Once upon a petition

With Blood Battle just around the corner–the blood drive competition between the University of Michigan and the ohio state university which measures who raises the most donations–it’s important to remember that not all people are allowed to donate blood. I’m a man who has sex with men. Thus, I cannot donate.

But I don’t care. I have no ethical imperative to gush blood on those that need it.

While some feel discriminated against, which makes sense because it does ban a specific portion of the population (men who have sex with men–MSM) because of a particular “sexually deviant behavior” often equated with “homosexuality,” I don’t have any personal problem with this. There is nothing in the world that makes me feel morally responsible for people who need blood (#IntroToPhilosophy). There are non-sexually deviant hetero folks and people who don’t get tattoos nor travel who can donate blood, so, in general, its covered. (I know the blood pool is low, but people can still get some pretty good height on the diving board of.)

I’d rather focus my time away from liberal-reformist-assimilationist goals of ending blood discrimination and marriage discrimination in favor of liberation, or just not being killed. Also, most of these reforms continue the stigma of “risky sexual behavior” and the stigma around folks living with HIV/AIDS.

However, for the time, I think it’s important to mediate on people who have an extreme amount of empathy with folks in need. While I don’t particularly have an interest in all of humanity, some do and I respect that. I may be a bitter, postmodern, queer revolutionary, who hates everyone. Full stop.

819 signatures to change the policy banning MSM from donating blood. 99,191 signatures left until the White House will view the document and take the petition seriously. 100,000 signatures needed in total.

Behind every number is a person who supports this cause who lets a little information about themselves out into the public sphere and waits until 99,999 people come to the same consensus. There is so much hope with signing a petition, especially when its electronic.

Looking at the list of signatories reminds me of trying to crack a secret code: “Signature #738, November 06, 2013, Lake in the Hills, IL., C.M.” I wonder what was going through “C.M.’s” head on November 06 at x o’clock. They didn’t decide on the 7th or 8th of November and so they locked themselves in to be number 738. Perhaps they were swimming in the lake in the hills lake in the hills on the 6th. I wonder who they are. What is their story? Why are they an ally? How are they an ally?

In each signature lies an actual person (maybe) and that is terrifyingly beautiful. People with their own lives, stories, histories, futures, all of which, for one moment, stopped to sign a petition that could potentially help save lives.

Stopping to stare at the amount of people who have signed this document is like reading the unreadable. K.B. J.L. E.B. D.L. are just a combination of letters that points to 4 people in the world. Each unique person reduced down to 4, sometimes 3, facts all encompassed by a grey speech bubble. Missing voices, missing bodies, intentions present. The symmetrical nature of these intentions all pointing to one goal.

There is beauty in simplicity.