I’ve always found that the most difficult thing for me when opinion-writing for The Campus is that I have to dilute myself to some extent to respectfully cater to our broad political audience. It’s going to be evident in my writing anyway, but I’d like to state that for the record, I one of those –ist people the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world fear so strongly: a godless, homo-loving socialist abortionist tree-hugging Al Gore liberal feminazi.

Oh, and did I mention divorce?

Because I love ’em—I collect ex-husbands like Pokemon.

Can you see what I did there? I took terms coined by the radical right and applied them to myself in satire.

I feel as though it’s necessary for me to blatantly state my every motivation and rhetorical writing strategy in light of some of the opinion pieces and responses I’ve read in the Campus Online.

Much of what I have read is disheartening, and I’d like to say it strengthens my resolve to be an antiracist feminist in increasingly hostile political climes, but to tell you the truth, I’m getting pretty damn sick of it.

And you know what?  I’m guilty of it too, this political framing and name calling.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dismissed a person’s political beliefs based solely on the fact they’re Republican and I’m a die-hard liberal. I fully admit to that, and I fully admit that it’s wrong and narrow-minded of me.

The problem is, with opinion pieces that liken queer folk to disease, denials of white privilege and refusal of people in general to talk about race in open and respectful terms, I’m not quite sure how to get past my inclinations to indulge in political bipartisanship.  It’s just politics as usual, yeah?

Samantha Stanko, 2011