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2. Ryan's Daughter
I was 7ish—
And although my father—his father, by
lying about his age to gain passage, had
fled Gallaway at 15; his mother had left
Cork earlier with her entire family, with both
ending up in Pittsburgh—had raised me from
the cradle to Anglophobia—
(Apologies Stoney and others, but the
British did colonize and slaughter our
people... Not that I bear, now, any long-
lingering loathing.... )*
I was far, far to young to grasp the complexities
of the story...
Although I did, vaguely, have some sense that
it was Ryan, himself, who sacrificed his daughter
to public shaming (the image of the villagers
shaving her head still resonates, leaves a
sick feeling in my stomach—I became so
upset that my mother briefly took me into
the lobby...) to save himself, his local prestige...
And although my father had already tutored me
on the long history of Irish politics and colonisation,
the intricacies of the political and their imbrication
with the sexual and affective were utterly
confusing....
*Just as I do not despise White people—being one
myself, for which I feel no guilt—but despise
Whiteness, just as I feel the same way about being
born American and American Exceptionalism, just
as I have massive problems with the policy of slow
genocide practiced by the state of Israel but no
problem with Jewish people (one of my—Jewish—
friends is actually on the board of the BDS
movement), I bear ancestral wiggins regarding
British (and other, including American) Colonialism
but none with regard to the actual people of Britain,
loved London muchly last time I was there, for a
conference, about three years ago.....
I was 7ish—
And although my father—his father, by
lying about his age to gain passage, had
fled Gallaway at 15; his mother had left
Cork earlier with her entire family, with both
ending up in Pittsburgh—had raised me from
the cradle to Anglophobia—
(Apologies Stoney and others, but the
British did colonize and slaughter our
people... Not that I bear, now, any long-
lingering loathing.... )*
I was far, far to young to grasp the complexities
of the story...
Although I did, vaguely, have some sense that
it was Ryan, himself, who sacrificed his daughter
to public shaming (the image of the villagers
shaving her head still resonates, leaves a
sick feeling in my stomach—I became so
upset that my mother briefly took me into
the lobby...) to save himself, his local prestige...
And although my father had already tutored me
on the long history of Irish politics and colonisation,
the intricacies of the political and their imbrication
with the sexual and affective were utterly
confusing....
*Just as I do not despise White people—being one
myself, for which I feel no guilt—but despise
Whiteness, just as I feel the same way about being
born American and American Exceptionalism, just
as I have massive problems with the policy of slow
genocide practiced by the state of Israel but no
problem with Jewish people (one of my—Jewish—
friends is actually on the board of the BDS
movement), I bear ancestral wiggins regarding
British (and other, including American) Colonialism
but none with regard to the actual people of Britain,
loved London muchly last time I was there, for a
conference, about three years ago.....
I still don't like E.T. because of it. 
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