00:47:17.800]And that was the initial fuel.
[00:47:20.290]Like I say, despite what they thought they were teaching.
[00:47:24.730]I think I've been an accidental, anxiety-ridden activist,
[00:47:30.080]if I've been an activist.
[00:47:31.460]I think I,
[00:47:33.094]and even today I'm still surprised when
[00:47:35.420]something I've said or done
[00:47:37.210]seems to start all or set people off
[00:47:40.980]thinking about things that seem perfectly normal
[00:47:44.770]and rational to me,
[00:47:45.770]but it's something that I,
[00:47:49.170]the people aren't comfortable with or something.
[00:47:51.230]I mean, before I was a professor here
[00:47:56.110]I was the editor of an alternative Newsweekly,
[00:47:58.740]a couple of them, actually, in Omaha.
[00:48:01.420]And it would always surprise me when we would
[00:48:06.380]publish articles that we thought were interesting
[00:48:08.230]that were the right thing to do.
[00:48:11.152]That were a kind of advocacy,
[00:48:12.589]and seemed like it wasn't harming anybody,
[00:48:16.970]but was only helping people.
[00:48:18.370]The fact that you'd have advertisers pull
[00:48:20.450]or that you'd have readers object
[00:48:21.790]or you'd have the stores and restaurants
[00:48:26.310]that carried the newspaper would complain.
[00:48:28.250]And it was always,
[00:48:29.460]and I don't know why I was so surprised by that
[00:48:32.610]again and again and again,
[00:48:33.870]but I tend to be,
[00:48:36.830]you just think that, well, we are,
[00:48:42.000]we've come to this point.
[00:48:43.100]It's the 21st century.
[00:48:44.150]We can have these conversations.
[00:48:47.580]We've had these conversations before,
[00:48:49.323]but it's always surprising when you realize
[00:48:52.710]that exactly how conservative
[00:48:54.869]some aspects of your own experience,
[00:48:59.573]of the people you're around
[00:49:01.070]and the societies that you're part of
[00:49:02.497]and the communities are actually
[00:49:06.340]uncertain of how to navigate these conversations.
[00:49:13.300]Yeah, I actually feel like I'm very privileged
[00:49:16.530]to be in an educational setting,
[00:49:18.370]because I've been able to do work
[00:49:21.120]based on a value system that I believe in.
[00:49:23.720]And actually, I think that's where
[00:49:25.600]a lot of my own activism and advocacy comes from
[00:49:30.130]is also growing up Catholic,
[00:49:32.220]but also in a military family
[00:49:34.256]where the the belief that we were taught
[00:49:38.060]was the reason for the military is to protect people
[00:49:41.780]and to protect our human rights.
[00:49:44.060]And so I,
[00:49:48.150]yeah, there's always good things and bad things,
[00:49:50.670]but I think you can teach values without religion,
[00:49:55.630]but I do think that that's part of
[00:49:58.860]what gets instilled in you, at least hopefully,
[00:50:02.589]that's part of what gets instilled with you
[00:50:05.600]with education that incorporates a value system to it.
[00:50:12.879](voices muffling)
[00:50:14.215]Go ahead.
[00:50:15.048]Go ahead.
[00:50:15.881]No, go ahead.
[00:50:16.714]I was just gonna mention, again,
[00:50:17.547]just for those who don't know,
[00:50:19.320]we're celebrating 50 years since Lou Crompton taught
[00:50:23.460]the first LGBTQ interdisciplinary,
[00:50:26.170]the first interdisciplinary LGBTQ studies course
[00:50:29.680]in the country.
[00:50:30.513]I think that is possibly one of the first of any kind.
[00:50:33.100]We're sort of looking into that research as well.
[00:50:34.890]But so that was in 1917.
[00:50:37.157]And so I've been teaching the introduction to
[00:50:42.600]LGBTQ literature this semester.
[00:50:45.700]And so we've been looking at the history, specifically,
[00:50:47.860]of the English department from Lou Crompton's work
[00:50:50.200]and on through Barbara DiBernard,
[00:50:52.840]and to hear their stories and to read their essays
[00:50:55.830]and their reflections,
[00:50:57.630]it really does make me realize how privileged I am
[00:51:01.750]for the work that they did to build those paths,
[00:51:05.903]and the amount of bravery that took
[00:51:08.390]and the push back that they got,
[00:51:11.311]and how many years that they had to endure that
[00:51:15.160]for us to get to the place where it is today,
[00:51:18.370]where I can offer these courses and they can be supportive
[00:51:20.680]and the university supports them,
[00:51:22.630]and they can reach out to students where,
[00:51:25.020]I mean, I've been amazed with my students this semester
[00:51:27.790]who have spoken about their own experiences
[00:51:29.960]and their own perspectives
[00:51:31.150]and how they've engaged with the history.
[00:51:33.450]And it's been very exciting.
[00:51:40.100]We are down to about six minutes.
[00:51:43.463]So if no one else has any other questions,
[00:51:47.530]I have a final question.
[00:51:52.150]So we're always in the process
[00:51:54.320]of creating who we are and creating our lives.
[00:51:58.080]So, given your identities and your experiences,
[00:52:01.546]what final thoughts or words of guidance
[00:52:05.110]would you share with a younger you?
[00:52:07.990]And or would you give that same advice to other people?
[00:52:23.200]Or if you just have any final words you'd like to share.
[00:52:27.640]I know that was a pretty deep request there.
[00:52:32.210]Yeah, I would say
[00:52:40.753]I've spent much of my young life
[00:52:44.774]taking on the perceptions of other people
[00:52:49.257]and what it means
[00:52:52.340]or what that predefined script for life is.
[00:52:56.379]This is what it means to be a man.
[00:52:57.280]This is what it looks like to be gay.
[00:52:59.130]This is what it is like to be Black.
[00:53:03.520]And now,
[00:53:06.760]as I am 25 and in a different stage in my young adulthood
[00:53:13.030]trying to reassess what those scripts are
[00:53:19.990]and defining those identities for my own self,
[00:53:25.157]and I like, that's an, ever-growing just personal thing
[00:53:30.020]because there's so many influences
[00:53:33.040]from your own family, from the community you live in,
[00:53:35.630]the schools you go to, the profession you're in,
[00:53:39.240]and what all of those things look like,
[00:53:41.660]sound like, are like for you.
[00:53:44.620]And so that's what I would say.
[00:53:48.010]That's kinda my final wrap up thought.
[00:53:52.080]Thank you, Derrick.
[00:53:53.980]I would say write it all down.
[00:53:55.300]I mean, I would say expression is
[00:53:58.990]important to your sense of self and your development
[00:54:02.160]and that even if it doesn't go anywhere
[00:54:05.280]beyond the page that you write it down on,
[00:54:07.177]just the act of writing and thinking about it
[00:54:09.200]and putting things into word and considering it
[00:54:13.060]so carefully can have a profound effect on your life.
[00:54:23.190]I think I would tell myself that
[00:54:26.190]there's always gonna be people like you
[00:54:29.560]who are gonna support you wherever you end up
[00:54:32.670]or that you can go and find those people.
[00:54:34.320]'Cause that's something I had a hard time.
[00:54:36.260]When I was coming out,
[00:54:37.680]I didn't necessarily have the best
[00:54:40.710]group of people around me to be supportive
[00:54:42.880]and figure out,
[00:54:44.140]and help me figure out who I was and be there.
[00:54:47.220]But now, going off to college, I think,
[00:54:49.300]was one of the best things I did,
[00:54:50.390]especially going far away from home,
[00:54:53.100]because I found my found family.
[00:54:55.740]And to me they're even more important
[00:54:58.130]and there's a deeper connection than my blood family.
[00:55:01.410]I think that's just something I wanna remind,
[00:55:03.740]would remind my younger self or anyone else
[00:55:07.410]is that there's always gonna be people
[00:55:08.860]who are gonna support you and love you.
[00:55:12.210]And it may just take a little time to find them,
[00:55:13.730]but they're always going to be out there.
[00:55:17.383]And I would say my advice to my younger me
[00:55:19.610]was you didn't need to go into therapy
[00:55:22.500]when you were in college
[00:55:23.670]to try to deal with multiple identities.
[00:55:25.710]It's okay.
[00:55:28.035](laughing)
[00:55:29.520]Yeah.
[00:55:32.450]I do think that finding someplace you belong,
[00:55:35.210]and that includes feeling like you belong to yourself,
[00:55:38.330]is really, really important.
[00:55:40.340]So I wanna thank you all again
[00:55:43.000]for being willing to share your stories.
[00:55:46.380]I also want to thank everybody who attended
[00:55:49.590]and to listen to your stories,
[00:55:53.160]and I'm gonna do something at the end
[00:55:56.510]that I should have done at the beginning,
[00:55:58.060]which is also to do a land acknowledgement.
[00:56:01.410]And partly because we're a land grant institution,
[00:56:04.790]but also because we have grown up in a country
[00:56:08.440]with a very mixed history,
[00:56:11.310]and we're on grounds that belong to the ancestral lands
[00:56:17.140]of the first people who occupied this area,
[00:56:20.250]that we now call Nebraska.
[00:56:22.720]So just wanting to acknowledge that and pay respect.
[00:56:27.190]And one of the things I've learned about Nebraska
[00:56:33.630]is there were originally 15 tribes here,
[00:56:36.410]but there's now six,
[00:56:38.800]which is the Omaha, Winnebago, Ponca, Iowa,
[00:56:41.860]Santee Sioux, and the Sac, and Fox.
[00:56:44.520]So I apologize for not getting that done in the beginning,
[00:56:49.820]but I wanted to do that.
[00:56:51.740]And again, there's also been a lot of good feedback,
[00:56:56.010]panelists, in the chat.
[00:56:58.340]Thanking you for sharing your stories and your thoughts.
[00:57:01.860]And,
[00:57:03.840]basically you're all fabulous.
[00:57:06.500]So with that, I hope everybody has an excellent evening,
[00:57:12.450]and hopefully you'll be able to make it
[00:57:14.690]to our next panel on intersectionality.
[00:57:18.690]Thank you, Pat. Thanks, Pat.
[00:57:20.840]And everybody, we will be announcing
[00:57:22.480]the intersectionality panels
[00:57:24.440]after the first of the year.
[00:57:25.690]We'll have one hopefully January or early February
[00:57:28.220]and then another one in March.
[00:57:30.000]And this was sponsored by
[00:57:31.540]the Chancellor's Diversity Commissions.
[00:57:33.160]Again, thank you for everybody attending
[00:57:34.950]and have a great break and a wonderful evening.
[00:57:40.610]Thank you. Bye everyone.
[00:57:41.677]Bye everyone.
[00:57:42.616]Bye bye.

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