July 27, 2025 • 70 mins
John Demarjain shares his emotional journey of coming out as a gay Palestinian American, revealing the complex intersection of cultural identity, family values, and personal authenticity in Western and Middle Eastern contexts.
• Western culture emphasizes (by design) individualism and independence, at the cost of community while Middle Eastern culture prioritizes family and religion
• The concept of "pinkwashing" attempts to force the LGBTQ+ population to turn a blind eye to genocide "in their own best interest".
• Both selective empathy and performative politics create barriers to genuine human connection and social progress
• Cultural and family expectations around names, lineage, and acceptable pairings extend beyond sexuality to religion
• Meaningful advocacy requires altruistic action and personal connection rather than simply consuming mainstream news
• The group pays tribute to Mohammed "Medo" Halimy, a Palestinian content creator who was killed in Gaza, by the genocidal IDF
- Erika discusses the lie that Arab countries are unilaterally hostile to the LGBT community, as Israel bombs a prison with 100 Trans people in it.
Brief discussion about the impact of altruism
Israel Killed 100 Imprisoned Trans Iranians. I Could Have Been One of Them. | Truthout
In Conversation With Afeef Nessouli, the Journalist Covering Queer People in Gaza | Them
Iris Prize 2024: Palestinian Dima Hamdan wins LGBTQ+ film award
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1098033433/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
https://www.tiktok.com/@medohalimy?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
We will continue speaking about Gaza until the genocide ends. We believe in taking real action - whether donating, sharing stories directly from affected people, or challenging institutions. Make a difference today by connecting with those impacted by conflict around the world.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
Today I have John DeMargianback with me and we're going to
be talking about his coming outstory and some cultural stuff
that he wants to share as well.
But before we start I have totell a story.
(00:51):
John and I were just talkingabout some of the formative
politics that happensparticularly on the Democratic
side, and I live in Connecticut.
As everybody knows, connecticutis a Democratic state.
So I live in a really small townand we have six zip codes.
Now we have six zip codesbecause there's some weird issue
with the post office that weonly have PO boxes.
(01:12):
We don't actually have like adelivery system.
So we share, we borrow the zipcodes from all of the other like
six surrounding towns, which isreally confusing because there
are streets that are also inthose towns with that zip code.
So you can imagine how muchchaos that creates in terms of
things like taxes and mail andour mailing address is different
(01:36):
than what's on our license andit's incredibly confusing.
And the other thing is becausewe don't have an actual
recognized post office.
We don't exist federally.
Therefore our school always hasproblems getting money.
During COVID we didn't have anycases of COVID, because the
town doesn't exist and itbecomes this huge problem.
So now we have been fightingagainst this for a really long
(01:59):
time now.
The town actually does have azip code, it's just not used.
The town actually does have azip code, it's just not used.
And we have two, our Congressman, joe Courtney, and our Senator,
mrs Ann Chris Murphy, who Iwill say, are both owned by APEC
.
That's a whole other story.
They have tried and I'm usingair quotes to correct this
(02:20):
before and they seem to alwayshave problems as to why they
can't get it done.
Now they blamed the Republicansbefore saying it was because
Republicans somehow shot downthe bill, because, god forbid,
we have a functioning zip code.
But they just put this billtogether because we've been
giving them a lot of pressureand the bill actually read
(02:42):
success that I mean not the bill, the news article success.
The town of Scotland nowofficially has one zip code.
Now, this is why people reallyneed to read beyond the headline
, because Scotland already hadone zip code.
So they actually didn'teffectively change anything.
They just basically reinventedit and said like Scotland now
(03:05):
has one zip code.
But if you read all the waydown to the bottom of the
article.
It says Senate will not behearing this bill.
So they effectively didabsolutely nothing, but they put
it out.
It was even like on the newsand everything that Scotland's
going to have like one zip codenow Nonsense, performative.
(03:32):
It's not going to change at all, and I think that is a
testament to a lot of the stuffthat we've been seeing recently.
So I just wanted to tell thatstory first, and we are going to
circle back to that story lateron when we're talking about
other stuff.
John, I'm going to, oh, andErica Hi, erica, erica also just
arrived as well.
So we're going to start offwith John, if you want to talk
about your coming out story, andthen, if Eric and I, are you
(03:56):
okay with us jumping in andasking questions?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, sure, I think it's probably harder for me to
figure out where to start, soperhaps if you had a question,
that could probably help me getstarted or so.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, how did well actually?
When did you come out?
When did we start with that?
Was it recent?
Was it?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I came out first to a young lady that was two years
older than me and she was anurse in the college I went to.
(04:39):
I went to Purdue, and she and Iwere just praying though in her
religious, religiousperspective for God to watch me
and to protect me, and she's avery sweet person.
I unfortunately haven't kept intouch with her, but she was, I
remember, the first person Icame out to and then the second
(05:01):
person I came out to.
We were doing a statisticsproject together.
He's somebody I actually wasjust talking to and playing
board games with two weeks agovirtually, and he's one of the
most comical, bright guys that Iknow of and he's very
supportive.
I remember we went and got KFCchicken to just celebrate and he
(05:27):
was just really happy for me.
So I would say that those wereprobably the first two
individuals that I had come outto, and that was about seven to
eight years years ago.
So, yeah, I didn't come out tofamily first, but I felt more
comfortable coming out to peoplethat were more friendly and
(05:48):
consistent in how they wouldtalk and treat.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If I could ask you another question, if you don't
mind, because we came out duringdifferent decades, right?
So it was different when youcame up versus when I came out,
in terms of the messages thatpeople were getting.
So what messages did you getbefore you came out about being
gay or what it was like to begay, or society's perception, or
(06:16):
your family's perception?
What?
What kind of messages did youget?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, I was still living in Northwest Indiana at
that time and I remember thatthere weren't a lot of people
that were out, let alone Ididn't really know of anybody
that shared that.
They were a part of the LGBTQplus community community and if
(06:48):
I was talking to some peopleespecially a lot of my social
connections were at the gymthere were quite a number of
guys that would be more afraidof essentially their own
masculinity and sometimes I'vedealt with guys at the gym where
they would say, oh, I don'twant to appear gay or I don't
want to.
I don't want you to think thatI like men or so, and these
(07:10):
comments would just come outrandomly at times and I was just
very perplexed.
And these guys were especiallyaround my age and it also felt
disappointing just because fromwhere I grew up, it was one of
the most blue districts in thestate of Indiana.
So I would think that therewould perhaps be more openness,
(07:31):
but I would say, still peoplearound my age, I think a lot
were open.
But I also think that therewere a lot, of course, that were
very, mostly men that felt veryinsecure with their own
masculinity and did not want toappear to look or be gay,
essentially In terms of myparents.
(07:52):
I remember, probably when I wasin middle school, I just threw
the idea out to them and said,hey, mom and dad, I think I may
be gay.
And then my dad said, no, likeyou're not.
And then my mom was just, shedidn't really say anything, but
she pretty much agreed with himand I never revisited that idea
(08:13):
until, I would say, again in2019, or so, and that's when I
started coming out to my mom andand sisters.
But yeah, and then I didn'tcome out to my dad until May of
2023.
So about a little over twoyears ago.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
You have also.
I know we were talking beforewe started recording that you're
so.
Your mom is.
Your mom's side is Palestinian.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So both my parents are Palestinian?
Yeah, my dad is bothPalestinian and Armenian in
terms of his ethnicities,although he was born and raised
in Chicago, and my mom is 100%Palestinian and she was born and
raised in Jerusalem, and thenshe moved to the US when she was
(09:04):
26 or 27.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
How did that factor in culturally into coming out?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I would say this has been something that I've been
even curious about and I'm stilllearning, as I'm asking my mom
questions and people that I'vebeen connecting with in Gaza or
have families there or outsideof Palestine.
And what I've learned is thatmy mom said, in probably one of
(09:37):
the best sentences, that theWestern world has a very
different set of values, and oneof them is more about
independence and individualism,where it's more focused about
being who you are and what youwant, whereas I would say
(09:58):
overseas, in Western parts ofAsia or even in a lot of other
countries in the Middle East,your values are centralized upon
family and religion.
So, with her values being moretowards religion and family, for
her it was more about what isappropriate or acceptable with
(10:22):
her family, appropriate oracceptable with her family, her
kids, her husband.
That would appeal towards herfamily and religion as a whole,
and it's not even just withfamily, but a lot of Middle
Eastern families would ask.
Even an Uber driver I had, whenI came back from Columbus, ohio
last week, asked me what's yourlast family's last name?
(10:44):
Because even your last namewould hold a lot of meaning, or
that there would be perhaps abetter way to understand or
connect with those families,which isn't something you tend
to hear in the Western culture.
So, with coming out to her, itwas really tough, because she
kept on reiterating that.
(11:06):
You know, as a PalestinianChristian, she believed that God
saw me with a woman and to havekids, and so did my oldest
sister, and my dad definitelywas the worst person that I came
out to or that I was vulnerablewith, and he was the worst
person when it came to how hereacted in his vulnerable state.
Vulnerable with, and he was theworst person when it came to
(11:26):
how he reacted in his vulnerablestate.
What I will say, though, is Ithink my mom and, in a way, my
dad, have been doing better interms of better, in terms of
adapting towards the idea ofWestern culture, and I'm not
saying that they should do that.
I'm just saying that them beingmore open to it is helping them
(11:47):
connect with me as well as I'vebeen able to try to reflect and
connect with their values ortheir way of thinking.
So I would say that again, offthe top of my head,
individualism and independenceare two core values that less
promotes and I'd say propagatesis the appropriate word, and
(12:12):
then in, especially the middleeast.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
it's more about family and religion as the core
values there's so much to unpackand what you said, john, I
actually wish I was taking notesnow, because as we were talking
, I kept thinking about stuffand I didn't write it down.
When you brought up theindividualism, the only thing I
would add to that is myperception of the country.
And, erica, tell me what youthink as well is that it's
(12:37):
individualism at the expense ofother people.
It's not just about being whoyou are.
It's about being who you arewith absolutely no regard for
anybody else around you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I have a theory and I'd love to hear your guys'
opinions on this.
When I consider the decades inwhich America was succeeding or
beginning its succession towardsbetter education, more job
opportunities, opportunities toown homes, et cetera, in the 50s
(13:13):
and 60s, parents of typicallythe boomers silent generation,
maybe some Gen Xers, theirparents, were largely focused
and involved with World War IIor the repercussions of it, and
there was a lot of fear and PTSDthat a lot of these individuals
(13:34):
that either served or wereassimilated into taking those
actions and being supportive ofthis country and its allies, and
a lot of them after it didn'tit, came back.
But I also think during thattime period and after that time
period, historically perhaps alot of parents had taught their
(13:55):
kids, who are now much older andunfortunately running a lot of
the governments, to focus onthemselves, because it's hard to
trust the world.
Because when, of course,there's a large war going on and
there's so muchunpredictability as to what's
going to happen and there's notas much accuracy with what
(14:15):
you're hearing in the news andyou're just trying to think
about how you can survive, itends up turning into a situation
where now a generation is beingraised by those that have a lot
of unresolved trauma andanxiety that's not being well
managed and this creates ageneration that's more focused
(14:35):
on helping themselves out, and Ithink that was part of what
promoted this whole shtick ofthe American dream in a way
where you can come to the US ifyou focus and work so hard, with
some luck and perhapsnetworking but it's usually the
hard work that keeps on beingreiterated then you can achieve
the dream of owning your ownproperty, having your own kids
(14:58):
and family.
You'll have safety.
But I unfortunately think that,with how a lot of parents
perhaps that had a lot ofunresolved trauma and anxiety,
it unfortunately led togenerations in the 50s, 60s and
70s that perhaps consideredtheir own, just consider more of
their own needs without alsoconsidering the needs for their
(15:23):
peers or for others, even thoughthat they were living in a much
better time with moreopportunities and chances to
succeed, and instead ofconsidering that they wanted to
continue this for others,especially for their kids or
grandkids.
It's not really working out inthat way, and now people are
very bitter about these things.
(15:43):
So that's just my theory as to,perhaps, why individualism is
taken at the, in which the worditself from what you're
describing, matt, is taken inthe context of focusing on
yourself and neglecting otherpeople's individualism, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's by design.
I mean, it is set up to be thatway because it is much easier
to control people if everybodyis too busy fighting over
resources, fighting over rights,fighting over everything and we
don't have that.
When I went to Italy, one ofthe things that stood out to me
the most was how much of acommunity it was.
Walking around in Rome in themorning and seeing all of these
(16:24):
fruit stands and vegetablestands open and all of these
people out helping each other,and I was like, wow, that's not
what it looks like in the US byany means, and I have a theory
about this.
So you know how.
There was all the funding cutsto aviation and now we're seeing
planes being grounded all overthe place.
I can't even open up the newstoday without seeing something
(16:46):
about flights being canceled,emergency things landing.
I think it's dangerous for us.
This is why they try to get ridof TikTok.
It's dangerous for the country,for the powers that be, for us
to know what's happening in theworld.
And you know how in Israel,they were stopping people from
fleeing by shutting down theairports and telling people they
(17:06):
had to stay there.
I think we're heading there.
I really do.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think it's incredibly crazy that there's a
large percentage of Israelicitizens that do not respect
Benjamin Netanyahu and want himout of power.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Probably more than half the country.
I mean, from what I've seen on,like the protests, it's a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, and to add, when you were talking about
TikTok, matt, I mean the wholeessence, the essence of our US
government arguing we need toget rid of TikTok because China
must be taking our data or isusing our data for their own
purposes, right, I mean, themost outstanding statistic that,
(17:52):
if I recollect, was TikTok as asocial media platform, of
course, not only retains a lotof younger audiences, but it's
overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.
You look at the searches forwhat people tend to watch or or
create TikToks for politically,it's Palestine, and I don't like
(18:15):
to use the term politicallyjust because, unfortunately,
it's now become a topic ofdebate or interest for people to
determine if a certain group ofpeople should be undergoing
ethnic cleansing and a genocide.
But to get back to the topic ofdiscussion, I was just laughing
(18:35):
when I saw and just in a sadand just an insulting manner of
laughing of wow, I cannotbelieve that you want to squish
so many younger people's voices,or you just want to squish
people that want to expresstheir free speech and their care
(18:57):
and sentiments towardsPalestinians, and that's why you
want to buy TikTok and turn itinto a US private business or so
.
And I mean again, there's apart of me that I don't want to
get too far off or detract onthe topic, but the other comment
I want to share is I have noidea why a lot of people that
(19:23):
are still in our government,that are in their 50s, 60s, 70s,
maybe 80s I have no idea why alot of them are actively making
policies or want to legislate,documents or contracts like the
big America, because they thinkthat there's no future for them.
So might as well just focus,just continue to focus on
(19:59):
ourselves and our dog owners,aka APAC.
Yeah, I mean, it's just verysad and, as I mentioned before,
that's still one reason why Iwant to eventually run for
Congress or work in Congress,just because a cause of living
is the biggest issue here.
And, of course, I want to be abig advocate for Palestine.
Do you mind if I share oneother quick thing related to
(20:21):
this?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Sure, I just I did want to make a comment.
But go ahead, I'll hold it.
I'm just going to write a noteof it.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
For some reason I think the succession of the
Republican Party is because theyhave a lot of loudmouth that
reiterate their pointsconstantly.
I look at the Democratic Partyand I think, oh my gosh, a lot
of the older, well-establishedDemocrats are just cowards.
It's not, of course, just basedon the decisions they say, but
if I were to work for Congressor when I start my campaign, I'm
(20:48):
going to be a loudmouth.
I'm going to be somebody that'sconstantly going to just talk
loudly and have little to nofilter on a lot of and even if
it's used against me, I'm justgoing to continuously spew out
why it's being used against me.
But I don't think we have thattype of representative for the
democratic party.
We don't have candidates thatare loud, unless this isn't
really necessarily a politician,but Medi, who's a if I'm Medi's
(21:13):
one of the greatest debaters.
He is like to me what I wouldcall like, not in a negatively
allowed mouth, but he is aprogressive that is spewing so
much concern and empathy andcare, with also statistics and
facts, and I think connects wellwith a lot of people, and we
don't really have that here forthe liberal side or the
(21:34):
progressives or people whoassociate as democratic
socialists or social democrats.
For some reason it'sconcentrated in the Republican
side and yet so many people lovedrama and would rather be
attracted to drama and theywould associate that with people
who are loud, people who areover the top, who expend so much
energy and for some reason, wedon't have that type of
representative or certainindividuals that are doing this
(21:56):
for the Democrat side, that havethat confidence.
Instead, we have a lot ofpeople who are just very
polished and have to pick andchoose their words but are just
doing it because they have dogowners of political action
committees and so many peopleare hurt and want to scream and
have been and they just don't dothat in return because they
(22:19):
think of an established, anolder, established way of
communicating is trying to workwith the other side or not not
being a potty mouth.
So I mean, if I were to run,I'm definitely going to be a
potty.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, my, my opinion about this is that there are
there's only one side, and Ithink we need to really start
acknowledging that because, asyou said, the people who we have
in the Democratic office arecowards, but they're also bought
and owned by APEC, just likethe Republicans, and we know
that what the Democrats do, ifyou ask me, is more insidious,
because they pretend to be doingstuff and they're actually
(22:53):
snakes, just like theRepublicans.
At least the Republicans admitthey're snakes, right, they
don't try to hide it.
I mean, we saw this with AOCrecently, who, crying the tears
of a clown about like how sadshe is about everything that's
going on, and then both you know, denies and allows 500 million
more dollars to go to Israel tokill people in Palestine.
The other thing that I thoughtwas really interesting is I read
(23:14):
an article about howperformative her and Bernie are,
which I already knew anyway,and something that was pointed
out that I never thought of isto remember when she did the
photo op at the detentioncenters during Trump's
presidency and she was cryingand talking about how awful the
conditions were for people withdetention centers.
Well, check out what she saidduring Biden's presidency
Absolutely nothing, not onething, and there was actually
(23:39):
more people removed underBiden's presidency than under
Trump's first presidency.
Guess when she started to getvocal again when Trump became in
office again.
It's just 100% performative.
And now she's doing the whole.
I don't know why people are madat me.
I don't like't, like.
Here's my explanation.
It wasn't that I was giving themoney for offense, I was giving
the money for defense.
Oh, okay, well, you know whatit's still, you're still
(24:00):
supporting genocide, so let'slike not, let's knock that shit
off.
The other thing that I think wehave to be careful of doing I
saw a friend of mine sent me avideo the other day that this
person was both Muslim,palestinian and Israeli and he
was talking about how we can't,like we have to focus on the
(24:22):
people, right, so like, thepeople are.
A lot of the people areinnocent in this, and he had a
great message until he startedto criticize all white women and
I was like, okay, we can't dothis right.
So like, if we're going to cometogether as a community and
come together as a group, wecan't do, we can't be ageist, we
can't be sexist, we can't beracist, we can't be, we can't do
(24:43):
any of that stuff.
Ageism is just another way wedivide people by talking about
like the boomers and Gen X andthis and that, talking about
like the boomers and jet x andthis and that.
We're constantly dividingpeople constantly, and I think
we have to stop doing that,because we all live in the same
space and we're not the enemy.
The enemy is the peoplecontrolling us.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Right, they're the enemies so, fundamentally, I
think there are a lot of thingsor themes that we've gone
through and a component ofindividualism like, for example,
this combination of uh, what Iwould say, my opinion is that in
the united states, we have acombination of toxic
(25:22):
individualism and toxicgroupthink together, right and
um, that is the effect ofindividualism being so
normalized that natural humaninclination as social creatures
right.
As we look at anthropologicaland behavioral context, humans
are social animals.
That's just what we are.
(25:42):
And when we talk about thisconcept of different ways that
communities are built, when wethink internationally and for me
, as someone with and you know,yes, I'm an American citizen, I
was born here, I spent a lot ofmy time growing up in or
spending time with family abroadand had a little bit of the
(26:05):
privilege of having a globalexperience Collectivism in the
context, and America has suchfears of it.
Right, you say somethingcollective and instantly they're
screaming that you're acommunist or a socialist,
without understanding thecontext of political theory
versus political, likeimplementation, and that is
(26:28):
always influenced, is influencedby power structures and,
fundamentally, each culturallyversus across the world.
We have some unified stories,specifically, john, referring to
students, right, and theoppression of students.
If people spend time, you know,looking at historical context,
(26:50):
students and the youth havealways been the beginning of
liberation movements, regardless, like doesn't matter what
country you are in right, doesnot matter the religious
background of that country.
We probably, if we went online,we could probably find six,
seven, eight instances, and evenwithin the last two years,
(27:12):
right, big political movements,big social movements sparked by
students who have theperspective of what does it take
to live and survive in what isbeing made right.
So, john, I absolutely agreewith you in the trauma that
comes from war.
So my parents both had warveterans as their parents, or
(27:39):
people impacted by war who werein some ways deprived or had a
type of militarism orauthoritarianism put into the
relationship without explanationor without justification, and I
think that's a big thing of howwe communicate those stories.
I don't know if there are anystudies on this, but I wouldn't
(28:02):
be surprised if some of theactual discussion of consequence
of war and that impact skips ageneration right, that people
are more likely to talk aboutthat with their grandchildren
than they are their children,and this was something that was
replicated in mind.
So we have a couple of thingshere.
We have people who grew up witha distorted space and
(28:26):
communities.
There was also a lot ofmovement happening that time, so
people were moving across thecountry for different
opportunities and we had afracturing of this
community-based relating.
And so within the United Stateshas continued to layer, both
with that separation thatfrontiers, people going to go to
(28:48):
a new place, which is basicallya colonizer mindset, right, and
we're disconnecting fromcommunity, disconnecting from
land, disconnecting fromaccountability right, or a
shared accountability of space,and then in that continuous
isolation that happens.
(29:09):
You see, that really strangereaction of we are so
individualistic but are sodependent on these natural
inclinations we have to be partof a group that to actually
speak out against a group isvery unusual and usually
something that happens more onthe spectrum as far as, for
(29:32):
example, autistic individualsthere are a couple of studies on
this are more likely to speakout about things that they
observe that are not right.
Right, and I think I reallyappreciate your expression about
how your family is workingthrough this.
How your family is workingthrough this because as far as
understanding or acceptingdifference, right, and how to
(29:57):
continue to express love, ofcourse, because and I don't want
to take us in too much of thedifferent direction, but I think
it's still important to speakon pinkwashing, the
justification of genocide,because they're like well, if
you were a queer person personin the middle east, you would
just be thrown off a roof andlike there are multiple accounts
(30:21):
of the um iof basically notacting in actual manipulation of
queer people in pal as far asthreatening them and endangering
them in order to push forinformation.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
It's interesting that you say that, erica, because
John and I were talking aboutthat before we started recording
.
That's actually in that book Iwas talking about genocide.
Bath is a section onwhitewashing.
I mean, I'm not, I'm sorrypinkwashing and that actually
will kind of bring us back towhat we were, where we were
going with John's story iscoming out in a family where you
(31:01):
are Palestinian, what it mademe think of a movie.
Have you ever seen the movieout in the dark or have you
heard of it?
I saw this movie a long timeago.
I just looked it up.
It came out in 2012.
No-transcript experience.
(31:37):
I have never run into homophobiafrom anybody that is Middle
Eastern.
I have run into homophobia fromplenty of white Christians.
I have run into homophobia inthis country, all over the place
, but I can honestly say I havenever run into any blatant
(31:58):
homophobia from a Muslim or aMiddle Eastern person.
Now, I know that that I'm notsaying it doesn't exist.
I know it does exist, butstatistically speaking, I've run
into none.
So what?
What was that?
How did that impact you?
Coming out, john?
Were you like?
What were your messages aboutbeing gay, as a Palestinian or I
(32:22):
don't know if your family, ifthey practice Muslim, muslim?
Just what was your experiencewith it?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
like three things off the top of my head that I'd
like to share regarding these.
They're a bit different, butthere's connections between them
.
But to answer your questionfirst, matt, I would say so I
grew up as a Christian, althoughI'm now an atheist or
non-religious, and my mom grewup as a Palestinian Christian,
(32:51):
and in Palestine there's aminority group, even though
there's still a lot of them,that's a minority of Palestinian
Christians.
And, in terms of me being gay,as I've become more open to a
lot of Middle Eastern peoplethat are Americans, middle
Eastern Americans, or even thosethat are overseas are Americans
(33:15):
, middle Eastern Americans, oreven those that are overseas
what I've come to notice is mymom, being a Palestinian
Christian, has similar thoughtsand views, especially towards
Palestinian Muslims, even thoughthey're practicing two
different religions.
They still had these thoughtsof.
This is an infection or this iswrong.
(33:38):
This goes against the religion,this goes against our family as
a core value.
This is not what you should bedoing and you're going to be
punished, and that's how it wasdiscussed, in a way, with my
parents.
Now, that's one thing and thatwas, of course, it's really
tough to hear, but I've alsolearned, as a more of a
(34:01):
long-term thinker that I've hadto learn how to set boundaries
with them.
When I didn't talk to them forseveral months, family, again,
is a core value for them andeven though religion and family
are two big core values, theywanted to still have that
connection.
And then they told me we don'twant to lose, they'll want you
to be with us, we care about you, and I've had to tell them, and
(34:23):
I've had to explain to themthen, when they were in a very
vulnerable place, that as muchas you care, that family is one
of your core values and religionis another.
You're almost caught in the webof having to pick between which
ones you want, whereas you alsoneed to consider that it's not
necessarily a bad thing that acore value more so in the
Western side of the worldindependence and not having to
(34:45):
feel that you need to have tocontrol or have this idea of
what your family has to be.
It's okay, and I think thatthis was an opportunity for them
to be more vulnerable withquestioning that what they were
ingrained with, and that's whereit's been a bumpy road, but it
has gotten better.
But I've also encountered a lotof Arabs from the Middle East,
(35:08):
or even Arab Americans, and mostof them are not out to their
families.
I have a friend group in Chicagothat are from Lebanon, jordan
or Jordanian American and noneof them have told their family
close family and they've been inrelationships, or one of them
has a partner that's in along-term relationship, and when
(35:33):
I ask them what's theirmotivation or motivation, they
say, oh, this is just privateinformation, this shouldn't have
to be discussed.
But I think that they'rethinking of it in the short term
because they don't want todisappoint their family, because
that's been a value that's beeningrained into their headspace
for a while, whereas with megrowing up in America, I feel as
if that partially did come tomy head space about wanting to
(35:57):
be who I am, but I also think alot of it came back to my
environment in terms of I spentyears sitting in professors'
office hours, asking themquestions about their lives and
who they are and doing a mathand statistics degree and
learning about questioningthings, proving theorems,
(36:19):
learning about definitions,learning about how to be a
better critical thinker.
That ended up making me thinkso much more differently than
how my parents think anddeveloping my own values that
align with who I want to be as aperson.
And the other thing I wanted toshare, which I think is
underrated I don't think this isspoken enough when I went to
(36:40):
parts of Palestine in 2014, thatwas the only time I met most of
my mom's side of the family and, just once, most of them.
And now I'm not saying I'llnever see them again, and now
I'm not saying I'll never seehim again.
Maybe there will be anothertime.
But what I wanted to share wasmy oldest cousin.
My mom has nine other siblingsand she's the ninth, but my
(37:02):
oldest cousin who I think is inher 40s late 40s now, perhaps,
when I met her and her husbandright, she grew up as a
Palestinian Christian.
He grew up as a PalestinianChristian.
He grew up as a PalestinianMuslim.
They're married and what'sinteresting was I learned that a
lot of my mom's relatives hersiblings and her aunts and
(37:24):
uncles were discouraged whenthey wanted to get married.
They're straight and they havea child who they I don't know
what sort of religion orreligions.
They raised her, but they metbecause they were their actors.
They share that passion for thecreative work and for doing
performances, but they come fromtwo different I'd say stringent
(37:46):
backgrounds, when it comes totheir religious affiliation, I
learned that my grandma, or mymom's mom, was not happy at all,
and I don't think she was attheir wedding.
I don't think that's evenspoken as is to a situation in
which, with these Palestinians,it's not even just about
homophobia, but even having adifference in your religion,
that itself can also causedysfunction to what is deemed
(38:11):
normal or appropriate.
Again, I think something that'sunderrated is in these cultures,
middle Eastern culturespecifically, and maybe I shared
this before with Matt I'm notsure if I shared this with you,
erica, but your last name isprofound.
Even, for example, when I wascoming back to Chicago from
(38:35):
Columbus, my Uber driver, whoshared he's from Jordan when we
were talking, he asked merandomly what's your mother's
last name, and I said Esfor,before she changed her name to
Demarjian.
Oh, I know the Esfor family.
He was sharing a lot of detailsabout them and connections he's
made when he was overseas.
And I don't think it's justabout family that's by blood,
(38:57):
that's close, but even familythat marries and becomes a part
of this last name.
That itself is a tribe, thatitself is a unit.
How important your last namebecomes.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Sorry to interject, but I think this is also more
common in it's more commoninternationally as far as, like
the name and I think it's itrelates to name and place, right
.
So, um, like you're talkingabout as far as kind of like a
village or clan, right, it hasan identity that's associated
with with a region and a landand place.
(39:33):
It happens more commonly in theUnited States, especially with
Indigenous communities, as faras the very specific components
of where they are from, forregion and land and connection
to land and also that history ofcommunity connections too.
So, yeah, absolutely notsomething as common in US
(39:56):
culture.
Thank you for sharing thiscomponent.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
It does highlight the importance of community, though
, why community is so importantand why we are falling apart as
a country, because of how muchdivisiveness is here and how
much it is this insidious me, me, me, generation, right so to to
go back to, because I just wantto go back to the pink washing
for a second, because I'm not.
I just want to make sure thelisteners and also know what
(40:20):
that is is that it's this, thisbelief that gay, the lgbtq
community plus community, shouldbe pro-genocide because there
is alleged homophobia inPalestine and therefore, because
of that, we should want themall to be dead, and that is the
(40:40):
most absurd and ridiculous thingever.
I don't even care if it's true.
I don't care if the entirecountry is homophobic.
I would never then say thatthey should all be killed.
It's, it's such a falseequivalent and it's stupid.
And you know, john, you hadsaid earlier somebody said it
was like chickens supporting KFC, and the same thing was said to
me at one point in time.
And I will never supportgenocide.
(41:02):
I don't care, and there'snothing anybody is going to ever
say that's going to change mymind on that.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I really want to first say like, really, I thank
you, matt, like very kind ofwhat you're sharing, and I
wanted to share with you, erica,that I was talking to Matt
about this before we started thepodcast.
I was making some recentYouTube videos.
I would say that I read areones where people say oh, I see
(41:32):
your Palestinian flag behind you.
You must support Hamas, or howcan you support these people
that hate gay people or queerpeople?
And it's exhausting, justsimply because I'm baffled that
a minority group and the way Idescribe it to Matt I know it's
all under pinkwashing, but theway I describe it to better
(41:53):
understand it is as a gayPalestinian people are telling
me you have to choose betweenone of two parts of your
identity and there's a correctanswer that you have to pick,
and that correct answer is basedupon my entitlement to myself,
which you need to be a part ofthe gay group, because that's
(42:14):
what's going to make us feelsafer, that's going to make us
feel more comfortable.
What's unfortunate is being gayand being Palestinian are parts
of my identity that I did notchoose to have or to be born
with.
So the fact that I'm being toldthat this entire group of
(42:35):
people and thisovergeneralization of
Palestinians and people wouldjust associate them to be all
Muslims, which of course, as Imentioned, there's also a
Palestinian Christians and othersorts of different.
I don't know if denominationsis the appropriate term, but I
think that it could be a goodterm to use amongst religious
affiliation for Palestinians.
(42:55):
But and I mean, excuse mylanguage, it's just, I have to
call these people out and justsay you are a fucking delusional
person.
If that's what your argument is, because I think at the root of
it is, you're just racist and I, and also I think at the root
of it you're taking, you'retaking the stigma or and because
(43:16):
you're associating this groupthat practices Islam or people
that practice Christianity andthen say, well, I've had
negative experiences with them,and then you perhaps or likely
end up overgeneralizing it to anentire group and you're saying
this to me the level ofself-awareness to even consider
wait, what am I saying?
Are my words impacting thisperson greatly?
(43:38):
So the answer is yes, because,again, it's so absurd that I
have to pick and choose betweenparts of my identity just to fit
in with your selfishness, andit's just shocking that the
number of comments I've had withthat and that's also a big
stigma that, like I want toshare further, that you know
I've been donating to nonprofitslike Doctors Without Borders
(44:00):
and I, and I have severalfriends in Gaza that I actively
talk to each day and donate toone of them, his sister is
Palestinian and Muslim and shelives in Turkey and is working
there.
But unfortunately, her brother,who I've met and connected with
and who's in Gaza, and some ofher other family members, like
her mom and siblings, are therestill.
(44:22):
And I told I told him firstthat you know I'm gay, and then
I told her that too, because shewas curious and want to
understand who I am, my life andstuff like that.
Now, her initial reaction thiswas a few weeks ago her initial
reaction was oh, but why wouldyou choose to be gay?
Or that seems like anunfortunate infection or so.
(44:44):
Now, of course, some peoplethat may have had it or heard
enough of it would just think,oh, screw you.
Or oh, you're, you're an enemyto me or something Right.
That's perhaps what some ofthese people that have said
these things to me would think.
However, I've also come tounderstand that she comes from
an environment where I thinkthere's a lot of rigidity in
(45:04):
terms or it's very rigid interms of the beliefs that she's
instilled, you know, and I beganto share with her.
No, I don't consider this aninfection.
I'm actually very happy withthis part of who I am and it's
something that I used to prayabout.
I used, you know, when I wasreligious and I used to
constantly question and try tounderstand.
And as I was sharing this withher, she's just like well, you
(45:28):
know, no matter what, I justwant to support you.
And her words were you've beendonating to and taught.
You've been donating to myfamily.
You've been very kind to mybrother.
My brother really likes talkingto you.
He's very happy to hear yourwords.
My family really appreciatesyou.
And she said no matter what,and I told her about my
(45:48):
ambitions to run for Congress.
She's like no matter what, andshe even knows I do OnlyFans.
But she told me, no matter what, I want to support you.
You're so kind to us and you'vebeen nothing but supportive and
I just want to be supportivetowards you, not transactionally
, but just because genuinelyyou're a very kind man.
It was her work.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
That's a great story, John.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah and thank you.
And I think that, again, thiscomes from a place of being
vulnerable and taking a chanceof just let me be open with
somebody who I've never met, butit's a demographic that perhaps
a lot of people would fear,simply because of associated
religious trauma or because theycould be racist.
And this message I'm trying toshare is, even though this is
just one person, imagine howmany people would be saying this
(46:38):
because you're human and youunderstand that they it's not
that they deserve to live, it'sthat they should live, and that
people that should live need to.
All you know, we all shouldlive and be happy, and that's
why I'm donating, that's why I'mlistening and talking to these
people, and I've had days whereI'm crying at work and talking
to my manager I need to go take15 minutes for myself in the
(47:00):
conference room just and it'sbecause I'm talking to these
people and I'm talking to herand her brother, and what I've
learned is they just say likefrom some of these people, and
even with my parents, they saylike some of these people, and
even with my parents, they saylike, you're just, we love you,
you're our son, you're, you'retrying to help yourself, you're
trying to help others and theywould tell me just be careful.
But yeah, I still get thosemessages from them too at times.
(47:22):
Like my mom would say becareful what you say on youtube,
she'll watch my videos and I'mjust like all right, thanks, mom
, I don't need to hear it, butthanks, you know, I know what
I'm doing and I'm confident invoice um but yeah and I'm sorry
you have to read that stuff too,because I I mean, I know the
negative impact of reading thosecomments and they're so awful.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
The the irony behind what we're talking about is that
here we are not not the threeof us but here we are getting
this message that we should notbe supporting them because
they're homophobic.
In a country that ignoredmillions of gay people dying
from AIDS, we have MatthewShepard, who is tied to a fence
(48:01):
post and beaten to death.
We have them trying to erasethe trans people in the country.
We have gay men who still can'teven donate blood, even though
they test blood, because theyconsider it still infected is
ridiculous.
We're not even in the top 20 ofthe best LGBT friendly
countries in the world.
So here we are saying like youknow again, I'm not talking
(48:24):
about us but here we are sayinglike, oh, these people are
terrible because they'rehomophobic.
Friggin, look at the mirror.
Like, seriously, like this isnot a great country.
I mean any comments, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
The ad when you said we're not like, I think, in the
top 20, most LGBT people'sfriendly countries.
I'm trying to recall what thepublisher or the author slash
journalists or for journalists,who they are.
But there's a happiness index,or a metric on happiness that is
tabulated annually and Israelis number five now, I believe
for this year, Do you want toguess?
(49:03):
And the US has definitelyfallen down on the list.
But do you want to guess whenthe US is now ranked?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Were we 34?
Because I think I saw thisrecently, or maybe that was the
lgbt friendly countries.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I don't know why that number stands out we were 23, I
think, last year, and now we're20 25, you cut out 24 this year
24.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Well, of course it's israel.
I mean, we pay for.
We pay for their education, wepay for their health care, we
pay for them to slaughter people.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they be right like it's
yeah it's absurd I think, Ithink fundamentally this what
what we're talking about is likeselective cognitive dissonance
and like propaganda techniques,right, and how?
Um the effort in which we um,the effort in which people's
(49:56):
attention can like if, like the,the, the argument holds no
water, right, and if it issubject to attention and
scrutiny and critical review,and so one of these things that,
um, you know, like communitiesdivided rather than communities
together, like we are notactually engaging in critical
(50:22):
discourse, or like that practiceof critical discourse and
conversation, and my hope isthat all of these so we have.
I have sent over some thingsfor Matt to add to the show
notes.
As far as just a short windowinto some of the discourse
around why the LGBTQ communityin the United States on average
(50:46):
not all there are several queerorganizations that I know that
have chosen to continue toremain silent, to emphatically
say that it does not matter,like whether or not we as a
community are accepted in aspace, because we face
discrimination everywhere.
Fundamentally, we stand forliberation everywhere, right,
(51:07):
and and you know, I think thatit's it's been it when we also
take a look at, for example,there was a part of a prison
that was bombed in Iran thatactually housed a lot of trans
inmates, so there were 100 transpeople and in Iran, in Iran,
(51:29):
gender affirming care is not,it's not illegal right, it is,
it is normalized and available.
A hundred trans prisoners werekilled in Israel's targeting of
a prison.
So I mean fundamentally thisconcept of a false narrative of
(51:49):
a country that it has equalityor something, when actually it's
an apartheid, genocidal, ethniccleansing, like ethno-national
state is like it's just.
It's just wow to.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
To add to that, erica , because I, I 100.
Everything you said is is spoton, as always.
Uh, what they, they do have umequality in one area they starve
everybody equally, right.
So they're starving gay people,they're starving trans people,
they're starving christians,they're starving muslims,
they're starving kids, right,and they don't care.
(52:24):
They're starving.
If I hear release the hostagesone more time, I swear to god, I
think I'm gonna lose myfreaking mind, because they're
also starving the hostages too.
They, they are the mostgenocidal government I have seen
.
Like it.
It's wild, at least in ourlifetime, right, like it's yeah,
as erica was sharing, there wasa.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
There was a thought that came to my head, which was
if you even think, as ericamentioned, critically, think
about this, right?
Do you think that a lot ofMuslims, in particular the
Palestinian Muslims, are eventhinking about shaming gay
people right now?
Speaker 2 (53:06):
No, of course not.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Absolutely not.
Even.
Do you even think that they'regoing to use their religion to
harm people who don't affiliateto it?
Because one could argue that,while you like, while one would
claim Israel is supposedly LGBTQplus friendly, or so if they're
(53:28):
going to be killing so manyPalestinians, then how would
they even know if they're gay ornot?
Right, it's just a matter oflike oh, they're gay, even
though we claim that we're LGBTQplus friendly.
Well, no, they're Palestinians.
So how could you say that Israelis pro-LGBTQ plus when they
(53:49):
would still be shooting, killingor physically harming people
who also happen to be LGBTQ plus?
It's just, it's simply just.
It's just simply tied towardssociopathic, just a series of
brainwashing techniques that ledinto so many sociopathic
(54:11):
citizens.
Brainwashing techniques thatled into so many sociopathic
citizens.
And yeah, I mean I have cousinswho are ones in canada, the
other in california, who it canbe hard to just to contact them
because they're very busy ingeneral, but I mean, I think
that's, you know, it's possiblethey could be great guests here
or so to share.
That would be awesome if youcan.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
That would be fantastic.
We do have.
I'm just looking at the time wedo have to wrap up there.
There's one thing I just wantedto comment on, and then erica
and I we had talked about doinga memorial to um people in gaza
who've died, and I foundsomebody that I just want to
talk about briefly is the we hadrecently.
All these celebrities die, andwhat really annoyed me is seeing
(54:56):
all these posts on facebookabout these celebrities and not
one person posting about thekids being starved to death or
the people being starved todeath in palestine drives me up
the wall and I think that ties.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Oh sorry, oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say and,erica, please let me know too if
you think this is anappropriate term and Matt as
well.
Months ago, I I've come to theconclusion that a lot of humans
perform selective empathy, whichis considering those that are
within your circle, that arelikely your family or close
(55:32):
friends.
An example was somebody who Iwas going to be doing a scene
with in this coming month andthen I saw he made a post from
the MSNBC News of like nineFilipino individuals were run
over by a car and killed, inQuebec, I believe and he said
today's a sad day in the newsand I called him out on it and
(55:55):
eventually I told I wasbasically very obviously it's
not a healthy decision tohumiliate or shame someone.
And then, because I brought aPalestinian and I apologized,
but his reaction was eyeopening,he said well, I do care for
those in Palestine, but myhusband is Filipino and this guy
that I told is a white Americanand he just said you know, I'm
(56:18):
going to care more about thisbecause this ties into somebody
who you know culturally relatesto these people or so, and he's
like, and I don't like howyou're bullying me, or even
after I apologize, like I don'tlike how you're bullying me or
trying to manipulate me and I'mjust well now.
You just revealed that you'rewilling to empathize with a
certain individual or group ofpeople based upon your personal
(56:42):
ties to them, and I guaranteeyou that if his partner wasn't
Filipino, this would probably beyesterday's newsprint.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
I don't think you were bullying him at all.
You were pointing out thedistortion.
And I think selective,selective empathy is a great
word, because I've also talkedabout selective outrage.
When people are freaking outover one thing because it serves
them and then when somethingelse is not serving them but is
even far worse, like Harristelling people to shut up
(57:14):
because she's speaking and shedidn't want to hear about
genocide.
Right, like that stuff.
Right, the selective outragewhen I hear people saying, oh
well, you know, yeah, it's justGaza, but all her other stuff is
great.
No, it's not just Gaza.
Like it's so infuriating, andso I think it's a great term.
I, I agree with you, I 100agree with you.
(57:35):
Erica, were you gonna saysomething?
Speaker 3 (57:37):
I'm gonna add on to this as far as terminology that
I hope will.
If we either affirm ouraudiences experiences or also
give them terminology to utilize, because it's always helpful to
name your like.
Once there's a name that makessense to an experience that
somebody might be having, it canbe very helpful.
(57:59):
Um, or maybe that's just myalexithymia, um, and that's a
term around autistic identity.
You can look it up.
Uh, we'll talk about it anothertime.
So I say, in addition toselective empathy and selective
outrage, what was brought up tomy attention, it's the veil of
(58:22):
politeness and niceness, rightwhen and nice is put on a
pedestal and is what is expectedand considered the socially
acceptable thing, rather thankind, like actual, real kindness
(58:45):
and authenticity where weactually are clear, like having
moral clarity.
And so for me, I'm always ofthe position where moral clarity
, an interruption of politenessand niceness in order to support
(59:07):
compassion and humanism, isreally the direction we need to
go.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Again.
The irony behind that is, allthree of us have parts of our
identity that are vilified bysociety, and here we are, all
three of us talking about theimportance of being empathetic
and understanding people.
Something I've shared before isI'm pagan.
So I mean that was alsosomething that growing up as a
(59:34):
pagan oh, I'm worshiping demons,you're going to hell, you're a
terrible person, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
like I mean.
So it's funny that we are allas empathetic as we are and that
we are fighting for humanity,like.
Speaker 3 (59:49):
But it's just, I mean , it makes sense, it's just,
it's interesting have theseexperiences and relation to
community which is beyond whatsomeone growing up with a much
(01:00:14):
more isolated background mightexperience, and I commend you so
much for your stepping intothat, using your voice
unapologetically regularly inmany spaces, and I look forward
to hearing about your successesand our hopes for a political
journey as far as our, as partof the youth who are pushing
(01:00:38):
back and reclaiming theirfutures by claiming power,
either in politics, in protest,in writing, whatever you seek
and if you're listening to thisand you're of an older
generation like me and Matt,please support the young people
in your life who arespearheading forward, because
(01:01:01):
they are the future and thefuture belongs to them, and we
need to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Erica, Do you mind if I have one more comment?
Yeah, sure, really have deep,introspective and reflective
(01:01:31):
conversations have shared withme and asked why are you so
optimistic, or you're one of thevery few people that still
feels happy even though we're indoo-doo.
You know, and I told them thatthere's research that I first
was questioning.
There's research that to becomea happier individual, altruism
(01:01:55):
is highly correlated, and I tellpeople you know now, whenever
I'm actively spreading messagesabout people in Gaza, especially
the friends I have there andpeople I've met and connected
with through social media, Onething that I would tell people
(01:02:29):
is, in terms of supportingpeople like them, or people in
Ukraine, or people in Congo orHaiti, or people that are
affected by the flooding inTexas, you can donate to them,
even if it's like a dollar, youcan reach out and connect with
them.
You know, for example I thinkDr Erica, I was telling this to
Matt before the podcast startedI said why in the world are many
students and people who areseeking jobs encouraged solely
just to reach out and connectwith strangers on LinkedIn for
jobs at the companies and theycan't apply that logic toward
(01:02:52):
connecting with people affectedby these events?
You can also try to find thesepeople living there or people
that were affected by them,rather than just reading MSNBC
or Fox News or CNN headlines,because the rich control these
articles.
So why not reach out to thepeople that were affected, you
know, or buy a shirt thatshowcases your support for
(01:03:16):
people in Gaza, for people inUkraine?
I wear a keffiyeh when I go tomy job in corporate America and
there was a day I got off thetrain before I walked into the
office and I work in downtownChicago and this guy is 21.
He came up to me and said hey,I love your keffiyeh.
Like it's very courageous justto wear it and go to the office.
(01:03:38):
I said, oh, thank you.
You know, I didn't really thinkof it as courageous because I
guess at that point I've alreadybeen doing donations.
I've been trying to wear myfree Palestine shirts.
I'd wear my keffiyeh where I go.
I speak out on social media.
One other tactic I've done tofilter out people that I just,
unfortunately, don't really feelconnected with was I would
(01:04:01):
personally DM every singleperson on my social media with
videos and pictures of myfriends in Gaza that are asking
to spread their messages, andyou won't believe that most
people would watch it, theywould see it or they would just
put a heart.
I'm just like.
I'm not here for your reaction.
I'm here for you to be a partof this initiation process and
(01:04:26):
in a way, I'm trying toimplicitly message this idea of
if you actually want to help orcare you may not realize it, but
after the first time of helping, maybe that sparks some kind of
happiness or that sparks somesort of value that and all
humans want to provide value.
And I'm hoping that, like when Isend these DM messages, maybe
(01:04:49):
some people that want to help,that spread the message on their
social media or donate or doother things, may actually start
to recognize that this exampleof altruism could help them feel
less desensitized, less anxiousand more optimistic or hopeful
to be also those people that canempower others that are feeling
(01:05:11):
this way.
So these are some things that Iwould, that I've been doing,
but these are things I wouldjust encourage your audience and
just to share with you guys.
You know if that helps, becauseI'm I feel more optimistic and
I'm a long term thinker and thepeople in power they're
generally short term thinkersjust looking for their next
profit in the next year quarter.
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
But they only care about getting reelected.
As a shameless plug, I actuallydid two episodes on being Kind,
so I don't know if the two ofyou have listened to it, but
there's an episode in season oneand I think in season two, and
unfortunately we do have to wrapup.
But I do want to say that forthe people listening and I
always thank people who arelistening I am going to.
(01:05:54):
Eric and I are going to betalking about Gaza as much as we
can until this genocide ends.
I refuse to keep my mouth shutabout it and I talk about it
every single day in my life.
And I want to end with we havedecided to do a tribute to
people who have died in Gaza,and there is one person I had
been following for a while.
His name is Mohammed.
He went by the name Medo Idon't know if I'm pronouncing
(01:06:17):
correctly and I'm probably goingto butcher the last name Halimi
H-A-L-I-M-I, and he was thisyoung guy who did a life in the
tents, right, so he would alwaysdo videos every day about
here's how we shower, here's howwe cook, here's how we wash
(01:06:37):
clothes, here's how we do this,here's how we do that, and one
of his acts of rebellion was hewould plant something every day,
so he would plant like a seedto like you know, for like a
crop, and he would say this iskind of my resistance.
And he was killed by Israelishrapnel and he unfortunately
died.
I think he was taken to getmedical attention but he was
(01:06:59):
killed and I am going to put hisTikTok information in the notes
as well Because I mean Iwatched his videos and this was
just a beautiful soul and, yeah,I have to tell you, every
single palestinian I see ontiktok are just beautiful inside
and out.
People right like we need to seethem as humans and I would
(01:07:22):
encourage you to look up thisyoung uh influencer.
I mean he was just such apowerful person and his life was
tragically ended as he wasmurdered by Israel thank you for
combining hope, frustration,resistance and fortitude, shall
(01:07:47):
we say, or um steadfastness andI.
Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
I actually just want to hold this space for the story
that matt told um.
We are going to follow up withmore tributes, but, john, thank
you so much for your words,thank you, john, thank you um
for emphasizing that active,engage, altruism to connect
directly with the human beingsin all of these places, and I
(01:08:18):
appreciate so much that you havecited all of the places in
which armed conflict ishappening.
I'm going to just add one moreon.
There is Sudan, and that's justalso because I have the
opportunity to speak about thisat a conference, and I have to
say, so many people in the worldright now are wanting to speak
(01:08:42):
out and speak up.
Work with going into your workwith the kafir.
Do so, do so with symbols ofpalestinian solidarity.
Demand that um people andleadership and institutions you
are part of, um, take a stanceof moral courage and continue to
(01:09:06):
push for the un, um to engagein intervention and also with
whatever we can do with our ownpoliticians.
Demand that our tax dollars arenot designed or for going to
build weapons of war to murderpeople and poison the land,
(01:09:30):
because we have children thatneed to grow up with a future
and to lead hope.
So thank you, john.
Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
And thank you Erica, thank you John, thank you both
for all the work that you do and, again, we will be talking
about this every single episode.
So, until next episode,everybody try to make a
difference.
Go out and do something likeJohn talked about.
Do something nice, make adifference.
Like Erica said, you reallyhave to go out there and fight,
(01:10:00):
because it does affect all of usat the end of the day.
So, thank you, thank youeverybody, and thank you again
(01:10:24):
for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank, you again.
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
These opinions belong to us anddo not reflect any company or
agency.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
Today I have John DeMargianback with me and we're going to
be talking about his coming outstory and some cultural stuff
that he wants to share as well.
But before we start I have totell a story.
(00:51):
John and I were just talkingabout some of the formative
politics that happensparticularly on the Democratic
side, and I live in Connecticut.
As everybody knows, connecticutis a Democratic state.
So I live in a really small townand we have six zip codes.
Now we have six zip codesbecause there's some weird issue
with the post office that weonly have PO boxes.
(01:12):
We don't actually have like adelivery system.
So we share, we borrow the zipcodes from all of the other like
six surrounding towns, which isreally confusing because there
are streets that are also inthose towns with that zip code.
So you can imagine how muchchaos that creates in terms of
things like taxes and mail andour mailing address is different
(01:36):
than what's on our license andit's incredibly confusing.
And the other thing is becausewe don't have an actual
recognized post office.
We don't exist federally.
Therefore our school always hasproblems getting money.
During COVID we didn't have anycases of COVID, because the
town doesn't exist and itbecomes this huge problem.
So now we have been fightingagainst this for a really long
(01:59):
time now.
The town actually does have azip code, it's just not used.
The town actually does have azip code, it's just not used.
And we have two, our Congressman, joe Courtney, and our Senator,
mrs Ann Chris Murphy, who Iwill say, are both owned by APEC
.
That's a whole other story.
They have tried and I'm usingair quotes to correct this
(02:20):
before and they seem to alwayshave problems as to why they
can't get it done.
Now they blamed the Republicansbefore saying it was because
Republicans somehow shot downthe bill, because, god forbid,
we have a functioning zip code.
But they just put this billtogether because we've been
giving them a lot of pressureand the bill actually read
(02:42):
success that I mean not the bill, the news article success.
The town of Scotland nowofficially has one zip code.
Now, this is why people reallyneed to read beyond the headline
, because Scotland already hadone zip code.
So they actually didn'teffectively change anything.
They just basically reinventedit and said like Scotland now
(03:05):
has one zip code.
But if you read all the waydown to the bottom of the
article.
It says Senate will not behearing this bill.
So they effectively didabsolutely nothing, but they put
it out.
It was even like on the newsand everything that Scotland's
going to have like one zip codenow Nonsense, performative.
(03:32):
It's not going to change at all, and I think that is a
testament to a lot of the stuffthat we've been seeing recently.
So I just wanted to tell thatstory first, and we are going to
circle back to that story lateron when we're talking about
other stuff.
John, I'm going to, oh, andErica Hi, erica, erica also just
arrived as well.
So we're going to start offwith John, if you want to talk
about your coming out story, andthen, if Eric and I, are you
(03:56):
okay with us jumping in andasking questions?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, sure, I think it's probably harder for me to
figure out where to start, soperhaps if you had a question,
that could probably help me getstarted or so.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, how did well actually?
When did you come out?
When did we start with that?
Was it recent?
Was it?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I came out first to a young lady that was two years
older than me and she was anurse in the college I went to.
(04:39):
I went to Purdue, and she and Iwere just praying though in her
religious, religiousperspective for God to watch me
and to protect me, and she's avery sweet person.
I unfortunately haven't kept intouch with her, but she was, I
remember, the first person Icame out to and then the second
(05:01):
person I came out to.
We were doing a statisticsproject together.
He's somebody I actually wasjust talking to and playing
board games with two weeks agovirtually, and he's one of the
most comical, bright guys that Iknow of and he's very
supportive.
I remember we went and got KFCchicken to just celebrate and he
(05:27):
was just really happy for me.
So I would say that those wereprobably the first two
individuals that I had come outto, and that was about seven to
eight years years ago.
So, yeah, I didn't come out tofamily first, but I felt more
comfortable coming out to peoplethat were more friendly and
(05:48):
consistent in how they wouldtalk and treat.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If I could ask you another question, if you don't
mind, because we came out duringdifferent decades, right?
So it was different when youcame up versus when I came out,
in terms of the messages thatpeople were getting.
So what messages did you getbefore you came out about being
gay or what it was like to begay, or society's perception, or
(06:16):
your family's perception?
What?
What kind of messages did youget?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, I was still living in Northwest Indiana at
that time and I remember thatthere weren't a lot of people
that were out, let alone Ididn't really know of anybody
that shared that.
They were a part of the LGBTQplus community community and if
(06:48):
I was talking to some peopleespecially a lot of my social
connections were at the gymthere were quite a number of
guys that would be more afraidof essentially their own
masculinity and sometimes I'vedealt with guys at the gym where
they would say, oh, I don'twant to appear gay or I don't
want to.
I don't want you to think thatI like men or so, and these
(07:10):
comments would just come outrandomly at times and I was just
very perplexed.
And these guys were especiallyaround my age and it also felt
disappointing just because fromwhere I grew up, it was one of
the most blue districts in thestate of Indiana.
So I would think that therewould perhaps be more openness,
(07:31):
but I would say, still peoplearound my age, I think a lot
were open.
But I also think that therewere a lot, of course, that were
very, mostly men that felt veryinsecure with their own
masculinity and did not want toappear to look or be gay,
essentially In terms of myparents.
(07:52):
I remember, probably when I wasin middle school, I just threw
the idea out to them and said,hey, mom and dad, I think I may
be gay.
And then my dad said, no, likeyou're not.
And then my mom was just, shedidn't really say anything, but
she pretty much agreed with himand I never revisited that idea
(08:13):
until, I would say, again in2019, or so, and that's when I
started coming out to my mom andand sisters.
But yeah, and then I didn'tcome out to my dad until May of
2023.
So about a little over twoyears ago.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
You have also.
I know we were talking beforewe started recording that you're
so.
Your mom is.
Your mom's side is Palestinian.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So both my parents are Palestinian?
Yeah, my dad is bothPalestinian and Armenian in
terms of his ethnicities,although he was born and raised
in Chicago, and my mom is 100%Palestinian and she was born and
raised in Jerusalem, and thenshe moved to the US when she was
(09:04):
26 or 27.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
How did that factor in culturally into coming out?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I would say this has been something that I've been
even curious about and I'm stilllearning, as I'm asking my mom
questions and people that I'vebeen connecting with in Gaza or
have families there or outsideof Palestine.
And what I've learned is thatmy mom said, in probably one of
(09:37):
the best sentences, that theWestern world has a very
different set of values, and oneof them is more about
independence and individualism,where it's more focused about
being who you are and what youwant, whereas I would say
(09:58):
overseas, in Western parts ofAsia or even in a lot of other
countries in the Middle East,your values are centralized upon
family and religion.
So, with her values being moretowards religion and family, for
her it was more about what isappropriate or acceptable with
(10:22):
her family, appropriate oracceptable with her family, her
kids, her husband.
That would appeal towards herfamily and religion as a whole,
and it's not even just withfamily, but a lot of Middle
Eastern families would ask.
Even an Uber driver I had, whenI came back from Columbus, ohio
last week, asked me what's yourlast family's last name?
(10:44):
Because even your last namewould hold a lot of meaning, or
that there would be perhaps abetter way to understand or
connect with those families,which isn't something you tend
to hear in the Western culture.
So, with coming out to her, itwas really tough, because she
kept on reiterating that.
(11:06):
You know, as a PalestinianChristian, she believed that God
saw me with a woman and to havekids, and so did my oldest
sister, and my dad definitelywas the worst person that I came
out to or that I was vulnerablewith, and he was the worst
person when it came to how hereacted in his vulnerable state.
Vulnerable with, and he was theworst person when it came to
(11:26):
how he reacted in his vulnerablestate.
What I will say, though, is Ithink my mom and, in a way, my
dad, have been doing better interms of better, in terms of
adapting towards the idea ofWestern culture, and I'm not
saying that they should do that.
I'm just saying that them beingmore open to it is helping them
(11:47):
connect with me as well as I'vebeen able to try to reflect and
connect with their values ortheir way of thinking.
So I would say that again, offthe top of my head,
individualism and independenceare two core values that less
promotes and I'd say propagatesis the appropriate word, and
(12:12):
then in, especially the middleeast.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
it's more about family and religion as the core
values there's so much to unpackand what you said, john, I
actually wish I was taking notesnow, because as we were talking
, I kept thinking about stuffand I didn't write it down.
When you brought up theindividualism, the only thing I
would add to that is myperception of the country.
And, erica, tell me what youthink as well is that it's
(12:37):
individualism at the expense ofother people.
It's not just about being whoyou are.
It's about being who you arewith absolutely no regard for
anybody else around you.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I have a theory and I'd love to hear your guys'
opinions on this.
When I consider the decades inwhich America was succeeding or
beginning its succession towardsbetter education, more job
opportunities, opportunities toown homes, et cetera, in the 50s
(13:13):
and 60s, parents of typicallythe boomers silent generation,
maybe some Gen Xers, theirparents, were largely focused
and involved with World War IIor the repercussions of it, and
there was a lot of fear and PTSDthat a lot of these individuals
(13:34):
that either served or wereassimilated into taking those
actions and being supportive ofthis country and its allies, and
a lot of them after it didn'tit, came back.
But I also think during thattime period and after that time
period, historically perhaps alot of parents had taught their
(13:55):
kids, who are now much older andunfortunately running a lot of
the governments, to focus onthemselves, because it's hard to
trust the world.
Because when, of course,there's a large war going on and
there's so muchunpredictability as to what's
going to happen and there's notas much accuracy with what
(14:15):
you're hearing in the news andyou're just trying to think
about how you can survive, itends up turning into a situation
where now a generation is beingraised by those that have a lot
of unresolved trauma andanxiety that's not being well
managed and this creates ageneration that's more focused
(14:35):
on helping themselves out, and Ithink that was part of what
promoted this whole shtick ofthe American dream in a way
where you can come to the US ifyou focus and work so hard, with
some luck and perhapsnetworking but it's usually the
hard work that keeps on beingreiterated then you can achieve
the dream of owning your ownproperty, having your own kids
(14:58):
and family.
You'll have safety.
But I unfortunately think that,with how a lot of parents
perhaps that had a lot ofunresolved trauma and anxiety,
it unfortunately led togenerations in the 50s, 60s and
70s that perhaps consideredtheir own, just consider more of
their own needs without alsoconsidering the needs for their
(15:23):
peers or for others, even thoughthat they were living in a much
better time with moreopportunities and chances to
succeed, and instead ofconsidering that they wanted to
continue this for others,especially for their kids or
grandkids.
It's not really working out inthat way, and now people are
very bitter about these things.
(15:43):
So that's just my theory as to,perhaps, why individualism is
taken at the, in which the worditself from what you're
describing, matt, is taken inthe context of focusing on
yourself and neglecting otherpeople's individualism, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It's by design.
I mean, it is set up to be thatway because it is much easier
to control people if everybodyis too busy fighting over
resources, fighting over rights,fighting over everything and we
don't have that.
When I went to Italy, one ofthe things that stood out to me
the most was how much of acommunity it was.
Walking around in Rome in themorning and seeing all of these
(16:24):
fruit stands and vegetablestands open and all of these
people out helping each other,and I was like, wow, that's not
what it looks like in the US byany means, and I have a theory
about this.
So you know how.
There was all the funding cutsto aviation and now we're seeing
planes being grounded all overthe place.
I can't even open up the newstoday without seeing something
(16:46):
about flights being canceled,emergency things landing.
I think it's dangerous for us.
This is why they try to get ridof TikTok.
It's dangerous for the country,for the powers that be, for us
to know what's happening in theworld.
And you know how in Israel,they were stopping people from
fleeing by shutting down theairports and telling people they
(17:06):
had to stay there.
I think we're heading there.
I really do.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I think it's incredibly crazy that there's a
large percentage of Israelicitizens that do not respect
Benjamin Netanyahu and want himout of power.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Probably more than half the country.
I mean, from what I've seen on,like the protests, it's a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, and to add, when you were talking about
TikTok, matt, I mean the wholeessence, the essence of our US
government arguing we need toget rid of TikTok because China
must be taking our data or isusing our data for their own
purposes, right, I mean, themost outstanding statistic that,
(17:52):
if I recollect, was TikTok as asocial media platform, of
course, not only retains a lotof younger audiences, but it's
overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.
You look at the searches forwhat people tend to watch or or
create TikToks for politically,it's Palestine, and I don't like
(18:15):
to use the term politicallyjust because, unfortunately,
it's now become a topic ofdebate or interest for people to
determine if a certain group ofpeople should be undergoing
ethnic cleansing and a genocide.
But to get back to the topic ofdiscussion, I was just laughing
(18:35):
when I saw and just in a sadand just an insulting manner of
laughing of wow, I cannotbelieve that you want to squish
so many younger people's voices,or you just want to squish
people that want to expresstheir free speech and their care
(18:57):
and sentiments towardsPalestinians, and that's why you
want to buy TikTok and turn itinto a US private business or so
.
And I mean again, there's apart of me that I don't want to
get too far off or detract onthe topic, but the other comment
I want to share is I have noidea why a lot of people that
(19:23):
are still in our government,that are in their 50s, 60s, 70s,
maybe 80s I have no idea why alot of them are actively making
policies or want to legislate,documents or contracts like the
big America, because they thinkthat there's no future for them.
So might as well just focus,just continue to focus on
(19:59):
ourselves and our dog owners,aka APAC.
Yeah, I mean, it's just verysad and, as I mentioned before,
that's still one reason why Iwant to eventually run for
Congress or work in Congress,just because a cause of living
is the biggest issue here.
And, of course, I want to be abig advocate for Palestine.
Do you mind if I share oneother quick thing related to
(20:21):
this?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Sure, I just I did want to make a comment.
But go ahead, I'll hold it.
I'm just going to write a noteof it.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
For some reason I think the succession of the
Republican Party is because theyhave a lot of loudmouth that
reiterate their pointsconstantly.
I look at the Democratic Partyand I think, oh my gosh, a lot
of the older, well-establishedDemocrats are just cowards.
It's not, of course, just basedon the decisions they say, but
if I were to work for Congressor when I start my campaign, I'm
(20:48):
going to be a loudmouth.
I'm going to be somebody that'sconstantly going to just talk
loudly and have little to nofilter on a lot of and even if
it's used against me, I'm justgoing to continuously spew out
why it's being used against me.
But I don't think we have thattype of representative for the
democratic party.
We don't have candidates thatare loud, unless this isn't
really necessarily a politician,but Medi, who's a if I'm Medi's
(21:13):
one of the greatest debaters.
He is like to me what I wouldcall like, not in a negatively
allowed mouth, but he is aprogressive that is spewing so
much concern and empathy andcare, with also statistics and
facts, and I think connects wellwith a lot of people, and we
don't really have that here forthe liberal side or the
(21:34):
progressives or people whoassociate as democratic
socialists or social democrats.
For some reason it'sconcentrated in the Republican
side and yet so many people lovedrama and would rather be
attracted to drama and theywould associate that with people
who are loud, people who areover the top, who expend so much
energy and for some reason, wedon't have that type of
representative or certainindividuals that are doing this
(21:56):
for the Democrat side, that havethat confidence.
Instead, we have a lot ofpeople who are just very
polished and have to pick andchoose their words but are just
doing it because they have dogowners of political action
committees and so many peopleare hurt and want to scream and
have been and they just don't dothat in return because they
(22:19):
think of an established, anolder, established way of
communicating is trying to workwith the other side or not not
being a potty mouth.
So I mean, if I were to run,I'm definitely going to be a
potty.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, my, my opinion about this is that there are
there's only one side, and Ithink we need to really start
acknowledging that because, asyou said, the people who we have
in the Democratic office arecowards, but they're also bought
and owned by APEC, just likethe Republicans, and we know
that what the Democrats do, ifyou ask me, is more insidious,
because they pretend to be doingstuff and they're actually
(22:53):
snakes, just like theRepublicans.
At least the Republicans admitthey're snakes, right, they
don't try to hide it.
I mean, we saw this with AOCrecently, who, crying the tears
of a clown about like how sadshe is about everything that's
going on, and then both you know, denies and allows 500 million
more dollars to go to Israel tokill people in Palestine.
The other thing that I thoughtwas really interesting is I read
(23:14):
an article about howperformative her and Bernie are,
which I already knew anyway,and something that was pointed
out that I never thought of isto remember when she did the
photo op at the detentioncenters during Trump's
presidency and she was cryingand talking about how awful the
conditions were for people withdetention centers.
Well, check out what she saidduring Biden's presidency
Absolutely nothing, not onething, and there was actually
(23:39):
more people removed underBiden's presidency than under
Trump's first presidency.
Guess when she started to getvocal again when Trump became in
office again.
It's just 100% performative.
And now she's doing the whole.
I don't know why people are madat me.
I don't like't, like.
Here's my explanation.
It wasn't that I was giving themoney for offense, I was giving
the money for defense.
Oh, okay, well, you know whatit's still, you're still
(24:00):
supporting genocide, so let'slike not, let's knock that shit
off.
The other thing that I think wehave to be careful of doing I
saw a friend of mine sent me avideo the other day that this
person was both Muslim,palestinian and Israeli and he
was talking about how we can't,like we have to focus on the
(24:22):
people, right, so like, thepeople are.
A lot of the people areinnocent in this, and he had a
great message until he startedto criticize all white women and
I was like, okay, we can't dothis right.
So like, if we're going to cometogether as a community and
come together as a group, wecan't do, we can't be ageist, we
can't be sexist, we can't beracist, we can't be, we can't do
(24:43):
any of that stuff.
Ageism is just another way wedivide people by talking about
like the boomers and Gen X andthis and that, talking about
like the boomers and jet x andthis and that.
We're constantly dividingpeople constantly, and I think
we have to stop doing that,because we all live in the same
space and we're not the enemy.
The enemy is the peoplecontrolling us.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Right, they're the enemies so, fundamentally, I
think there are a lot of thingsor themes that we've gone
through and a component ofindividualism like, for example,
this combination of uh, what Iwould say, my opinion is that in
the united states, we have acombination of toxic
(25:22):
individualism and toxicgroupthink together, right and
um, that is the effect ofindividualism being so
normalized that natural humaninclination as social creatures
right.
As we look at anthropologicaland behavioral context, humans
are social animals.
That's just what we are.
(25:42):
And when we talk about thisconcept of different ways that
communities are built, when wethink internationally and for me
, as someone with and you know,yes, I'm an American citizen, I
was born here, I spent a lot ofmy time growing up in or
spending time with family abroadand had a little bit of the
(26:05):
privilege of having a globalexperience Collectivism in the
context, and America has suchfears of it.
Right, you say somethingcollective and instantly they're
screaming that you're acommunist or a socialist,
without understanding thecontext of political theory
versus political, likeimplementation, and that is
(26:28):
always influenced, is influencedby power structures and,
fundamentally, each culturallyversus across the world.
We have some unified stories,specifically, john, referring to
students, right, and theoppression of students.
If people spend time, you know,looking at historical context,
(26:50):
students and the youth havealways been the beginning of
liberation movements, regardless, like doesn't matter what
country you are in right, doesnot matter the religious
background of that country.
We probably, if we went online,we could probably find six,
seven, eight instances, and evenwithin the last two years,
(27:12):
right, big political movements,big social movements sparked by
students who have theperspective of what does it take
to live and survive in what isbeing made right.
So, john, I absolutely agreewith you in the trauma that
comes from war.
So my parents both had warveterans as their parents, or
(27:39):
people impacted by war who werein some ways deprived or had a
type of militarism orauthoritarianism put into the
relationship without explanationor without justification, and I
think that's a big thing of howwe communicate those stories.
I don't know if there are anystudies on this, but I wouldn't
(28:02):
be surprised if some of theactual discussion of consequence
of war and that impact skips ageneration right, that people
are more likely to talk aboutthat with their grandchildren
than they are their children,and this was something that was
replicated in mind.
So we have a couple of thingshere.
We have people who grew up witha distorted space and
(28:26):
communities.
There was also a lot ofmovement happening that time, so
people were moving across thecountry for different
opportunities and we had afracturing of this
community-based relating.
And so within the United Stateshas continued to layer, both
with that separation thatfrontiers, people going to go to
(28:48):
a new place, which is basicallya colonizer mindset, right, and
we're disconnecting fromcommunity, disconnecting from
land, disconnecting fromaccountability right, or a
shared accountability of space,and then in that continuous
isolation that happens.
(29:09):
You see, that really strangereaction of we are so
individualistic but are sodependent on these natural
inclinations we have to be partof a group that to actually
speak out against a group isvery unusual and usually
something that happens more onthe spectrum as far as, for
(29:32):
example, autistic individualsthere are a couple of studies on
this are more likely to speakout about things that they
observe that are not right.
Right, and I think I reallyappreciate your expression about
how your family is workingthrough this.
How your family is workingthrough this because as far as
understanding or acceptingdifference, right, and how to
(29:57):
continue to express love, ofcourse, because and I don't want
to take us in too much of thedifferent direction, but I think
it's still important to speakon pinkwashing, the
justification of genocide,because they're like well, if
you were a queer person personin the middle east, you would
just be thrown off a roof andlike there are multiple accounts
(30:21):
of the um iof basically notacting in actual manipulation of
queer people in pal as far asthreatening them and endangering
them in order to push forinformation.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
It's interesting that you say that, erica, because
John and I were talking aboutthat before we started recording
.
That's actually in that book Iwas talking about genocide.
Bath is a section onwhitewashing.
I mean, I'm not, I'm sorrypinkwashing and that actually
will kind of bring us back towhat we were, where we were
going with John's story iscoming out in a family where you
(31:01):
are Palestinian, what it mademe think of a movie.
Have you ever seen the movieout in the dark or have you
heard of it?
I saw this movie a long timeago.
I just looked it up.
It came out in 2012.
No-transcript experience.
(31:37):
I have never run into homophobiafrom anybody that is Middle
Eastern.
I have run into homophobia fromplenty of white Christians.
I have run into homophobia inthis country, all over the place
, but I can honestly say I havenever run into any blatant
(31:58):
homophobia from a Muslim or aMiddle Eastern person.
Now, I know that that I'm notsaying it doesn't exist.
I know it does exist, butstatistically speaking, I've run
into none.
So what?
What was that?
How did that impact you?
Coming out, john?
Were you like?
What were your messages aboutbeing gay, as a Palestinian or I
(32:22):
don't know if your family, ifthey practice Muslim, muslim?
Just what was your experiencewith it?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
like three things off the top of my head that I'd
like to share regarding these.
They're a bit different, butthere's connections between them
.
But to answer your questionfirst, matt, I would say so I
grew up as a Christian, althoughI'm now an atheist or
non-religious, and my mom grewup as a Palestinian Christian,
(32:51):
and in Palestine there's aminority group, even though
there's still a lot of them,that's a minority of Palestinian
Christians.
And, in terms of me being gay,as I've become more open to a
lot of Middle Eastern peoplethat are Americans, middle
Eastern Americans, or even thosethat are overseas are Americans
(33:15):
, middle Eastern Americans, oreven those that are overseas
what I've come to notice is mymom, being a Palestinian
Christian, has similar thoughtsand views, especially towards
Palestinian Muslims, even thoughthey're practicing two
different religions.
They still had these thoughtsof.
This is an infection or this iswrong.
(33:38):
This goes against the religion,this goes against our family as
a core value.
This is not what you should bedoing and you're going to be
punished, and that's how it wasdiscussed, in a way, with my
parents.
Now, that's one thing and thatwas, of course, it's really
tough to hear, but I've alsolearned, as a more of a
(34:01):
long-term thinker that I've hadto learn how to set boundaries
with them.
When I didn't talk to them forseveral months, family, again,
is a core value for them andeven though religion and family
are two big core values, theywanted to still have that
connection.
And then they told me we don'twant to lose, they'll want you
to be with us, we care about you, and I've had to tell them, and
(34:23):
I've had to explain to themthen, when they were in a very
vulnerable place, that as muchas you care, that family is one
of your core values and religionis another.
You're almost caught in the webof having to pick between which
ones you want, whereas you alsoneed to consider that it's not
necessarily a bad thing that acore value more so in the
Western side of the worldindependence and not having to
(34:45):
feel that you need to have tocontrol or have this idea of
what your family has to be.
It's okay, and I think thatthis was an opportunity for them
to be more vulnerable withquestioning that what they were
ingrained with, and that's whereit's been a bumpy road, but it
has gotten better.
But I've also encountered a lotof Arabs from the Middle East,
(35:08):
or even Arab Americans, and mostof them are not out to their
families.
I have a friend group in Chicagothat are from Lebanon, jordan
or Jordanian American and noneof them have told their family
close family and they've been inrelationships, or one of them
has a partner that's in along-term relationship, and when
(35:33):
I ask them what's theirmotivation or motivation, they
say, oh, this is just privateinformation, this shouldn't have
to be discussed.
But I think that they'rethinking of it in the short term
because they don't want todisappoint their family, because
that's been a value that's beeningrained into their headspace
for a while, whereas with megrowing up in America, I feel as
if that partially did come tomy head space about wanting to
(35:57):
be who I am, but I also think alot of it came back to my
environment in terms of I spentyears sitting in professors'
office hours, asking themquestions about their lives and
who they are and doing a mathand statistics degree and
learning about questioningthings, proving theorems,
(36:19):
learning about definitions,learning about how to be a
better critical thinker.
That ended up making me thinkso much more differently than
how my parents think anddeveloping my own values that
align with who I want to be as aperson.
And the other thing I wanted toshare, which I think is
underrated I don't think this isspoken enough when I went to
(36:40):
parts of Palestine in 2014, thatwas the only time I met most of
my mom's side of the family and, just once, most of them.
And now I'm not saying I'llnever see them again, and now
I'm not saying I'll never seehim again.
Maybe there will be anothertime.
But what I wanted to share wasmy oldest cousin.
My mom has nine other siblingsand she's the ninth, but my
(37:02):
oldest cousin who I think is inher 40s late 40s now, perhaps,
when I met her and her husbandright, she grew up as a
Palestinian Christian.
He grew up as a PalestinianChristian.
He grew up as a PalestinianMuslim.
They're married and what'sinteresting was I learned that a
lot of my mom's relatives hersiblings and her aunts and
(37:24):
uncles were discouraged whenthey wanted to get married.
They're straight and they havea child who they I don't know
what sort of religion orreligions.
They raised her, but they metbecause they were their actors.
They share that passion for thecreative work and for doing
performances, but they come fromtwo different I'd say stringent
(37:46):
backgrounds, when it comes totheir religious affiliation, I
learned that my grandma, or mymom's mom, was not happy at all,
and I don't think she was attheir wedding.
I don't think that's evenspoken as is to a situation in
which, with these Palestinians,it's not even just about
homophobia, but even having adifference in your religion,
that itself can also causedysfunction to what is deemed
(38:11):
normal or appropriate.
Again, I think something that'sunderrated is in these cultures,
middle Eastern culturespecifically, and maybe I shared
this before with Matt I'm notsure if I shared this with you,
erica, but your last name isprofound.
Even, for example, when I wascoming back to Chicago from
(38:35):
Columbus, my Uber driver, whoshared he's from Jordan when we
were talking, he asked merandomly what's your mother's
last name, and I said Esfor,before she changed her name to
Demarjian.
Oh, I know the Esfor family.
He was sharing a lot of detailsabout them and connections he's
made when he was overseas.
And I don't think it's justabout family that's by blood,
(38:57):
that's close, but even familythat marries and becomes a part
of this last name.
That itself is a tribe, thatitself is a unit.
How important your last namebecomes.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Sorry to interject, but I think this is also more
common in it's more commoninternationally as far as, like
the name and I think it's itrelates to name and place, right
.
So, um, like you're talkingabout as far as kind of like a
village or clan, right, it hasan identity that's associated
with with a region and a landand place.
(39:33):
It happens more commonly in theUnited States, especially with
Indigenous communities, as faras the very specific components
of where they are from, forregion and land and connection
to land and also that history ofcommunity connections too.
So, yeah, absolutely notsomething as common in US
(39:56):
culture.
Thank you for sharing thiscomponent.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
It does highlight the importance of community, though
, why community is so importantand why we are falling apart as
a country, because of how muchdivisiveness is here and how
much it is this insidious me, me, me, generation, right so to to
go back to, because I just wantto go back to the pink washing
for a second, because I'm not.
I just want to make sure thelisteners and also know what
(40:20):
that is is that it's this, thisbelief that gay, the lgbtq
community plus community, shouldbe pro-genocide because there
is alleged homophobia inPalestine and therefore, because
of that, we should want themall to be dead, and that is the
(40:40):
most absurd and ridiculous thingever.
I don't even care if it's true.
I don't care if the entirecountry is homophobic.
I would never then say thatthey should all be killed.
It's, it's such a falseequivalent and it's stupid.
And you know, john, you hadsaid earlier somebody said it
was like chickens supporting KFC, and the same thing was said to
me at one point in time.
And I will never supportgenocide.
(41:02):
I don't care, and there'snothing anybody is going to ever
say that's going to change mymind on that.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I really want to first say like, really, I thank
you, matt, like very kind ofwhat you're sharing, and I
wanted to share with you, erica,that I was talking to Matt
about this before we started thepodcast.
I was making some recentYouTube videos.
I would say that I read areones where people say oh, I see
(41:32):
your Palestinian flag behind you.
You must support Hamas, or howcan you support these people
that hate gay people or queerpeople?
And it's exhausting, justsimply because I'm baffled that
a minority group and the way Idescribe it to Matt I know it's
all under pinkwashing, but theway I describe it to better
(41:53):
understand it is as a gayPalestinian people are telling
me you have to choose betweenone of two parts of your
identity and there's a correctanswer that you have to pick,
and that correct answer is basedupon my entitlement to myself,
which you need to be a part ofthe gay group, because that's
(42:14):
what's going to make us feelsafer, that's going to make us
feel more comfortable.
What's unfortunate is being gayand being Palestinian are parts
of my identity that I did notchoose to have or to be born
with.
So the fact that I'm being toldthat this entire group of
(42:35):
people and thisovergeneralization of
Palestinians and people wouldjust associate them to be all
Muslims, which of course, as Imentioned, there's also a
Palestinian Christians and othersorts of different.
I don't know if denominationsis the appropriate term, but I
think that it could be a goodterm to use amongst religious
affiliation for Palestinians.
(42:55):
But and I mean, excuse mylanguage, it's just, I have to
call these people out and justsay you are a fucking delusional
person.
If that's what your argument is, because I think at the root of
it is, you're just racist and I, and also I think at the root
of it you're taking, you'retaking the stigma or and because
(43:16):
you're associating this groupthat practices Islam or people
that practice Christianity andthen say, well, I've had
negative experiences with them,and then you perhaps or likely
end up overgeneralizing it to anentire group and you're saying
this to me the level ofself-awareness to even consider
wait, what am I saying?
Are my words impacting thisperson greatly?
(43:38):
So the answer is yes, because,again, it's so absurd that I
have to pick and choose betweenparts of my identity just to fit
in with your selfishness, andit's just shocking that the
number of comments I've had withthat and that's also a big
stigma that, like I want toshare further, that you know
I've been donating to nonprofitslike Doctors Without Borders
(44:00):
and I, and I have severalfriends in Gaza that I actively
talk to each day and donate toone of them, his sister is
Palestinian and Muslim and shelives in Turkey and is working
there.
But unfortunately, her brother,who I've met and connected with
and who's in Gaza, and some ofher other family members, like
her mom and siblings, are therestill.
(44:22):
And I told I told him firstthat you know I'm gay, and then
I told her that too, because shewas curious and want to
understand who I am, my life andstuff like that.
Now, her initial reaction thiswas a few weeks ago her initial
reaction was oh, but why wouldyou choose to be gay?
Or that seems like anunfortunate infection or so.
(44:44):
Now, of course, some peoplethat may have had it or heard
enough of it would just think,oh, screw you.
Or oh, you're, you're an enemyto me or something Right.
That's perhaps what some ofthese people that have said
these things to me would think.
However, I've also come tounderstand that she comes from
an environment where I thinkthere's a lot of rigidity in
(45:04):
terms or it's very rigid interms of the beliefs that she's
instilled, you know, and I beganto share with her.
No, I don't consider this aninfection.
I'm actually very happy withthis part of who I am and it's
something that I used to prayabout.
I used, you know, when I wasreligious and I used to
constantly question and try tounderstand.
And as I was sharing this withher, she's just like well, you
(45:28):
know, no matter what, I justwant to support you.
And her words were you've beendonating to and taught.
You've been donating to myfamily.
You've been very kind to mybrother.
My brother really likes talkingto you.
He's very happy to hear yourwords.
My family really appreciatesyou.
And she said no matter what,and I told her about my
(45:48):
ambitions to run for Congress.
She's like no matter what, andshe even knows I do OnlyFans.
But she told me, no matter what, I want to support you.
You're so kind to us and you'vebeen nothing but supportive and
I just want to be supportivetowards you, not transactionally
, but just because genuinelyyou're a very kind man.
It was her work.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
That's a great story, John.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah and thank you.
And I think that, again, thiscomes from a place of being
vulnerable and taking a chanceof just let me be open with
somebody who I've never met, butit's a demographic that perhaps
a lot of people would fear,simply because of associated
religious trauma or because theycould be racist.
And this message I'm trying toshare is, even though this is
just one person, imagine howmany people would be saying this
(46:38):
because you're human and youunderstand that they it's not
that they deserve to live, it'sthat they should live, and that
people that should live need to.
All you know, we all shouldlive and be happy, and that's
why I'm donating, that's why I'mlistening and talking to these
people, and I've had days whereI'm crying at work and talking
to my manager I need to go take15 minutes for myself in the
(47:00):
conference room just and it'sbecause I'm talking to these
people and I'm talking to herand her brother, and what I've
learned is they just say likefrom some of these people, and
even with my parents, they saylike some of these people, and
even with my parents, they saylike, you're just, we love you,
you're our son, you're, you'retrying to help yourself, you're
trying to help others and theywould tell me just be careful.
But yeah, I still get thosemessages from them too at times.
(47:22):
Like my mom would say becareful what you say on youtube,
she'll watch my videos and I'mjust like all right, thanks, mom
, I don't need to hear it, butthanks, you know, I know what
I'm doing and I'm confident invoice um but yeah and I'm sorry
you have to read that stuff too,because I I mean, I know the
negative impact of reading thosecomments and they're so awful.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
The the irony behind what we're talking about is that
here we are not not the threeof us but here we are getting
this message that we should notbe supporting them because
they're homophobic.
In a country that ignoredmillions of gay people dying
from AIDS, we have MatthewShepard, who is tied to a fence
(48:01):
post and beaten to death.
We have them trying to erasethe trans people in the country.
We have gay men who still can'teven donate blood, even though
they test blood, because theyconsider it still infected is
ridiculous.
We're not even in the top 20 ofthe best LGBT friendly
countries in the world.
So here we are saying like youknow again, I'm not talking
(48:24):
about us but here we are sayinglike, oh, these people are
terrible because they'rehomophobic.
Friggin, look at the mirror.
Like, seriously, like this isnot a great country.
I mean any comments, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
The ad when you said we're not like, I think, in the
top 20, most LGBT people'sfriendly countries.
I'm trying to recall what thepublisher or the author slash
journalists or for journalists,who they are.
But there's a happiness index,or a metric on happiness that is
tabulated annually and Israelis number five now, I believe
for this year, Do you want toguess?
(49:03):
And the US has definitelyfallen down on the list.
But do you want to guess whenthe US is now ranked?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Were we 34?
Because I think I saw thisrecently, or maybe that was the
lgbt friendly countries.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I don't know why that number stands out we were 23, I
think, last year, and now we're20 25, you cut out 24 this year
24.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Well, of course it's israel.
I mean, we pay for.
We pay for their education, wepay for their health care, we
pay for them to slaughter people.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they be right like it's
yeah it's absurd I think, Ithink fundamentally this what
what we're talking about is likeselective cognitive dissonance
and like propaganda techniques,right, and how?
Um the effort in which we um,the effort in which people's
(49:56):
attention can like if, like the,the, the argument holds no
water, right, and if it issubject to attention and
scrutiny and critical review,and so one of these things that,
um, you know, like communitiesdivided rather than communities
together, like we are notactually engaging in critical
(50:22):
discourse, or like that practiceof critical discourse and
conversation, and my hope isthat all of these so we have.
I have sent over some thingsfor Matt to add to the show
notes.
As far as just a short windowinto some of the discourse
around why the LGBTQ communityin the United States on average
(50:46):
not all there are several queerorganizations that I know that
have chosen to continue toremain silent, to emphatically
say that it does not matter,like whether or not we as a
community are accepted in aspace, because we face
discrimination everywhere.
Fundamentally, we stand forliberation everywhere, right,
(51:07):
and and you know, I think thatit's it's been it when we also
take a look at, for example,there was a part of a prison
that was bombed in Iran thatactually housed a lot of trans
inmates, so there were 100 transpeople and in Iran, in Iran,
(51:29):
gender affirming care is not,it's not illegal right, it is,
it is normalized and available.
A hundred trans prisoners werekilled in Israel's targeting of
a prison.
So I mean fundamentally thisconcept of a false narrative of
(51:49):
a country that it has equalityor something, when actually it's
an apartheid, genocidal, ethniccleansing, like ethno-national
state is like it's just.
It's just wow to.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
To add to that, erica , because I, I 100.
Everything you said is is spoton, as always.
Uh, what they, they do have umequality in one area they starve
everybody equally, right.
So they're starving gay people,they're starving trans people,
they're starving christians,they're starving muslims,
they're starving kids, right,and they don't care.
(52:24):
They're starving.
If I hear release the hostagesone more time, I swear to god, I
think I'm gonna lose myfreaking mind, because they're
also starving the hostages too.
They, they are the mostgenocidal government I have seen
.
Like it.
It's wild, at least in ourlifetime, right, like it's yeah,
as erica was sharing, there wasa.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
There was a thought that came to my head, which was
if you even think, as ericamentioned, critically, think
about this, right?
Do you think that a lot ofMuslims, in particular the
Palestinian Muslims, are eventhinking about shaming gay
people right now?
Speaker 2 (53:06):
No, of course not.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Absolutely not.
Even.
Do you even think that they'regoing to use their religion to
harm people who don't affiliateto it?
Because one could argue that,while you like, while one would
claim Israel is supposedly LGBTQplus friendly, or so if they're
(53:28):
going to be killing so manyPalestinians, then how would
they even know if they're gay ornot?
Right, it's just a matter oflike oh, they're gay, even
though we claim that we're LGBTQplus friendly.
Well, no, they're Palestinians.
So how could you say that Israelis pro-LGBTQ plus when they
(53:49):
would still be shooting, killingor physically harming people
who also happen to be LGBTQ plus?
It's just, it's simply just.
It's just simply tied towardssociopathic, just a series of
brainwashing techniques that ledinto so many sociopathic
(54:11):
citizens.
Brainwashing techniques thatled into so many sociopathic
citizens.
And yeah, I mean I have cousinswho are ones in canada, the
other in california, who it canbe hard to just to contact them
because they're very busy ingeneral, but I mean, I think
that's, you know, it's possiblethey could be great guests here
or so to share.
That would be awesome if youcan.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
That would be fantastic.
We do have.
I'm just looking at the time wedo have to wrap up there.
There's one thing I just wantedto comment on, and then erica
and I we had talked about doinga memorial to um people in gaza
who've died, and I foundsomebody that I just want to
talk about briefly is the we hadrecently.
All these celebrities die, andwhat really annoyed me is seeing
(54:56):
all these posts on facebookabout these celebrities and not
one person posting about thekids being starved to death or
the people being starved todeath in palestine drives me up
the wall and I think that ties.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Oh sorry, oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say and,erica, please let me know too if
you think this is anappropriate term and Matt as
well.
Months ago, I I've come to theconclusion that a lot of humans
perform selective empathy, whichis considering those that are
within your circle, that arelikely your family or close
(55:32):
friends.
An example was somebody who Iwas going to be doing a scene
with in this coming month andthen I saw he made a post from
the MSNBC News of like nineFilipino individuals were run
over by a car and killed, inQuebec, I believe and he said
today's a sad day in the newsand I called him out on it and
(55:55):
eventually I told I wasbasically very obviously it's
not a healthy decision tohumiliate or shame someone.
And then, because I brought aPalestinian and I apologized,
but his reaction was eyeopening,he said well, I do care for
those in Palestine, but myhusband is Filipino and this guy
that I told is a white Americanand he just said you know, I'm
(56:18):
going to care more about thisbecause this ties into somebody
who you know culturally relatesto these people or so, and he's
like, and I don't like howyou're bullying me, or even
after I apologize, like I don'tlike how you're bullying me or
trying to manipulate me and I'mjust well now.
You just revealed that you'rewilling to empathize with a
certain individual or group ofpeople based upon your personal
(56:42):
ties to them, and I guaranteeyou that if his partner wasn't
Filipino, this would probably beyesterday's newsprint.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
I don't think you were bullying him at all.
You were pointing out thedistortion.
And I think selective,selective empathy is a great
word, because I've also talkedabout selective outrage.
When people are freaking outover one thing because it serves
them and then when somethingelse is not serving them but is
even far worse, like Harristelling people to shut up
(57:14):
because she's speaking and shedidn't want to hear about
genocide.
Right, like that stuff.
Right, the selective outragewhen I hear people saying, oh
well, you know, yeah, it's justGaza, but all her other stuff is
great.
No, it's not just Gaza.
Like it's so infuriating, andso I think it's a great term.
I, I agree with you, I 100agree with you.
(57:35):
Erica, were you gonna saysomething?
Speaker 3 (57:37):
I'm gonna add on to this as far as terminology that
I hope will.
If we either affirm ouraudiences experiences or also
give them terminology to utilize, because it's always helpful to
name your like.
Once there's a name that makessense to an experience that
somebody might be having, it canbe very helpful.
(57:59):
Um, or maybe that's just myalexithymia, um, and that's a
term around autistic identity.
You can look it up.
Uh, we'll talk about it anothertime.
So I say, in addition toselective empathy and selective
outrage, what was brought up tomy attention, it's the veil of
(58:22):
politeness and niceness, rightwhen and nice is put on a
pedestal and is what is expectedand considered the socially
acceptable thing, rather thankind, like actual, real kindness
(58:45):
and authenticity where weactually are clear, like having
moral clarity.
And so for me, I'm always ofthe position where moral clarity
, an interruption of politenessand niceness in order to support
(59:07):
compassion and humanism, isreally the direction we need to
go.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Again.
The irony behind that is, allthree of us have parts of our
identity that are vilified bysociety, and here we are, all
three of us talking about theimportance of being empathetic
and understanding people.
Something I've shared before isI'm pagan.
So I mean that was alsosomething that growing up as a
(59:34):
pagan oh, I'm worshiping demons,you're going to hell, you're a
terrible person, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
like I mean.
So it's funny that we are allas empathetic as we are and that
we are fighting for humanity,like.
Speaker 3 (59:49):
But it's just, I mean , it makes sense, it's just,
it's interesting have theseexperiences and relation to
community which is beyond whatsomeone growing up with a much
(01:00:14):
more isolated background mightexperience, and I commend you so
much for your stepping intothat, using your voice
unapologetically regularly inmany spaces, and I look forward
to hearing about your successesand our hopes for a political
journey as far as our, as partof the youth who are pushing
(01:00:38):
back and reclaiming theirfutures by claiming power,
either in politics, in protest,in writing, whatever you seek
and if you're listening to thisand you're of an older
generation like me and Matt,please support the young people
in your life who arespearheading forward, because
(01:01:01):
they are the future and thefuture belongs to them, and we
need to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Erica, Do you mind if I have one more comment?
Yeah, sure, really have deep,introspective and reflective
(01:01:31):
conversations have shared withme and asked why are you so
optimistic, or you're one of thevery few people that still
feels happy even though we're indoo-doo.
You know, and I told them thatthere's research that I first
was questioning.
There's research that to becomea happier individual, altruism
(01:01:55):
is highly correlated, and I tellpeople you know now, whenever
I'm actively spreading messagesabout people in Gaza, especially
the friends I have there andpeople I've met and connected
with through social media, Onething that I would tell people
(01:02:29):
is, in terms of supportingpeople like them, or people in
Ukraine, or people in Congo orHaiti, or people that are
affected by the flooding inTexas, you can donate to them,
even if it's like a dollar, youcan reach out and connect with
them.
You know, for example I thinkDr Erica, I was telling this to
Matt before the podcast startedI said why in the world are many
students and people who areseeking jobs encouraged solely
just to reach out and connectwith strangers on LinkedIn for
jobs at the companies and theycan't apply that logic toward
(01:02:52):
connecting with people affectedby these events?
You can also try to find thesepeople living there or people
that were affected by them,rather than just reading MSNBC
or Fox News or CNN headlines,because the rich control these
articles.
So why not reach out to thepeople that were affected, you
know, or buy a shirt thatshowcases your support for
(01:03:16):
people in Gaza, for people inUkraine?
I wear a keffiyeh when I go tomy job in corporate America and
there was a day I got off thetrain before I walked into the
office and I work in downtownChicago and this guy is 21.
He came up to me and said hey,I love your keffiyeh.
Like it's very courageous justto wear it and go to the office.
(01:03:38):
I said, oh, thank you.
You know, I didn't really thinkof it as courageous because I
guess at that point I've alreadybeen doing donations.
I've been trying to wear myfree Palestine shirts.
I'd wear my keffiyeh where I go.
I speak out on social media.
One other tactic I've done tofilter out people that I just,
unfortunately, don't really feelconnected with was I would
(01:04:01):
personally DM every singleperson on my social media with
videos and pictures of myfriends in Gaza that are asking
to spread their messages, andyou won't believe that most
people would watch it, theywould see it or they would just
put a heart.
I'm just like.
I'm not here for your reaction.
I'm here for you to be a partof this initiation process and
(01:04:26):
in a way, I'm trying toimplicitly message this idea of
if you actually want to help orcare you may not realize it, but
after the first time of helping, maybe that sparks some kind of
happiness or that sparks somesort of value that and all
humans want to provide value.
And I'm hoping that, like when Isend these DM messages, maybe
(01:04:49):
some people that want to help,that spread the message on their
social media or donate or doother things, may actually start
to recognize that this exampleof altruism could help them feel
less desensitized, less anxiousand more optimistic or hopeful
to be also those people that canempower others that are feeling
(01:05:11):
this way.
So these are some things that Iwould, that I've been doing,
but these are things I wouldjust encourage your audience and
just to share with you guys.
You know if that helps, becauseI'm I feel more optimistic and
I'm a long term thinker and thepeople in power they're
generally short term thinkersjust looking for their next
profit in the next year quarter.
Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
But they only care about getting reelected.
As a shameless plug, I actuallydid two episodes on being Kind,
so I don't know if the two ofyou have listened to it, but
there's an episode in season oneand I think in season two, and
unfortunately we do have to wrapup.
But I do want to say that forthe people listening and I
always thank people who arelistening I am going to.
(01:05:54):
Eric and I are going to betalking about Gaza as much as we
can until this genocide ends.
I refuse to keep my mouth shutabout it and I talk about it
every single day in my life.
And I want to end with we havedecided to do a tribute to
people who have died in Gaza,and there is one person I had
been following for a while.
His name is Mohammed.
He went by the name Medo Idon't know if I'm pronouncing
(01:06:17):
correctly and I'm probably goingto butcher the last name Halimi
H-A-L-I-M-I, and he was thisyoung guy who did a life in the
tents, right, so he would alwaysdo videos every day about
here's how we shower, here's howwe cook, here's how we wash
(01:06:37):
clothes, here's how we do this,here's how we do that, and one
of his acts of rebellion was hewould plant something every day,
so he would plant like a seedto like you know, for like a
crop, and he would say this iskind of my resistance.
And he was killed by Israelishrapnel and he unfortunately
died.
I think he was taken to getmedical attention but he was
(01:06:59):
killed and I am going to put hisTikTok information in the notes
as well Because I mean Iwatched his videos and this was
just a beautiful soul and, yeah,I have to tell you, every
single palestinian I see ontiktok are just beautiful inside
and out.
People right like we need to seethem as humans and I would
(01:07:22):
encourage you to look up thisyoung uh influencer.
I mean he was just such apowerful person and his life was
tragically ended as he wasmurdered by Israel thank you for
combining hope, frustration,resistance and fortitude, shall
(01:07:47):
we say, or um steadfastness andI.
Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
I actually just want to hold this space for the story
that matt told um.
We are going to follow up withmore tributes, but, john, thank
you so much for your words,thank you, john, thank you um
for emphasizing that active,engage, altruism to connect
directly with the human beingsin all of these places, and I
(01:08:18):
appreciate so much that you havecited all of the places in
which armed conflict ishappening.
I'm going to just add one moreon.
There is Sudan, and that's justalso because I have the
opportunity to speak about thisat a conference, and I have to
say, so many people in the worldright now are wanting to speak
(01:08:42):
out and speak up.
Work with going into your workwith the kafir.
Do so, do so with symbols ofpalestinian solidarity.
Demand that um people andleadership and institutions you
are part of, um, take a stanceof moral courage and continue to
(01:09:06):
push for the un, um to engagein intervention and also with
whatever we can do with our ownpoliticians.
Demand that our tax dollars arenot designed or for going to
build weapons of war to murderpeople and poison the land,
(01:09:30):
because we have children thatneed to grow up with a future
and to lead hope.
So thank you, john.
Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
And thank you Erica, thank you John, thank you both
for all the work that you do and, again, we will be talking
about this every single episode.
So, until next episode,everybody try to make a
difference.
Go out and do something likeJohn talked about.
Do something nice, make adifference.
Like Erica said, you reallyhave to go out there and fight,
(01:10:00):
because it does affect all of usat the end of the day.
So, thank you, thank youeverybody, and thank you again
(01:10:24):
for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank, you again.
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