Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 152

“For the last eight years I’ve been the head of communications...

“For the last eight years I’ve been the head of communications for the UN Refugee Agency. My job is to make people care about the sixty million displaced people in the world. I wish I could tell every single one of their stories. Because if people knew their stories, I don’t think there would be so many walls. And there wouldn’t be so many people drowning in the seas. But I don’t think I anticipated how difficult it would be to make people care. It’s not that people are selfish. I just think that people have a hard time caring when they feel insecure. When the world is unstable, people feel vulnerable. And vulnerable people focus on protecting what they have. They focus on their own families. They focus on their own communities. It can be very hard to welcome strangers when you’re made to feel threatened. Even if those strangers are more vulnerable than you.”

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This is my friend Melissa Fleming, who I think is one of the most important people in the world, and who was so instrumental in helping organize the HONY refugee series. Tomorrow at 7pm we will be in conversation at the Union Square Barnes and Noble, to celebrate the launch of her new book: A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea, which tells the powerful story of a young woman who survived a shipwreck while fleeing the war in Syria. If you can’t make the signing, you can get the book here: http://amzn.to/2kb9Ga8

“I always told myself that when I reached a certain point in...

“I always told myself that when I reached a certain point in life, I’d get a dog. I thought maybe when I get my own home. Or when I’m more settled. But that point never seemed to come. So I decided to go ahead and adopt. The majority of the dogs at the pound were pit bulls. I originally wanted a younger dog, but this one had a red card on her cage, which meant that she was going to be euthanized. She was emaciated and had kennel cough. But when I reached out my hand, she licked it. I named her ‘Adidas’ because I wanted a running partner. But that dream ended pretty early. All she wants to do is hug and kiss and lay on you. She doesn’t care who you are. If she senses that you’re the least bit receptive to her, she’s coming right toward you. Just a few minutes ago she jumped into somebody’s wheelchair. It’s made me more of a people person. I’m always having to explain to people why she’s trying to kiss them.”

“My first tattoo said: “I Hate.” I tattooed over it a long...

“My first tattoo said: “I Hate.” I tattooed over it a long time ago. I was twenty-one when I got it. It was a very self-destructive period of my life. I’d dropped out of college. My girlfriend had just left me for an older guy. I’d gotten a Mohawk and was doing a lot of slam dancing. I felt like everyone in the family was disappointed with me. My dad was a very successful attorney. My brother was a diplomat. So I rebelled against everything and decided that I was going to live the whole ‘poetry lifestyle.’ I lived in the desert for a couple years. Then I came to New York and tried to survive as a poet. I ended up working as a freak in the Coney Island Side Show. But after fifteen years, even that became like any other job. It was the exact same thing every day. Only the audience changed. I still haven’t figured out what I was trying to escape. There’s no such thing as a true outsider. We all have to breathe. We all have to eat. We all have to work. I wanted to run away from everything but I ran into myself. I’m still a middle class, intellectual kid from the suburbs.”

“God doesn’t answer my prayers like he once did. But he still...

“God doesn’t answer my prayers like he once did. But he still talks to me. He talks to me through my mind and through my own mouth. He’s upset with me because he wanted me to wave at someone on the street and I didn’t. So he took away my money and told me to leave my jobs. My family put me in the hospital and they said I was bipolar. But I’m not mentally ill. I take the medicine because it’s part of the deal for me having my own apartment, but I’m not mentally ill. When I’ve paid my debt, God is going to transform my voice. He’s going to make me a great singer. One night I had a dream that I was singing and something golden fell from the sky. And I caught it so everyone gathered around me. I hope you pray about me and then you’ll see the truth. Pray to God and ask him: ‘Is this man honest, or is he mentally ill?’”

“I always thought of kids as being simple in a way. I knew...

“I always thought of kids as being simple in a way. I knew that having a child would be challenging, but I underestimated how complicated their emotions can be. I thought I’d have greater influence over my child’s mood. I imagined that I’d be able to make him happy when he’s unhappy. I hoped that I would always have a solution. But you learn quickly that some unhappiness doesn’t have a quick fix. And often it’s just part of who he is. And that can be painful to accept. Sometimes I just have to provide as much guidance as possible, and trust that he’ll find comfort within himself.”

“My mom and I have always been close. But we had to learn how...

“My mom and I have always been close. But we had to learn how to communicate again after my dad died. It took therapy. We’d stopped being honest with each other. My dad’s illness had been so stressful that we didn’t want to create any additional worries. So we tried to protect each other. Neither of us would admit if we were having a bad day. Or if we were feeling depressed. The answer to everything was always: ‘I’m fine.’ But we weren’t fine. And it was obvious. So we worried about each other all the time. It caused a lot of stress and arguments. We had to relearn how to admit when we were having a bad day. Because you can never truly know if someone’s ‘fine’ unless you trust them to tell you when something’s wrong.“

“I call them clobber verses. There are six of them. They’re...

“I call them clobber verses. There are six of them. They’re the verses that get used to hammer gay people. The funny thing is that I never felt pressured by God himself. Only his followers. But I desperately wanted God to change me. I didn’t want to be part of a group with so much shame attached to it. So I started praying in my twenties for God to make me straight. If I could have taken a pill, I would have. I joined the ministry. I got married. I told my wife that I’d had experiences with men, but I convinced both of us that I could choose to be different. I wanted to be normal. I wanted kids. I thought it was just a matter of commitment. I even tried to take reparative therapy classes—just to show her I was serious. They tried to teach me that homosexuality wasn’t real. They said that I’d just had an overbearing mother. But I couldn’t change. I kept slipping up. I couldn’t give my wife what she needed. My marriage ended. I had tried so hard but nothing worked. I got so angry with God for not keeping up his end of the bargain. But after some time, I finally realized why he wouldn’t change me. He never felt like he needed to.”

“I like watching her get excited about things. She has a very...

“I like watching her get excited about things. She has a very distinct look when amazement comes over her face. Like she gets really excited about dachshunds. I always text her pictures of dachshunds. Or the tile work at the 81st street subway station. She loves that. Or warm socks. I mean… warm socks are kind of exciting to me. But she really loves warm socks.”

“I thought when I came to New York it was going to be this...

“I thought when I came to New York it was going to be this huge change of scenery and that I could be whoever I want to be. I thought there’d always be a plan, or an event, and that I’d never feel alone, and that I’d be very ‘fabulous’ — for lack of a better word. ‘Carrie Bradshaw-esque,’ so to speak. But in reality, I still spend a lot of time alone. I think it’s because I’m afraid of being a burden on those around me. What if I’m not fun enough? What if the parts of me that are sad and complaining outweigh the parts of me that are good? Will I be wasting other people’s time? And when I do spend time with other people, I’m afraid to demand a certain level of kindness and respect. Because maybe that will make me even more of a burden. So I don’t reach out to other people very much. I spend a lot of time alone. But then I still get mad when I look on Snapchat and see people hanging out without me. But I’m trying to change my thinking. I’m not allowed to feel left out if I’m not making an effort. I’m not the protagonist of reality. I can’t expect good relationships to happen just because I exist.”

“Last year I started figure modeling for art classes. I’m...

“Last year I started figure modeling for art classes. I’m plus-sized, so I was a little worried about being nude. I was nervous about everyone seeing my stomach, and my thighs, and all my fat. But apparently my curves are fun to draw. In the classroom, all the features I saw as negative were viewed as assets. One student told me that it’s no fun to draw straight lines. It’s been liberating for me. I’ve always been insecure about my belly. But now my belly has been part of so many beautiful pieces of art.”