In Las Vegas at the Netroots Nation conference, I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Lt. Dan Choi. When he publically came out on The Rachel Maddow Show last year, he was faced with the process of being discharged from the Army under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. He was officially fired the day before we spoke.

The passion that was obvious in his voice while we were talking together was amazing. It was truly a pleasure to speak with such a dedicated activist and such a true and honorable soldier.

Part Two of this interview will be posted soon, featuring over 12 minutes of video.

Samantha: What about your experience with activism makes you angriest? Or what makes you angriest that keeps you active?

Dan Choi: I think there’s a personal pain that really makes me understand not only my own anger in the context of activism and ability to effect change, but also to understand other’s pain as well, and I have found that activism can do great things on a larger level, on a political level, but even on an inward level. Some would call it a selfish level. That there’s healing that’s there, for those who have gone through the pain of oppression. That there is a way out. And every time that I’m in jail, or arrested, you see so many people who have suffered so much pain. Sometimes you have plenty of time to talk through that. But you hear the most harrowing stories, and I always encourage those people in jails- you know what, you don’t need to be carrying a gun  around to heal yourself. I know that there are other oppressions that you’ve gone through, and you should be standing up for all those other people because there is a better way. And I don’t know if they take the advice, but it is always surprising for them to see somebody in uniform or, you know, dressed up kind of nice, and in jail, so it kind of makes them wonder “What is it? Why is this guy angry? He doesn’t look like he should be an angry person, and shouldn’t be a violent person.” And when I explain what we do, and I hear their stories, I get angry because I hear the pain that they have to go through. Now, in this journey, there have been many things that have upset me. Things that I’ve learned about the movement itself that are very disappointing- that is, the gay and transgender equality movement. I think there’s a lot of pain in our community, and understandably so, because there’s so much self-hatred that we’re inflicted with, and it was enforced upon us for so long that there’s a very quick to judge and quick to destroy mentality. And all my criticisms of organizations, it was meant to be very constructive criticism, to allow them to know that these are their shortcomings. I did not create false information. I did not defame anyone’s character. In fact, I hold the leaders of the organizations personally in very high regard. I just feel that their organizations can do much more and not be inflicted with their own encumbrances. And for people to turn around and see those criticisms and then snipe back at me or any of the other vocal critics of the way that the movement has had very visible shortcomings, is difficult for any kind of spokesperson. But, it does reinforce to me that there’s a lot of pain that has to be healed and it forces us to be louder about our message and about our motivations. 


Samantha: I know you’ve had several experiences now with civil disobedience, and about a month ago in Chicago, me and some of the other activists that you had met, we did a sit in at Senator Durbin’s office, and were handcuffed and written citations, and I know that for me, as they were putting the handcuffs on, it was an emotional experience, not because I was scared because there’s cops and handcuffs it’s kind of a big deal, but because I was really proud of what I was doing, and I was really taking that action. So, what does it feel like for you to have those handcuffs put on you? What is that experience like for you?

Dan Choi: It’s a symbol, you know, handcuffs? They symbolize the fetters that restrict movement. It means you no longer have your physical freedoms and you’ve given something up, or it’s been taken away from you. When I was handcuffed and fettered, shackled, by the D.C, police, as well as the Las Vegas police, along with all of the others with me, of course we weren’t able to move very fast or we didn’t have freedom of our own bodies at that time, but we had never felt more free. We had never felt more liberated. Yeah, you can have chains on you, but in our hearts, we broke those chains. We broke the fetters. We broke the shackles. And there is no greater dignity than walking proudly with your head held high and your hands behind your back, tied up, and that dignity transcends physical emotion. It goes beyond that in such a way that…you can read about it in books, but you can never understand what Bayard Rustin was saying, when he said, “for the oppressed person to go out and protest on the streets, that confers his dignity.” For them to go to jail and for what Dr. King was saying, we have to do this together, we have to get arrested together, we have to go protest together, we have to suffer together, you never really understand that until you finally do it. And in those moments, sitting in a jail cell, in prison, sometimes alone, and you sing freedom songs to yourself, it has a richness in meaning that only so few have really ever understood. It’s almost like a secret knowledge, in a way. But it’s free for everyone, which is the ironic thing. You know, it’s not sacred knowledge, like in Hindu tradition, where there’s a language that is only for the elites to know when you have to be born into this. It’s not like a college degree where you have to pay certain money. It’s nothing like that. I mean, you don’t have to pay much money to go and engage in civil disobedience. You don’t have to buy a bunch of food to go on a hunger strike, you know? You don’t have to have a whole lot, and it is the great equalizer, and that’s what’s scary about it to a lot of people in higher eshalons of the social ladder, or economic ladder, is they felt that their power and their influence resides in how much money they can donate to the traditional forms of political action. This goes beyond political action. When we shout “I am somebody and I deserve full equality, right here, right now! I demand full equality!” Chanting that doesn’t cost any money, and even though a lot of times we have megaphones, the richest statement is just that young person screaming, and their voice is going away, and they’re saying with the entire spirit of their entire soul, that they believe this to be true. That I am somebody, regardless, without a parenteses, without a dollar sign, without out any kind of degree or title before or after my name, with Esquire, or whatever my entire family lineage was, “I am somebody.” And that’s very powerful.

Samantha: I think that’s why we need to get back to direct actions like civil disobedience because some people, you know, wonder about the effectiveness of it. But that symbolic power that people get just from doing it themselves, and then, I mean, when I was doing it, I imagined, you know, the person that just reads about it, and sees that this group that’s going out there and doing it, and maybe they’re not ready themselves to do something like that, but they know that someone is fighting for them.

Dan Choi: That’s right. And sometimes, it’s the power to know that you can also fight for yourself- that can prevent suicide. That you can live as a fully dignified human being, especially when you feel rejected, or fear rejection, and to say “I am not somebody contingent on your acceptance. I am not somebody contingent on your legislation.” And it’s great that you bring up the full meaning of civil disobedience. One of my heroes in civil disobedience is Jesus Christ. And regardless of what most religious people are familiar with  Jesus Christ’s story and example have given humanity- I’m not talking about the Church that followed afterwards, but what he was really espousing- pure civil disobedience, to the point of provoking those who had the power to kill him. Who had the religious establishment, who had all the traditions, and the full weight, platform, and heavy granite structures and foundations of their society at that time- to use the most grisly form of oppression, to execute in the most inhumane ways. We have a great bulwark of knowledge from that alone- from the things that he was teaching, the lessons that he was exhorting. When he said you should turn the other cheek, everybody takes that to mean, “Well, you should be forgiving. You should be beat and you should just keep getting hit.” Some people have even said that battered wives, you just need to keep on getting battered because that’s your role in the world, and keep forgiving. It’s not meant to be that. When, culturally, if somebody were to slap you on the right side, because if somebody slaps you on the right side, then you’re getting back-handed. Because you’d never be slapped with the left hand, it’s a dirty hand, so in that culture, it would be a back-handing, which is a sign of superiority. So, you  back-hand somebody, and he’s telling the slave, he telling the lower person in the class, he’s telling that one who has been oppressed, to turn the other cheek. Why? Not so he can continue to be beat, but to force this superior dude, whoever he is, to use a fist. To use their right hand this time and use a fist. And that has created an aggressor. Instead of a superior back-hand, and a sign of “Get down there. You know where your role is.” But then he’s telling people, “No. You’re job is to provoke the aggressor, the oppressor, and make them show themselves for what they really are. And, required in there, is the strength to take the blow. And, the same thing when he said, “If someone asks you for your jacket, then give him your cloak as well,” - that’s not a message about feeding the homeless or giving them your clothes as may people have said. That’s important, and that’s great, but that’s not what that verse was all about. He’s not talking about if a man want’s these things, he’s talking about the man. The man wants to sue your pants off, in common parlance we’d say. In court, and he wants you to take your clothes off, then you strip that off and you give it to him, and you strip off your underwear and you prance outside of the courtroom naked, skipping and jumping naked, freely, for everybody to see. Stand outside and show them, the oppressor who is so rich wants to take my clothes away, and I am not going to be ashamed. I am naked here, but I am prancing around, and I will tell you this is an injustice. And people are going to be looking. In that time, of course, the ideas of shame of nakedness was not a shame for those who were naked themselves, but those who were watching. And people would be, “Oh my god!” And those two examples, you can really model a lot of the civil disobedience actions that are seen, because it does require, number one, the provocation of the aggressor, and it does require the endurance of the practitioner as well as the shamelessness in ways that we take the message of what it is, and also, it does require somebody to see it. And sometimes it does cause people to seem provocative. But remember who we’re provoking. It’s not the provocation to create intrigue for the media alone, although Jesus even realized that that was necessary. It really is to provoke those who are the real aggressor, the real oppressor. To stop hiding behind this victimization. To say, “You know what, you can’t call me a bigot. That’s really rude. You know, you can’t take the whole civil rights language cause you guys aren’t black.” And so, when they try to say, “All I’m trying to say is don’t shove your homosexuality down my throat. You know what, love the sinner, hate the sin. You know, just keep it in your bedroom. And don’t teach my children.” You know, they’re pretending to be like they’re the righteous ones. But our actions are meant to provoke them to show that no, deep down in side, what they’re saying is “Fuck you, faggott. We hate you and you’re going to burn in hell.” And until they are provoked to say that, they’re hiding behind their superiority. They’re back-handing, when what they really want to do is, with a closed fist, strike you. So that really is where the philosophies are translated into current day. Those same lessons are very encouraging to me and they’re a guiding path for me as far as the philosophies and ideologies. And I just have to point it out, it’s so absolutely ironic, insulting, and disappointing, that the Church today has become that oppressor that Jesus was really preaching against.

Samantha: I’m glad to hear you explain all that, because from the interpretation that’s so generally, widely spread, which is different than that, so it was really, one, interesting, to…

Dan Choi: They use whatever versus in their own ways to cut out a lot of social justice versus, and they’ve left a lot of them that are in there that really serve to oppress women and slaves in the church’s history.

Samantha: What does bravery mean to you?

Dan Choi: Bravery means that you have something worth fighting for, that you have something that is worth unlocking the courage for. It means that you have something that’s worth defending, and if you don’t have something that’s worth defending, then there’s no reason to be brave. I think everybody has that. Everybody has an equal amount, but they haven’t been able to break free from some of their own understandings of their own worth, and they haven’t been able to break free from those lessons that were shoved down their throats their entire life growing up, saying that you’re not worthwhile, you’re not the same as everyone else, so therefore, you’re lesser. And these other folks think you don’t even deserve the right to exist alongside, much less at all. Maybe you should wonder why you’re even alive. Why were you even born. You have to break through that. And that’s what bravery means. And everybody has it. They have to realize that their life is worthwhile.

Samantha: How do you personally feel about the fact that Obama hasn’t issued an Executive Order to stop the process of discharging gay and lesbian soldiers before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell can be officially repealed? There’s something, or some several things, that he could do in the meantime, and that he hasn’t done that. How do you personally feel about that?

Dan Choi: I just got fired yesterday. And certainly, if President Obama would listen to your suggestion, then I wouldn’t be in this situation right now that I am. And I shouldn’t even be having these feelings. This shouldn’t even be a question- how do I personally feel? And I think that there’s a big sense of betrayal there. I feel betrayed on a lot of different levels, as a soldier and an officer, serving under a Commander in Chief. Having been taught the lessons from the very beginning through my training at West Point- you must look after your soldiers. And if there is injustice, it is your responsibility to speak out and it is your responsibility to do everything that you can to correct the situation, particularly if it means that you’re going to lose your soldiers, and that’s going to tear apart your team. I also feel personally insulted as a racial minority. And now we have our first racial minority American, and inter-racial American, serving as a Commander in Chief, and he cannot lead on civil rights. And that’s an insult not just to gay people, not just to black people, because neither gay nor black people own the word “civil rights”- we all own it, whether we come from a lineage of oppressors or slaves, we own the word “civil rights.” I hope that we all own it. And if any groups says that they own it specifically, it’s an insult to the meaning of civil rights. And the fact that he cannot do that, the fact that we’re having a survey right now, is an absolute slap in the face, not just to me, but to civil rights and to America. The fact that he’s condoning it and that he’s defending it and they’re using the language that they’re using- it’s so shameful. We don’t have to wait 50 years to look back on it and say, you know, “I vomit in my mouth when I think about the American journey and what we haven’t learned.” We can be very disgusted right now. And I am, because those people 50 years from now will say, “But how come nobody really stood up against it?” And so I find it’s my responsibility to do that, so I feel empowered and I feel an obligation to absolutely speak up against that.

Samantha: What do you think the biggest change will be, whether symbolically or as a physical change, in day-to-day Army life once Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is repealed?

Dan Choi: Day-to-day Army life will not change. That’s one thing about Army life, it just keeps on being the same. Day-to-day Army life in combat of course is very strenuous, there is a lot of emotional difficulties that the soldiers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and it’s unpredictable, it’s grizzly, it’s hard. But that won’t change because Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is repealed. Right now, there are gay people serving in the military, and many of them are serving openly. I served for 17 months as an openly gay infantry officer. When we were out in the field training, on a long training mission, you wake up, brush your teeth, and go into the shower, and you would be naked, and you put your clothes on, your bunks would be three feet away from each other, so, yes, I put my clothes on three feet away from the next guy, and I brushed my teeth right next to the next guy, and I took a naked shower right next to the next guy. Nothing changed. There was nobody who screamed, crazy-banshee-like, running outside, and saying “That’s so gross! I can’t deal with it! The Army must buy me a shower curtain!” I never got any of that. In fact, there was soldiers that came up to me and said, “Sir, if we go to war, and you do the same thing that you have been doing throughout this year, and that is putting the right thing and your integrity ahead of your career, then we would trust you and respect you in war.” We know all the stuff that happened at Abu Ghraib, and all the things that happened surrounding high-profile cases like Ben Tillman, and some of these other people, wanting to put their career or their promotions or they’re so afraid of bad news and facing up to the truth that they go through all these lengths of doing a cover-up. And they know that for me, if I could talk about being gay, and my dad’s a Southern Baptist minister, you know, I don’t have much else to lose. So that is what they see as the spirit of coming out. They get it. Coming out in the military is very much like coming out in other sectors of the world. And the problem is, most people don’t know what coming out is, to begin with. Coming out is not declaring “I’m gay! I’m gay! I’m gay! I’m gay! Good morning, Sir, I’m gay! Good afternoon, I’m still gay!” It’s about being honest with yourself. And whenever you’re honest with yourself and those who are around you, the trust builds, the cohesion builds, the respect builds. There’s no negative impact. There’s always a positive impact. And that’s not just for the military, that is for every church, that is for every workplace, that is for every family, and that is for every school. When you have people that can be honest about themselves, it’s a better working environment, it’s a better teamwork environment, it’s a better family environment, a better church environment, and it’s a better school and learning environment, every single environment. And it really harkens back to the idea of well, it’s not just Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military- there is Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in your own heart, in your own home, in your own communities, and even in this movement there is a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because if people are so afraid to talk about certain things because they’re ashamed to talk about civil disobedience or they’re ashamed to talk about the bad relationship now between Democrats and gays and we’re so afraid to even publicizes, this, you know, “oh my god, it’s a rift.” Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Why don’t we be honest with ourselves and all get better instead of trying to sweep it under the rug until there’s a big mountain underneath the rug and we can’t hide it anymore? That is what Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will do. It creates this mountain of shame and this mountain of hiding and this mountain that’s absolutely difficult and causes a different kind of suicide. And this movement is going to suffer a suicide if it does not get over some of it’s inhibitions to not only talk about some of these new tactics, but to embrace them.

Samantha: Was there anything else that you wanted to add that I didn’t bring up?

Dan Choi: I think it’s a duty for people to come out. It’s not easy. And I’ve heard from a lot of people that, “Oh, I just can’t come out. I’m not allowed to come out. I wish I was allowed to come out.” And, I always look back at them and say, “Like I was allowed to come out?” But I didn’t know that that was my option as an excuse anymore, because when I finally realized, particularly after Prop 8 in California, that our rights were being stripped away, I didn’t feel like I had that option anymore to say “I can’t.” One thing that we learned from all the resistance movements from Ghandi to Jesus to the civil rights movement, is that you don’t have to wait for the laws to pass in order to feel like a human being. You can stand up now. You don’t have to wait, in Jesus’ time, for the Roman Empire to dissolve, you don’t have to wait for the British to leave, you don’t have to wait for the Jim Crow laws to be finally repealed, you can stand up where you are, and in fact, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t stand up during the time of those oppressive laws. So, there’s no such thing as “I can’t.” And I wish that once the laws are repealed…you know, because you’re going to have just as hard a time after the laws are repealed, if you can’t stand up now when it really does matter, when you’re going to be the one to enact it.

*EDIT* Part Two has now been posted. You can check it out HERE. 

~ Samantha
Community Editor