UnCovering
One of the leading queer-edge thinkers is Kenji Yoshino. His recent book, “Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights” is part memoir and part queer social history. Yoshino lays out the legal battle for LGBT liberation in the context of other civil rights movements. He parallels our collective progress with his own efforts to uncover his authentic self. Yoshino’s work is important for all progressives, gay and straight alike, because he envisions a new social paradigm of ‘universal liberty’ that embraces all marginalized people. Covering expands the American discourse beyond exhaustive identity politics and provides us with an exciting new language for discussing our values and objectives. We spoke last summer on KRCL’s RadioActive.
Interview Transcript
Troy Williams: As a place to begin, who is Kenji Yoshino?
Kenji Yoshino: (laughs) well, if I had the answer to that! For years I had been writing critiques of assimilationist bias in both law and culture, and by that I mean, the incautious celebration of assimilation as a constant good in our social life. Much of my resistance to assimilation comes from my experiences coming to a gay identity. I really had to move through three phases, each of which was a resistance to assimilation: conversion, passing and covering. Through young adulthood, all I wanted to do was convert to being straight. It’s difficult for me to see that past self clearly because he so ardently willed the annihilation of the person I would become. It was only at law school that I accepted I was gay. But I still tried to pass. I was afraid I would be outed to the law school community as a whole. Finally when I had graduated and had overcome the passing phase, I still experienced pressure to conform to straight norms. When I started teaching at Yale a colleague took me aside and said, ‘Kenji you’ll have an easier time getting tenure if you are a homosexual professional instead of a professional homosexual.’ I knew exactly what he meant. But it seems silly to not pursue my passion. And when I did my colleagues uniformly embraced me. That is the key lessons here, if you don’t live an authentic life, you cut yourself off from those people who would support that authentic self. I didn’t have a name for the final phase of assimilation until I read sociologist Erving Goffman’s book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Goffman talks about how even people who are no longer passing still feel like they have to downplay stigmatized attributes. He called this dynamic covering. That was one of those light bulb moments. My colleague’s advice wasn’t a demand to pass, rather it was a demand to cover a known identity.
TW: It’s okay to be gay, just not do gay.
KY: Exactly.
TW: I love how you describe being splendidly non-committal. Neither Japanese nor American, neither poet nor pragmatist, neither straight nor gay. How did you negotiate these dual identities?
KY: It’s an incredibly complex narrative. As I get older I find that I hold multiple selves. All of these identities are inside of me. There was a deep desire through my adolescence not to define myself. I always joke with my students because they are so risk averse. I always say don’t let your epitaph read, she died with her options open. For me it became important to actually commit to certain conceptions of the self.
TW: You talk about universal liberty vs. civil rights. What does that look like?
KY: Once we have diagnosed covering as a social problem, the immediate question is what is the solution? In respect to the equality vs. liberty debate, I really believe the way forward is going to be through a universal liberty discourse. This may all sound like mumbo-jumbo…
TW: Well, let’s be practical…
KY: Right. An employer says this is an English only workplace so if you speak Spanish you’re out. You could contest that legally by saying the policy has disproportionately burdened people who are Latinos, so we are going to make a group-based equality claim. Or you could say, everyone has a first language. Everyone has the right to speak their language of origin as long as they are also able to speak English. I think the second claim is going to have more traction in contemporary America. That’s what I call the Universal Liberty approach. This country is experiencing such compassion fatigue towards groups right now. The civil rights movement has been tarnished by the idea that it’s a culture of complaint. We are witnessing a parade of oppressed groups each asking for state and social solicitude. What we are really looking for is a discourse that draws us together rather than apart. Take same-sex marriage. I think Americans are going to be less sympathetic to the statement: gays should have the rights to marry cause gays are just as good as straights. The liberty statement would be: everyone should have the freedom to marry the person they most love. The universal liberty approach resonates with Americans because it allows them to see that same-sex marriage is ultimately about love.
TW: What do you think queers have to teach the world about coming out?
KY: The coming out experience resonates with all Americans. When I talk about uncovering yourself it has been underscored time and again that authenticity is a concept that Americans hold dear. All Americans have had to wrestle with how much they can express themselves in a culture that demands conformity. What we are talking about is a universal human condition. What the gay rights movement has tapped into is the idea that all of us have these hidden selves that are in danger of being squashed by society as a whole. Nonetheless these selves are deeply precious.
More about Covering: www.kenjiyoshino.com
Download ‘qcasts’: www.nowqueerthis.com
RadioActive airs M-F at noon on KRCL, 90.9 FM
