Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 89

The Writings of David Wojnarowicz

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cians and the various organized religions in this country and all
the person has to do is say I tried to touch them and the courts
will probably set that person free. That act of murder could
easily be applauded. (155)
Labeled as a political deviant by Senator Jesse Helms and other conser
vative politicians and observers, Wojnarowicz developed a narrative resistance
strategy in his writings that hinged on analogizing the abuse and humiliation that
had occurred in his youth at the hands of his drunken, violent father, with the
belittlement and ostracism he suffered within the one-tribe nation. Wojnarowicz
wrote that the tyranny of his father when he was growing up in suburban New
Jersey was so oppressive that in his home “one could not laugh, one could not
express boredom, one could not cry, one could not engage in any activity that
showed development or growth that was independent.” And in his neighborhood
at this time, a code of silence had developed in which the neighbors knew of the
physical and mental abuse that was occurring, but remained silent to the anguish
that the father was perpetrating on his wife and children (152).
Wojnarowicz learned from that experience that to keep silent is to be
come invisible, and that only by speaking out can an individual hope to effectuate
change. Wojnarowicz perceived the one-tribe nation to be the national equivalent
of his father: intolerant, oppressive, inhumane, and hostile toward individuality.
For Wojnarowicz, a government that would stand by idly while homosexuals are
being vilified and threatened with physical harm must be overtly confronted with
evidence of the misery being perpetuated. Similarly, any government that does not
actively fund research to alleviate the suffering of those afflicted with AIDS must
be confronted with proof of the consequences of such inaction. As Wojnarowicz
characterized his refusal to stay silent:
Bottom line, if people don’t say what they believe, those ideas
and feelings get lost. If they are lost often enough, those ideas
and feelings never return. This is what my father hoped would
happen with his actions toward my display of individuality.
And this is the hope of certain government officials and reli
gious leaders as well. When I make statements like this l do
not make them lightly. I make them from a position of experi
ence—the experience of what it is to be homosexual in this
country. What it is to be a man who is capable of loving men,
physically and emotionally (153-154).