The Pressure Not To Feel Pain

On coming out and shame

Image: Tuomas Lehtinen / Getty Images

Dick Gregory’s “Shame” always reminds me of a story my father once told me about how he used to have to walk so far to school that by the time he got there his uniform was dirty and sweaty. My father told me that story because he wanted me to know what he was protecting me from by moving me to a country halfway across the world. Because he wanted me to live without the…