Re-Reading Clothe Wounds

I am currently re-reading Kathryn Bond Stockton's Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where Black Meets Queer. In the text, Stockton is exploring the intersections between black and queer - melding queer studies and black studies through literary texts (i.e. Genet, Morrison, Feinberg). In the first chapter of the text, she examines the notion of clothing, in a sense, as a "second skin". This move is rather intriguing as often, when people compare the state of race and the state of sexuality, the argument is made that one cannot hide their skin color, whereas one can hide their sexuality because it is not worn like skin color. Stockton however argues that perhaps if we examine the notion of clothing, we will see a fascinating intersection - what she terms "switchpoints" - of blackness and queerness. She examines this proposition by examining various texts in which the queer body is understood/defined in part by the clothe that covers the body and how that clothe exposes psychic clothe wounds (Feinberg's butch/femmes, Genet's Querelle).

For instance, Stockton utilizes Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues to illustrate how clothing in the queer community has been something utilized by the homophobic community to ostracize and violate the queer body. Yes, it could be argued that queers could change their clothes and save themselves from assault, but by having to assimilate and change their clothing, these queers are violated - forced to assimilate into a world that has strict clothing restrictions based on gendered norms - restrictions that assault their selves on a psychic level. Of course, as one further explores this, it is perhaps problematic as the clothing of Stockton's examples are "white" bodies, neglecting how queers of color relate to clothe wounds and how clothing operates in different ways in different contexts - relating to class, race, religion, etc.

However, as I re-read this fascinating exposition on psychic cloth wounds, I thought about my own experiences as a (closeted) "gay" youth and as a (out) "gay" young adult, along with my interests in queer theory in education. Clothes are a powerful symbol, a symbol that can illustrate one's economic class, one's fetish for labels, one's desires, etc. But clothes are also raced, gendered, and sexed - as already alluded to. There are social stigmas and stereotypes associated with what we wear everyday. As a youth growing up in the rural Midwest, I tended to wear clothes that labeled me as a "preppy" boy, but also to some a "fag." I spent years, and at times even today, questioning my wardrobe and what it means to wear any particular outfit. How does our clothing, our second skin, portray us to those whose gaze we enter? What does that mean for that gaze when it is the gaze of students? Does it "out" us without having to make a speech act? Does it open us up to violence? Ostracism? Humiliation? Does it allow for the clothed body to play with "identity" and mess with how the gaze of the other can be troubled, confused, questioning "who" is behind the clothes...perhaps eventually realizing there is no "being" behind the clothes...but a "doing", deeds of wearing clothes that create a text of a body to be read?

As I study queer theory more though, these questions become more salient to me, but not from a position of fear, but from a position of performance. How do my clothes perform my "identities" and how do such performances 1) reaffirm the wounds of yesteryear when my second skin caused pain and suffering and 2) overcome those wounds to accept the "shame" that is associated with my second skin, making the psychic wounds livable or making reparations?

But, I cannot think about this solely from an individual perspective because their are queer bodies that do not have the same privileges and opportunities that I have had. The majority of my so called psychic clothe wounds occurred during elementary and high school. Therefore, how do we think about these wounds at the level of education? Do we institute uniforms so everyone conforms, so no psychic wounds because of clothing occurs? Or would "censoring" clothing preference create another psychic wound in which students are not allowed to express their performed identities? What statuses are "privileged" in school uniforms? Are they inherently heteronormative, white, middle class creations? Why do we grant clothing such power in detailing our identities and is our "second skin" that easy to hide in order to hide our sexuality, our queerness? What is the intersection of blackness and queerness in terms of the skin(s) we where? Is an argument against queerness as an oppressed category misinformed by the argument that it can be hidden...when for some, such hiding is nearly impossible and perhaps even deadly?

Obama Dress Code

Today, while running and watching CNN there was an interview with the student body president of North Carolina Central University - Kent Williams Jr. While I could not find the interview, I was able to locate an article about Mr. Williams' dress code crusade. Mr. Williams was discussing his, I'll say, "mission" to clean up the student body by making them presentable. This "mission" in part emerged from an interview then Presidential candidate Barack Obama did with MTV where he noted that "brothers should pull up their pants". Now, I understand where this desire to have people pull up their pants is coming from. I recognize that wearing low-ridin' baggy jeans is not very professional and that in doing so individuals open themselves up to being judged as any number of things (i.e. thug, gangsta, etc.) not to mention the necessity to wear cute undies.

I found Mr. Williams to be very persuasive in his presentation of this idea - noting that he is not attempting to enforce a dress code, merely to bring the rules of "business professional" to his colleagues by handing out cards with dress rules such as not wearing one's pajamas to class, not wearing short skirts, covering up the cleavage when not in the clubs, and of course pulling up one's pants. His intentions are in many ways it seems to provide "rules" to enter the game - a game that is one fraught with issues related to race, class, gender, and sexuality.

However, as he was discussing, Mr. Williams made a rather interesting statement - noting that wearing clothes in such a manner shows a lack of self-respect. I found it rather odd, perhaps disturbing that in the attempt to clean up the image of fellow students, he had to do so by pathologizing, psychologizing the students...making it not possible that they are wearing these clothes because of the image they seek to produce, the image they want others to associate them with, or simply because such clothes are rather enjoyable to wear. While he is not trying to enforce a dress code, his language seems to provide no other option than to abide...for to not abide is to lack self-respect...when it seems that the lack of respect is on those who cannot simply imagine ways in which one's clothing is not solely related to their "mental state" and ability to respect themselves.

The notion of "respect" seemed rather persuasive in many discussions around the topic - seen in the article linked above and in President Obama's interview. What it is about clothes that provokes such anxiety and provokes individuals to feel disrepected because of what some "other" is wearing. Is the issue not about the respect, but about the desire for such individuals to fall in line and dress in a fashion that is "normal" and "normal" being linked with "respectful". One can think about the current fascination with President Obama's changing of the fashion in the oval office - making it much more casual in perhaps the same light. Is it disrepectful to the institution of the presidency to disrupt the norm of professional attire? I wouldn't think so, but then again, President Obama already, arguably, has earned a lot of respect and can "break" with the norms...

Of course, the issue that Mr. Williams brings about is not just about college students or what is worn in the oval office. One can look at dress codes in public and private K-12 schools and the ways in which discourse operates around these policies. I would argue in many ways such discourse is inevitably normalizing - seeking to produce students in a very limited way so that they are all "mentally healthy" and "self-respecting" according to those adults who are able to enforce such rules. Of course the joy then, is finding those students, those moments where subversion occurs and the dress code is utilized in perverse ways - perhaps Brittany's use of the "school girl uniform" is a recent incantation where the uniform comes to represent that which it intended to eliminate or minimize...