American Academy of Political and Social Science Woun

American Academy of Political and Social Science
Wounded: Life after the Shooting
Author(s): JOOYOUNG LEE
Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Vol. 642,
Bringing Fieldwork Back In: Contemporary Urban Ethnographic
Research (July 2012), pp.
244-257
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the
American Academy of
Political and Social Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23218475
Accessed: 01-10-2017 09:45 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,
researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information
technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected]
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the
Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Sage Publications, Inc., American Academy of Political and
Social Science are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science
This content downloaded from 129.81.226.78 on Sun, 01 Oct
2017 09:45:53 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Wounded: Life
after the
Shooting
By
JOOYOUNG LEE
Most gunshot victims do not die. In some estimates, 80
percent live to see another day. Yet social scientists
continue to focus on gun homicide. What happens to
individuals who get shot and survive? How do they
experience life after the shooting? This article examines
how gunshot injuries transform the lives of victims. In
practical ways, gunshot injuries complicate sleeping,
eating, working, and other previously taken-for-granted
activities. These disruptions also have much larger exis
tential significance to victims. Indeed, daily experiences
with a wounded body become subjective reminders that
individuals are no longer who they used to be. Ironically,
in some interactions, being wounded becomes attrac
tive and advantageous to victims. Together, these
themes illustrate the need for more sustained ethno

graphic work on the foreground of violent crime vic
timization.
Keywords: gun violence; health; identity; injury; crime
Jooyoung Lee is an assistant professor of sociologi) at
the University of Toronto. He conducted this research
as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health 6
Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He is
currently writing two books. The first is an ethno
graphic study on the careers of aspiring rappers from
Los Angeles. The second is an ethnographic study on
the individual- and community-health effects of gun
shot victimization in Philadelphia.
NOTE: This research was funded by the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation when I was a Health & Society
Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania; the project
received a grant from die Research & Education Fund. I
am grateful to the hospital administrators, nurses, and
physicians at the Hospital of die University of Pennsylvania
for dieir cooperation. Robert Aronowitz, David Asch,
Jason Schnittker, Philippe Bourgois, Therese Richmond,
Charles Branas, Michael Bader, Alison Buttenheim,
Andrew Deener, Amy Gonzales, Laura Tach, Eran
Magen, Samir Soneji, and Sarah Gollust provided helpful
comments and feedback at different stages of this project.
John Dominski provided invaluable support as a research
assistant. Most important, I thank the victims and families
who allowed me to participate in and observe their lives as
they faced the challenges diat surviving a shooting entails.
DOI: 10.1177/0002716212438208
ANNALS, AAPSS, 642, July, 2012

2017 09:45:53 UTC
WOUNDED
John was drinking Petron tequila the night he got shot. On a
chilly Friday night in February, he left his apartment around 11
p.m. and headed to a dance club
nearby.1 After a night full of drinking and women rebuffing his
advances on the
dance floor, John stumbled home. While passing other patrons
in the clubs parking
lot, a man wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt approached him.
Before John knew
what was happening, the hooded man brandished what John
thinks was a snubnose
.38 special revolver, a favorite gun among stick-up artists for
its ease of concealment.2
"Give it up!" the gunman demanded. Panicking, John quickly
pulled out his
cell phone, a skinny rectangular-shaped phone with a shiny
metallic black finish.
Before he could hand it over, the gunman fired. Five more
shots rang out in quick
succession. According to John, "The gun then went click, so I
knew the bol [guy]
was out of ammo." Gathering himself, John began chasing the
gunman, who
darted away. Despite his efforts, John did not get very far. A
group of women
within earshot stopped John dead in his tracks. One grabbed
John by the arm and

commanded him to sit down. Feeling his body tire, John
collapsed onto the side
walk. About five minutes later, police arrived on the scene and
rushed John to the
emergency room at the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania (HUP), where
he was treated for a single gunshot wound to the left shoulder.
By most accounts, John was lucky to emerge from a point-
blank shooting with
just one gunshot wound. Different people have different
theories to explain how
and why John survived. Members of his family think that
divine intervention saved
his life; his mother, Gayle, believes that a guardian angel
protected him that night.
John has his own hypotheses. He reasons that the shooter must
have been "wet"3
or inexperienced with a gun, both of which might explain his
poor aim.4 Speaking
frankly, John claims that he would not have missed from such a
close range: "If it
were me, I would have put at least 4 or 5 'hot ones' [bullets] in
a nigga."
John was one of the first gunshot victims whom I met at the
outpatient trauma
clinic at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).
Two weeks after
he got shot, he returned to the hospital to have X-rays of his
collarbone, which
was broken by the bullet as it entered his shoulder. With his
arm awkwardly tied
into a cloth sling, John was in a lot of pain. In addition to
giving me a detailed
play-by-play of the events before, during, and after the

shooting, John provided
a painstaking account of all the ways that the shooting had
changed his life. He
explained that the bullet was still lodged somewhere beneath
his right shoulder
blade, which made seemingly trivial activities such as washing
his face, brushing
his teeth, and sneezing extremely painful and difficult to do.
During his visit, John learned that the bullet had moved from
its original loca
tion and was now inching closer to his spine. Although his
doctor assured him
that the bullet did not pose any immediate risk and that
procedures to remove
the bullet might actually do more harm than good, John
desperately wanted the
bullet out of his body. He felt uncertain about his future health
and wondered
whether one day he might accidentally do something that would
cause the bullet
to finally hit his spine: "What if I'm just chillin' one day and
the bullet moves on
its own? What if I'm playing football and somebody tackles
me? What if I fall real
hard and the bullet goes to my spine? Is that gonna get me
paralyzed?"
2017 09:45:53 UTC
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Later that afternoon, after John and other patients had left for
the day, I sat
alone in an examination room with my thoughts. As I scanned
my notes from that
days interviews, I started to wonder: What was it like for other
gunshot victims?
What kinds of injuries did they have, and how did those
injuries change their lives?
During the past 20 years, social scientists from varying
disciplines have exam
ined different aspects of gun homicide. Although existing
research depicts per
sistent racial-ethnic disparities in gun homicides (Hemenway
2003), the
economic costs of gun homicides (Cook et al. 1999), and the
neighborhood
effects of gun homicides (Sharkey 2010), few studies have
analyzed the experi
ences of individuals who survive a shooting. The lives of
victims who do not die
(from here on referred to as "gunshot victims") are neglected in
existing research.
It is important to understand the lives of gunshot victims
because most people
who get shot do not die. About one in five one-time gunshot
victims die (Rich
2009). Most live to see another day but are riddled with
injuries that transform
their lives in both practical and existential ways. Gunshot
victims live with bodily
injuries that make sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom,
working, having sex,
and conducting other previously taken-for-granted aspects of
daily living difficult.

After the shooting, gunshot victims have problems adjusting to
life in a new body.
At the same time, daily experiences with failing bodies carry
much larger,
existential meanings to victims. Indeed, gunshot injuries can
also signal that vic
tims are no longer who they used to be. In this way, gunshot
injuries reveal how
much individuals rely on the body as a sensual scaffolding
around which they
create and sustain a routine sense of self. Before developing
these themes, I
review gun violence research and describe how I collected my
ethnographic data.
Beyond Gun Homicide
Gun homicides are among the most broadly researched social
problems in the
United States. Researchers in sociology, criminology,
medicine, economics, psy
chology, public health, and related fields have advanced
knowledge in multiple
areas. Here I focus on three general areas that receive a great
deal of research
attention.
First, researchers analyze the rates at which gun homicides
occur across dif
ferent subgroups in the United States. In addition to depicting
historical changes
in the national incidence of gun deaths (Hemenway 2003),
researchers show
significant racial, ethnic, gender, age, and class disparities in
annual gun homi

cides in the United States. In 2006 African Americans were
more than 9 times as
likely to die by a gun than were whites.5 According to
complementary studies,
homicides—of which approximately 80 percent are committed
with guns
(Lemaire 2005)—are the second leading cause of death among
all Americans
ages 15 to 24.
Second, researchers examine the costs of gun homicides. These
analyses show
that the most disadvantaged individuals are at the highest risk
of getting shot,
2017 09:45:53 UTC
WOUNDED
which in turn means that gunshot injuries are overwhelmingly
paid for with pub
lic tax dollars (Cook et al. 1999; Ordog, Wasserberger, and
Ackroyd 1995). Other
studies argue that gun homicides cut numerous years of
productivity from the life
course, which at the population level reduces the average life
expectancy and
increases life insurance costs for all Americans (Lemaire
2005). A team of
researchers (Corso et al. 2007) estimated the total economic
loss incurred by

society from the years of productivity lost.
Third, researchers have analyzed the neighborhood effects of
gun homicides.
In broad strokes, studies show that gun homicides have
negative effects on indi
viduals' physical and mental health. Most recently, researchers
have found that
neighborhood gun homicides can have acute detrimental effects
on cognitive
functioning and development in youths (Sharkey 2010).
Together, researchers have amassed a large body of work on
different aspects of
gun homicide. Although these data are important, there are
significant gaps in gun
violence research because surviving gunshot victims are not
included. John Rich
(2009) is a notable exception. Drawing on interviews and
fieldwork with young
black men who are victims of violent crime, Rich challenges
clinical assumptions of
crime victims who "get what they deserve," whose injuries are
directly linked to
deviant and criminal activity. He also argues that additional
work is needed to
understand the long-term mental health effects of violent
victimization.
I build on Rich's work and make the case for studying the
phenomenological
foreground of crime victimization. Drawing on Jack Katz's
(1988) pioneering study
on the "foreground of criminal offending," this project places
the lived and
embodied experiences of gunshot victims as the central

phenomenon to be
explained. These themes serve two complementary purposes:
(1) the data advance
substantive work in gun violence research by describing a
population that has
been overlooked, and (2) the data also provide a unique case
for developing com
parative analyses on how identity transformations are
intertwined with bodily
changes. Before exploring these themes, I summarize how I
collected my data.
In the Clinic
I began this study in February 2010. Over the next six months,
I interviewed
forty gunshot victims at the outpatient trauma clinic at the
HUP. These inter
views took place on Friday afternoons between 1 p.m. and 5
p.m. Fortunately,
nurses in this clinic helped me recruit gunshot victims. In
addition to letting me
know when gunshot victims were scheduled for appointments,
nurses asked gun
shot victims if they would like to participate in my study. If
they agreed, nurses
would come and get me out of an unused examination room, or
send victims to
me after their appointment was over. In return for their time
and participation,
gunshot victims received $20 Visa gift cards.
Several features of the trauma clinic aided my data collection.
For starters, the
clinic gave me a fast and efficient way to meet gunshot victims,
compared to

locating them in a neighborhood setting. Patients who came to
the trauma clinic
2017 09:45:53 UTC
often have "dead time" when they wait to be seen by doctors or
nurses or for the
results of X-rays and other tests. This gave me a window of
opportunity to talk
with patients, who often told me that they were happy to talk
with someone while
waiting to be seen.
At the same time, some features of the trauma clinic
complicated my data col
lection. There was a great deal of seasonal variation in the
number of gunshot
victims visiting the clinic. On particularly slow afternoons, I
could spend the
entire day without seeing a patient. During the summer I faced
the opposite
challenge; occasionally I lost potential participants because 1
could not keep up
with the high patient volume. To help meet the challenges of
interviewing mul
tiple victims at the same time, I hired a research assistant, John
Dominski,6 who
helped me collect some of these interviews.
At an interactional level, I had to overcome some anxieties and

reservations.
At the beginning of my research, I was overly sensitive about
upsetting victims by
asking them to talk about how they got shot and life after the
shooting. Through
a process of trial and error, I learned a much less invasive way
to get victims talk
ing about these matters. Instead of beginning my interviews
with a focus on how
they got shot, I started by asking victims to describe their
reasons for visiting the
clinic: "What are you being seen for today?" This approach
elicited in-depth
descriptions of a person's injuries, how they got injured, and
most importantly,
how they were making sense of these injuries.
Moreover, this article also draws from two years of ongoing
ethnographic
fieldwork with ten gunshot victims outside of the clinic. This
fieldwork often
began with spending a day shadowing gunshot victims, which
allowed me to
observe how injuries shape a person's lifestyle and
relationships. I also accompa
nied victims to work, physical therapy sessions, court
appearances, underground
pill markets, corner stores, parties and get-togethers, and other
routine social
settings.
I did not use a handheld recording device while conducting
interviews or dur
ing fieldwork. Although this posed some initial challenges, it
also allowed me to
create alternative ways of recording data. For example,

examination rooms inside
HUP are always equipped with a computer, which physicians
use to record notes
from appointments. I was able to use these computers to make
occasional jottings
during interviews (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995). In between
interviews, I
used the computer to write my field notes. Outside the clinic, I
jotted notes to
myself on a small pad whenever there was a break in
interaction. I have done my
best to capture and accurately represent the content and tone of
these
interactions.
Disfigurement and Shame
By all accounts, getting shot in the stomach is an intensely
painful experience.
Victims who have been shot in the abdomen complain about the
massive blood
loss and agonizing pain as they slip closer to death. Beyond the
physical pain of
2017 09:45:53 UTC
WOUNDED
the injury itself, victims are also vocal about the sense of
shame that they experi
ence during life after the shooting.

Gunshot wounds to the abdomen become the source of shame
for victims for
a variety of reasons. For starters, gunshot wounds to the
stomach, intestines, and
other vital organs often radically transform how a person
performs basic bodily
functions. The ability to control and regulate how and where
one defecates (or
not) marks one of the first steps toward independence in a
child's development.
Victims who are shot in the abdomen often have to wear a
colostomy bag for
months or even years. Many victims find this experience dirty
and degrading.
Gunshot wounds to the abdomen are also shameful because
medical proce
dures leave victims disfigured in ways that they and others find
traumatic. In
response to technological advancements in high-powered
semiautomatic hand
guns, surgeons have had to develop what is now known as
"damage control"
approaches to surgery (Shapiro et al. 2000), a stepwise
approach to trauma sur
gery in which "traditional repairs are deferred in favor of rapid
measures that
control hemorrhage, restore flow where needed, and control or
contain contami
nation" (Shapiro et al. 2000, 969).
In urban trauma centers, victims with abdominal wounds
commonly undergo
forms of damage control in which their abdomen is left open
until a later date

when the body has had time to stabilize. This "open technique"
is used to help
victims avoid possible infection, necrosis to the damaged area,
and other postsur
gical complications. "Immediate closure of abdominal incisions
after exploration
and treatment of gunshot wounds is not always feasible or
advisable" (Cohen et al.
2001, 83). Despite the medical efficacy of these techniques,
there are significant
emotional and social consequences for victims that are seldom
acknowledged.
These themes emerge in Winston's story. One night, while
walking home from
a friends house, Winston heard footsteps behind him in the
darkness. Frightened,
he started jogging. The footsteps quickened and grew louder.
Before he got shot,
Winston heard the person chasing him say, "Don't make this
shit hard!" Then the
gunman fired several rounds from a .45 semiautomatic pistol, a
gun that enthu
siasts celebrate for its "stopping power."
Winston got shot twice. The first bullet entered the arch of his
left foot and
exited the top of the foot. Winston, who is now 25, has
permanent nerve damage
and arthritis in the damaged foot. The second bullet entered
Winston's body a
few inches below his right armpit, exiting the other side of his
torso. On its way,
this bullet tore through his intestines and parts of his pancreas
and kidney.
Critically wounded, Winston hobbled home. His mother was

awake and quickly
rushed him to the emergency room, where surgeons stopped his
bleeding and
stabilized his body. They removed ten feet of intestines and
damaged parts of his
kidney and pancreas. Opting to leave his abdomen open, they
covered his stom
ach and intestines with a skin graft taken from both of his legs.
After waking up from a three-week coma, Winston began a
long process of
adjustment to his new body. Near the three-month mark,
doctors cleared him to
return home. To celebrate his homecoming, Winston's mother
organized a big
2017 09:45:53 UTC
family dinner. Winston recalls that when he came home he
almost forgot how
close he had been to dying. He told me, "When I came back, it
was just like I had
never left." Midway through dinner, however, Winston received
an abrupt
reminder that he was not the same person he was before getting
shot. His
abdominal hernia began gurgling and growing beneath his shirt.
At first, nobody
seemed to notice. Then, as Winston explained in another
meeting at his apart

ment, some family members, particularly his cousins, noticed
that his hernia was
bulging out from beneath his T-shirt. Winston recalls the sting
of shame in that
moment: "I just looked down and my stomach started to make
all these weird
noises and grow." Seeing my eyes grow wide, he continued,
"People lost their
appetite. I felt bad, like I was a freak. I wish I would have just
died that night."
Winston's abdominal hernia became the object of shame and
ridicule on the
rare occasions when he ventured out in public. For example, on
a hot summer
day Winston headed to a corner store located a few blocks from
his mothers
house. Although he typically wore a cloth wrap that concealed
the protruding
hernia from public view, he did not wear the wrap on this trip.
As he approached
the corner store, Winston remembers seeing a group of men
staring at his bulg
ing belly. As he left, he recalls, one of the men made a joke at
his expense: "Ay,
that boi look pregnant!" This comment was followed by a
chorus of laughter.
After that, he was affectionately known as "Pregnant Win" by
some people in his
neighborhood.
Winston had public troubles with his new colostomy bag as
well. One day
Winston was scheduled to meet with detectives and
administrators of Crime

Victims Compensation—a public fund for individuals who are
injured in
Pennsylvania. As part of the process, victims have to provide
statements to detec
tives investigating the shooting. Winston used the subway to
get to and from this
meeting. Before he boarded a subway train, however, the
plastic clip holding his
colostomy bag closed came undone. Within seconds, fecal
matter that had accu
mulated in the bag spilled all over Winston's pants and hands.
"1 was walking to
the subway and when I was there, the clip fell off. I usually
clip it on tight, but it
must have come lose. I had shit all over me. People could smell
it."
Troubles with the colostomy bag invaded the most private and
intimate
aspects of Winston's social life, transforming sexual advances
made by his girl
friend into subjective reminders of his disfigured body.
Disgusted at his own
body, Winston felt particularly ashamed whenever his
girlfriend at the time,
Danya, tried to have sex with him. One afternoon at his
apartment, Winston told
me, "She would like try to do stuff, but I just felt weird doing
that when my shit
was just right there [pointing to the side of his stomach]."
On another occasion, the bag came undone in the middle of the
night, leaking
directly onto Danya. Winston was devastated. He explained,
"Right when we
woke up, I knew the bag had opened. It must have filled up

with gas and I might
have rolled over in the night, because it popped off. When we
turned on the
lights, it was all over us." Winston explained later that Danya
feigned indifference
about the incident, but deep down he "knew she was grossed
out." To this day,
2017 09:45:53 UTC
WOUNDED
Winston still feels the sting of shame from these and other
mishaps with his
colostomy bag.
Damage control surgery and the open technique may have
saved Winston's
life. Although from a clinical perspective this is certainly the
preferred outcome,
gunshot victims face significant bodily changes and challenges
after the shooting.
Winston's colostomy bag and abdominal hernia were not only
practically disrup
tive but became the sources of great shame in a number of
routine interactions.
Family dinners, riding the subway and sexual intimacy were
marred by subjec
tive reminders that Winston was no longer the person that he
used to be.
Retained Bullets, Changed Body

While some gunshot victims have bullets that cleanly enter and
exit their bod
ies, others retain the bullets. At the most basic level, bullet
entry and exit depends
on where a person gets shot and his or her particular body type.
Individuals who
get shot where they have an excess of fat tissue or muscle have
natural padding
that slows the bullets travel. Certain parts of the body are more
conducive to
"clean entry/exit" than are other areas. Bullet entry and exit is
also determined by
the caliber of gun and ammunition used in the shooting. The
.22 semiautomatic
pistol and .380 automatic colt pistol, also affectionately known
as "pocket pistols"
among enthusiasts, have smaller, weaker bullets that are often
retained by vic
tims. Finally, some bullets are specifically designed not to exit.
Gun afficionados
like Jesse, a white man in his mid-30s who is a proud member
of the National
Rifle Association (NRA) and a regular at a local gun range, is
adamant about
using hollow-point bullets for home defense. Although they are
pricier than full
metal jacketed bullets, gun owners claim that there are both
practical and moral
reasons to use hollow-point bullets in home defense situations:
"Hollow-points
are great because you don't risk the bullet going through the
bad guy and hitting
something or somebody else."
Retained bullets were a common source of pain and frustration

for gunshot
victims in my study. Just over half of the gunshot victims I met
(twenty-two of
forty) lived with bullets in their bodies. Their complaints
ranged from chronic
irritation and swelling around the wound site to serious
infections and debilitat
ing pain that spread across their entire body. At the same time,
retained bullets
were also a common source of stress and anxiety. Many victims
desperately want
their retained bullets removed. Despite patients' protests,
however, physicians
rarely remove bullets because doing so can often cause more
harm than good,
especially by infections and other complications of surgery
(Velmahos and
Demetriades 1994; Rhee and Martin 1997).
These themes come together in Kevin's story. On a hot summer
night in 2007,
Kevin and a small group of friends were hanging out on a street
corner just out
side of a Chinese take-out restaurant. While waiting for a
friend who was still
ordering food, Kevin remembers, a pickup truck with a "couple
of bols who my
2017 09:45:53 UTC

friends had beef with" pulling up to the corner. His friends and
the guys in the
pickup "exchanged words," which escalated tensions between
the two groups. As
the truck drove away, Kevin and his friend slowly started
making their way off of
the corner. However, as they walked away, the truck apparently
circled around
the block and followed them down a side street. The passenger
in the pickup
truck then drew a gun and fired shots at Kevin and his friends.
One friend,
Deonte, was trailing behind him and returned fire at the pickup,
which screeched
away. Kevin explains, "My nigga Deonte always carrying, so
he pulled his ham
mer [gun] and started shooting at them."
As the gunpowder settled, another of Kevin's friends, Jerrod,
pointed out that
Kevin was "leaking" from the back of his right leg. Kevin
recalls how Jerrod kept
yelling at him in a half-drunken and excited state, "You leakin',
man, you leakin'!"
Like many gunshot victims, Kevin does not remember feeling
any pain, but
remembers thinking right away that his friend had accidentally
shot him. He
explained, "At first, I thought it might have been those guys in
the truck, but I
was bleeding in my leg from behind. So it had to be my nigga,
Deonte."
I met Kevin four years after the shooting. When I asked why he
was at the
clinic that afternoon, he explained that he was playing pick-up

basketball with
friends when the pain became unbearable. He rested briefly and
then resumed
play. "Then, I came down from getting a rebound and I felt a
pain like I've never
felt before. It was worse then when I first got out of the
hospital!" Later, while
trekking through a record-setting snowfall in …
Exhibit 1Exhibit 1ROSETTA STONE, INC.: PRICING THE
2009 IPORosetta Stone Income Statement (in thousands of
dollars)20042005200620072008Revenue25,37348,40291,570137
,321209,380Cost of
revenue3,9688,24212,74420,68728,676Gross
profit21,40540,16078,826116,634180,704Operating
expenses:Sales and
marketing11,30322,43246,54965,43793,384Research and
development1,8332,8198,15812,89318,387Acquired in-process
research and development0012,59700General and
administrative6,4848,15716,73229,78639,577Lease
abandonment00001,831Transaction-related
expenses0010,31500Total operating
expenses19,62033,40894,351108,116153,179Income from
operations1,7856,752(15,525)8,51827,525Other income and
expense:Interest income8438613673454Interest
expense00(1,560)(1,331)(891)Other
income12013463154239Interest and other income (expense),
net204172(884)(504)(198)Income before income
taxes1,9896,924(16,409)8,01427,327Income tax expense
(benefit)66143(1,240)5,43513,435Net
income1,9236,781(15,169)2,57913,892Preferred stock
accretion00(159)(80)0Net income attributable to common
stockholders1,9236,781(15,328)2,49913,892Note: For 2006,
2007, 2008, depreciation and amortization expense was reported
as $6.5 million, $7.8 million, and $7.1 million,
respectively.Data source: Rosetta Stone preliminary prospectus

(Form S-1/A, filed March 17, 2009), U.S. SEC.
2009 IPORosetta Stone Balance Sheet (in thousands of dollars)
As of December 31Assets20072008Cash and cash
equivalents22,084.0030,660.00Acounts
receiviable11,852.0026,497.00Inventory,
net3,861.004,912.00Prepaid expenses and other current
assets3,872.006,598.00Deferred income taxes848.002,282.00
Total current assets42,517.0070,949.00Property and equipment,
net13,445.0015,727.00Goodwill34,199.0034,199.00Intangible
assets, net13,661.0010,645.00Deferred income
taxes6,085.006,828.00Other assets469.00470.00 Total
assets110,376.00138,818.00Liabilities and stockholders'
equityAccounts payable4,636.003,207.00Accrued
compensation4,940.008,570.00Other current
liabilities11,421.0021,353.00Deferred
revenue12,045.0014,382.00Current maturities of long-term
debt3,400.004,250.00 Total current
liabilities36,442.0051,762.00Long-term
debt9,909.005,660.00Deferred revenue894.001,362.00Other
long-term liabilities6.00963.00 Total
liabilities47,251.0059,747.00Commitments and
contingencies5,000.000.00Common Stock
outstanding51,038.0056,038.00Additional paid-in
capital8,613.0010,814.00Accumulated income
(loss)(1,470.00)12,422.00Accumulated other comprehensive
loss(56.00)(203.00) Total stockholders'
equity58,125.0079,071.00 Total liabilities and stockholders'
equity110,376.00138,818.00Note: Capital expenditures for
property and equipment totaled $9.2 million and $7.0 million in
2007 and 2008, respectively.Data source: Rosetta Stone
prospectus.
EX 1 and 2 Combined20042005200620072008Income
StatementRevenue25,37348,40291,570137,321209,380Cost of
revenue3,9688,24212,74420,68728,676Gross
profit21,40540,16078,826116,634180,704Operating expenses

Sales and marketing11,30322,43246,54965,43793,384
Research and development1,8332,8198,15812,89318,387
Acquired research and development0012,59700 General and
administrative 6,4848,15716,73229,78639,577 Lease
abandonment00001,831 Transaction-related
expenses0010,31500Total operating
expenses19,62033,40894,351108,116153,179Income from
operations1,7856,752-15,5258,51827,525Other income and
expenses Interest income8438613673454 Interest expense00-
1,560-1,331-891 Other income12013463154239Other income
and expenses net204172-884-504-198Income before
tax1,9896,924-16,4098,01427,327Income tax66143-
1,2405,43513,435Net income1,9236,781-
15,1692,57913,892Preferred stock accretion00-159-800Net
income to common stock1,9236,781-15,0102,65913,892Balance
SheetAssetsCash and equivalents22,08430,660Accounts
receivable11,85226,497Inventory3,8614,912Prepaid expenses
and other 3,8726,598Deferred income taxes8482,282 Total
current assets42,51770,949Property and equipment,
net13,44515,727Goodwill34,19934,199Intangible assets,
net13,66110,645Deferred income taxes6,0856,828Other
assets469470 Total assets110,376138,818Liabilities and
equityAccounts payable4,6363,207Accrued
compensation4,9408,570Other current
liabilities11,42121,353Deferred revenue12,04514,382Current
portion of long-term debt3,4004,250 Total current
liabilities36,44251,762Long term debt9,9095,660Deferred
revenue8941,362Other long term liabilities6963 Total
liabilities47,25159,747Commitments and contingencies5,000-
0Common stock outstanding51,03856,038Additional paid-in
capital8,61310,814Accumulated income
(loss)(1,470)12,422Accumulated other loss(56)(203) Total
stockholderrs' equity63,12579,071 Total liabilities and
equity110,376138,818NotesProperty and Intangible asset
amounts in the balance sheet are net of depreciation and
amortization Depreciation and amortization (FN

1)6,5007,8007,100Deferred income tax and deferred revenue are
partly in the current accounting period and partly long-
term.Current portion of long-term debt is not a part of
spontaneous financingCommitments and contingencies in 2007
are stock options that convert to common stock in 2008.
2009 IPOU.S. Yield Curve Data ************* Yields
**************Date3 month1 year5 year10 year30
year1/30/090.240.511.852.873.582/27/090.260.721.993.023.713
/31/090.210.571.672.713.564/1/090.220.581.652.683.514/2/090.
220.591.742.773.574/3/090.210.601.872.913.704/6/090.200.601
.902.953.734/7/090.200.601.872.933.724/8/090.180.591.832.86
3.664/9/090.180.601.902.963.76Data source: U.S. Department
of the Treasury
2009 IPORosetta Stone Historical Financial Performance (2006
to 2008, in thousands of dollars except
percentages)200620072008Revenue91,570137,321209,380
Revenue growth89%50%52%EBITDA1,29016,31834,625
EBITDA Margin1.4%11.9%16.5%Total debt13,3099,910Total
equity58,12579,071 Total capital71,43488,981 Capital
turnover1.922.35 Return on capital11.9%30.9%Estimated share
value (1)$6.08$11.19$17.49(1) Estimated by Rosetta Stone
board of directors based on multiple of EBITDA for industry
comparables
2009 IPOFinancial Forecast for Rosetta Stone (in millions of
dollars except
percentages)2008A2009E2010E2011E2012E2013E2014E2015E2
016E2017E2018ERevenue
growth52.5%35.0%35.0%30.0%25.0%23.0%21.0%18.0%13.0%1
0.0%5.0%Gross
margin86.3%86.0%86.0%85.0%84.0%83.0%82.0%81.0%80.0%7
9.0%78.0%SGA exp /
Revenue63.5%63.5%63.5%63.0%63.0%62.5%62.5%62.5%62.5
%62.5%62.5%R&D exp /

Revenue8.8%9.0%9.0%8.5%8.5%8.5%8.5%8.0%8.0%8.0%8.0%
Capital expenditures7.05.08.09.09.510.011.011.09.08.05.0NPPE
turnover13.515.015.215.415.615.816.016.216.416.817.3NWC
turnover8.99.09.09.08.58.58.08.08.08.08.0Revenue209.4282.73
81.6496.1620.1762.7922.91,089.01,230.61,353.61,421.3Gross
profit180.7243.1328.2421.7520.9633.1756.8882.1984.51,069.41
,108.6SGA
expense133.0179.5242.3312.5390.7476.7576.8680.6769.1846.0
888.3R&D
expense18.425.434.342.252.764.878.487.198.4108.3113.7
EBIT29.438.251.567.077.591.5101.5114.3116.9115.1106.6Net
working
capital23.431.442.455.173.089.7115.4136.1153.8169.2177.7Net
PPE15.718.825.132.239.748.357.767.275.080.682.2
Exhibit 7AExhibit TN1ROSETTA STONE: PRICING THE 2009
IPOFinancial Valutaion for Rosetta Stone (in millions of dollars
except
percent)2008A2009E2010E2011E2012E2013E2014E2015E2016
E2017E2018ERevenue
growth52.5%35.0%35.0%30.0%25.0%23.0%21.0%18.0%13.0%1
0.0%5.0%Gross
margin86.3%86.0%86.0%85.0%84.0%83.0%82.0%81.0%80.0%7
9.0%78.0%SGA exp /
Revenue63.5%63.5%63.5%63.0%63.0%62.5%62.5%62.5%62.5
%62.5%62.5%R&D exp /
Revenue8.8%9.0%9.0%8.5%8.5%8.5%8.5%8.0%8.0%8.0%8.0%
Capital expenditures7.05.08.09.09.510.011.011.09.08.05.0NPPE
turnover13.515.015.215.415.615.816.016.216.416.817.3NWC
turnover8.99.09.09.08.58.58.08.08.08.08.0Revenue209.4282.73
81.6496.1620.1762.7922.91,089.01,230.61,353.61,421.3Gross
profit180.7243.1328.2421.7520.9633.1756.8882.1984.51,069.41
,108.6SGA
expense133.0179.5242.3312.5390.7476.7576.8680.6769.1846.0
888.3R&D
expense18.425.434.342.252.764.878.487.198.4108.3113.7
EBIT29.438.251.567.077.591.5101.5114.3116.9115.1106.6Net

working
capital23.431.442.455.173.089.7115.4136.1153.8169.2177.7Net
PPE15.718.825.132.239.748.357.767.275.080.682.20123456789
10Net operating profit after
tax23.731.941.548.156.762.970.972.571.366.1 +
Depreciation1.91.71.92.01.51.61.51.22.53.4 -
Capex5.08.09.09.510.011.011.09.08.05.0 - Change in
NWC8.011.012.717.816.825.620.817.715.48.5Unlevered free
cash flow12.614.721.722.731.427.940.647.050.456.0
2009 IPOPrincipal and Selling StockholdersName of Beneficial
OwnerShares owned prior to offeringShares being offered in
IPO(000s)(%)(000s)Entities affiliated with ABS Capital
Partners7,556.144.0%1,889.6Norwest Equity Partners
VIII4,940.028.7%1,235.4Tom Adams (President,
CEO)743.74.3%Eric Eichmann (COO)146.30.9%Brian Helman
(CFO)91.00.5%Greogory Long (CPO)106.20.6%Michael Wu
(General Counsel)45.50.3%Patrick Gross
(Director)20.70.1%John Coleman (Director)16.20.1%Laurence
Franklin (Director)16.20.1%Other owners3,507.620.4%New IPO
shares3,125.0Total shares17,189.56,250.0Data source: Rosetta
Stone prospectus.
2009 IPOFinancial Data for Industry
ComparablesRecentNumberDebtRevenueIncome
Price/EPSEV/EBITDAPriceshares (in millions)(in
millions)Betagrowthgrowth2008200920082009For-Profit
EducationApollo Group,
Inc.63.81160.150.00.6015%491%19.214.59.77.2American
Public Education
Inc.37.5618.060.0NA55%54%42.429.320.513.8Corinthian
Colleges,
Inc.16.8886.4531.90.7516%78%28.718.111.67.8Career
Education
Corporation21.0590.091.70.70(2)%9%19.520.06.86.8Capella
Education

Company50.3416.690.00.5520%32%31.523.413.410.3Strayer
Education,
Inc.168.0113.880.00.5525%24%33.225.817.814.1DeVry,
Inc.42.4771.6420.00.5517%33%23.217.512.59.6ITT
Educational Services,
Inc.101.638.56150.00.6017%45%19.013.610.17.4K12
Inc.15.2928.8613.7NA61%44%18.335.413.48.7Grand Canyon
Education,
Inc.14.7245.4732.1NA62%126%NA24.330.211.5New Oriental
Education & Technology Group,
Inc.50.33149.190.01.2043%(3)%32.924.523.817.2InternetActivi
sion Blizzard,
Inc.10.0313590.0NA124%340%18.5×17.2×6.96.9Amazon.com,
Inc.74.7142974.01.1029%24%53.847.927.123.6Dice Holdings
Inc.3.262.2160.2NA9%2%12.325.74.56.9drugstore.com,
Inc.1.397.362.11.658%63%NANANA91.1eBay
Inc.14.321287.810.01.1511%(22)%12.817.17.08.1Google
Inc.379.5315.250.00.9031%9%23.620.713.211.3GSI Commerce,
Inc.14.9347.93195.91.1529%(2)%NANA12.210.6TechTarget2.3
841.750.01.4520%(117)%NANA8.811.3WebMD Health
Corp.25.5857.580.00.8515%114%45.846.018.116.4Electronic
Arts Inc.19.163220.00.9015%55%NA24.1NA11.5Yahoo!
Inc.14.021393.350.01.003%(78)%32.637.310.210.3SoftwareAdo
be Systems Incorporated
23.64524.27350.01.2013%(41)%14.9×22.9×8.612.6ArcSight,
Inc. 14.1531.50.0NA34%509%NA52.839.221.8Intuit Inc.
25.35320.53998.10.9015%9%19.516.29.27.9Microsoft
Corporation
18.8388910.00.8018%(32)%10.212.05.96.8Omniture, Inc.
13.5475.0513.21.30107%37%NANA16.49.6Salesforce.com, Inc.
37.36122.430.01.2044%93%NA57.735.020.7Symantec
Corporation
16.47819.921766.00.905%(234)%9.49.54.74.9McAfee Inc.
34.49153.720.01.0022%77%26.124.112.310.1VMware Inc.
29.6389.86450.0NA42%62%27.133.921.023.8Note: The
reported multiples are based on 2008 actuals or 2009 expected

values, respectively. The numerator is the same for both 2008
and 2009 values.Data source: SEC filings, Value Line
Investment Survey, and other analyst reports.
Exhibit 9 (Cont)Exhibit 9 (continued)ROSETTA STONE, INC.:
PRICING THE 2009 IPOFinancial Data for Industry
ComparablesFor-Profit EducationApollo Group, Inc.Education
programs for working adults at the high school, undergraduate,
and graduate levels, online and on-campus through
subsidiaries.American Public Education Inc.Online
postsecondary education degree programs and certificate
programs including national security, military studies,
intelligence, homeland security, criminal justice, technology,
business administration and liberal arts; primarily serves
military and public service communities.Corinthian Colleges,
Inc.Private, for-profit postsecondary education degree programs
in healthcare, electronics, and business.Career Education
CorporationNorth American private, for-profit postsecondary
education in information technologies, visual communication
and design technologies, business studies, and culinary
arts.Capella Education CompanyOnline post-secondary
education services company; doctoral, master's and bachelor's
programs through their subsidiary.Strayer Education,
Inc.Holding company of Strayer University, which offers
undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business
administration, accounting, information technology, education,
and public administration to working adults.DeVry, Inc.North
American higher education programs, offering associate,
bachelor's and master's degree programs in technology;
healthcare technology; business, and management; also offers
online secondary education to school districts and medical
education. ITT Educational Services, Inc.Technology-based
postsecondary degree programs in the United States.K12
Inc.Technology-based education company; proprietary
curriculum, software and educational services created for online
delivery to students in kindergarten through 12th grade.Grand
Canyon Education, Inc.Online undergraduate and graduate

degree programs in education, business, and healthcare.New
Oriental Education & Technology Group, Inc.Foreign language
training and test preparation courses in the United States and
the People's Republic of China; development and distribution of
primary and secondary educational content and
technology.InternetActivision Blizzard, Inc.Interactive
entertainment software and peripheral products.Amazon.com,
Inc.Diversified online retailer with emphasis on books.Dice
Holdings Inc.Career services and recruiting.drugstore.com,
Inc.Online drugstore.eBay Inc.Online trading
community.Google Inc.Web-based search engine and global
technology company.GSI Commerce, Inc.E-commerce business
developer/operator.TechTargetIndustry-specific portal
operator.WebMD Health Corp.Health information services for
consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals, employers, and
health plans.Electronic Arts Inc.Interactive entertainment
software and peripheral products.Yahoo! Inc.Internet media
company providing Web navigation, aggregated information
content, communication services, and commerce.SoftwareAdobe
Systems Incorporated Computer software products and
technologies.ArcSight, Inc. Security and compliance
management solutions.Intuit Inc. Business and financial
management software solutions.Microsoft Corporation
Operating system software, server application software,
business and consumer applications software, software
development tools, and Internet/intranet software; also video
game consoles and digital music entertainment
devices.Omniture, Inc. Online business optimization
software.Salesforce.com, Inc. Application services that permit
sharing of on-demand customer information.Symantec
Corporation Security, storage, and systems management
solutions.McAfee Inc. Computer security solutions.VMware
Inc. Virtual infrastructure solutions.Data source: Adapted from
company sources.

The Abject Body
Abjection: “the state of being cast off”
Outcast, expelled, marginalized
The process that separates from one's environment what "is not
me"
Disability as abject rejected body
The deviant body : that which departs from normal expectations
in behavior, appearance or function
India has a population of one billion and approximately 70
million are disabled (Ghai, 2002).
A 1987 survey in China conservatively accounted for 51.64
million disabled people (Shen et al., 2008).
In the USA, 19.3% or 49.7 million of the ‘civilian
Disabled people are the largest minority group
What does that mean then for our understanding of disability?
Disability as a category contains enormous diversity and sub-
cultures
Deaf culture
Acquired v. Congenital
“Wheelchair Life”
Disability statistics
What is Disability?
Medical model (disability as lack/pathology
Social model (impairment vs. disability)
Disability as a category of difference
Disability as “alternative ways of being in the world”

The normate is the veiled subject position of cultural self, the
figure outlined by the array of deviant others whose marked
bodies shore up the normate's boundaries. The
term normate usefully designates the social figure through
which people can represent themselves as definitive human
beings.
“the freak” of 19th century: The making of the Other during
colonial encounters
Victorian era in Europe (1837-1900) obsessed with taxonomy
and classifications
The “freak” disrupted or transcended these boundaries.
male/female; animal/human
“what is it?” exhibit
Saartjie Baartman (Hottentot Venus)
what we now know as “disability”
“Eugenics isn’t a relic from World War II; it’s alive today,
embedded in our culture, policies, and practices. It is imperative
that experts and decision-makers include and collaborate with
communities disproportionately impacted by systemic medical
racism, ageism, and ableism, among other biases.”- Alice Wong
Reimagining Disability:

Bodies of Resistance & Community
Acquired Disability
Migrants disabled by ‘La Bestia’
Rehabilitation after La Bestia
Adaptive Sports
Wheelchair basketball
Amputee Soccer in Gaza
Performance and Disability
Sins Invalid (Maori artist)
Alice Sheppard in DESCENT
Deaf Poet’s Society
Krip-Hop
Leroy Moore
Open Doors
Excerpts from Keynote Speech at Femmes of color symposium
by Mia Mingus in Oakland CA (8/12/11)
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/moving-
toward-the-ugly-a-politic-beyond-desirability/
….
Ableism must be included in our analysis of oppression and in
our conversations about violence, responses to violence and
ending violence. Ableism cuts across all of our movements
because ableism dictates how bodies should function against a
mythical norm—an able-bodied standard of white supremacy,
heterosexism, sexism, economic exploitation, moral/religious
beliefs, age and ability. Ableism set the stage for queer and
trans people to be institutionalized as mentally disabled; for
communities of color to be understood as less capable, smart
and intelligent, therefore “naturally” fit for slave labor; for
women’s bodies to be used to produce children, when, where
and how men needed them; for people with disabilities to be

seen as “disposable” in a capitalist and exploitative culture
because we are not seen as “productive;” for immigrants to be
thought of as a “disease” that we must “cure” because it is
“weakening” our country; for violence, cycles of poverty, lack
of resources and war to be used as systematic tools to construct
disability in communities and entire countries.
I would like to share two quotes with you that resonated with
me for today:
“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s
definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been
forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor,
who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that
survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand
alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make
common cause with those others identified as outside the
structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can
all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make
them strengths.” — Audre Lorde
“To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love
yourself, value yourself. And that’s political, in its most
profound way.” —June Jordan
…
As a disabled child shuffled through the medical industrial
complex and as a baby of color shipped across the world to
“new parents,” I have felt more like a different species, a freak,
an object to be fixed/saved, a commodity. Like someone who
has been owned and whose body has never felt like it was mine.
Like someone who they were trying to make human (read: able
bodied, white), if only the surgeries had worked and the braces
had stuck. Like something that never could even get close to
“desirable” or “feminine” or “woman” or “queer.” Like ugly.
Not human.
Many people assume that I identify as femme and even call me
femme, but the truth is that “femme” has not felt like a term

where I belonged nor was it a place I wanted to be. I rarely see
femme being done in a way that actually challenges and
transforms gender, rather than colluding in an alternative
enforcing of gender. Many of the people in this room are more
invested in being beautiful and sexy than being magnificent.
Even something as small as the time I nervously asked a
comrade femme of color friend of mine to wear sneakers in
solidarity with me, instead of her high heels, because I didn’t
want to be the only one and didn’t want to get chided from other
femmes of color about my shoes (as so often has happened).
She said “no,” but she (of course) “totally didn’t think there
was anything wrong with wearing sneakers.”
It seems so basic in our communities, but I think we need to
stop making assumptions about each other’s identities and make
distinctions between how someone identifies verses what
someone’s lived experience is. We need to make the distinction
between descriptively femme and politically femme.
In my disability justice work this comes up a lot. Especially for
disabled women of color. Over and over I meet disabled women
of color who do not identify as disabled, even though they have
the lived reality of being disabled. And this is for many
complicated reasons around race, ability, gender, access, etc. it
can be very dangerous to identify as disabled when your
survival depends on you denying it.
When I say “descriptively disabled”, I mean someone who has
the lived experience of being disabled. They may not talk about
ableism, discrimination or even call them selves “disabled,” but
they know what it feels like to use a wheelchair, experience
chronic pain, have people stare at you, be institutionalized,
walk with a brace, be isolated, etc. There are many people who
are descriptively disabled who never become or identify as
“politically disabled.” When I say “politically disabled,” I
mean someone who is descriptively disabled and has a political
understanding about that lived experience. I mean someone
who has an analysis about ableism, power, privilege, who feels
connected to and is in solidarity with other disabled people

(regardless of whatever language you use). I mean someone
who thinks of disability as a political identity/experience,
grounded in their descriptive lived experience. (The same is
true for descriptively queer, descriptively woman of color,
descriptively adoptee and so on.)
And just to be clear, I believe that in order to politically
identify as queer, disabled, femme, woman of color, one needs
to have a descriptive lived experience to ground it in. my
political identities come directly out of my lived experience. I
never used to identify as disabled (period), even though my life
was extremely disabled. It was not until 1998 that I even
started to describe myself as disabled—and even then, it was
only descriptively. It wasn’t until 2002 that I started
identifying politically as disabled.
Doing disability justice work, we struggle with creating spaces
that are based on how one identifies, because often times, the
disabled people who identify as “(politically) disabled” are
often white disabled people. As people with multiple oppressed
identities doing work with (our) folks on the margins of the
margins of the margins, we need to think carefully about how
we are inviting people into spaces and how we meet people
where they’re at.
I am descriptively femme of color. I know this. This has
always been my lived experience. I was femme before I was
queer. I was grappling with how to navigate gender as a tiny
Korean transracial and transnational adoptee disabled girl
queered by my physically disabled body. I grew up in a
feminist community, around other powerful femmes of color,
but none of whom identified that way. There was no word for
it, it was… just their life. It was how they had to learn to be, to
survive. It was what they had crafted out of the fires of their
desires and loving. It was part of how they had learned to be
magnificent.
Their gender was about being a grounded force to end violence.
Their gender was about forging dignity out of invisibility that
could slice through femininity that would rather be pretty than

useful. Their gender was about answering the question, what is
the work you are doing to end violence and poverty, not what
shoes are you wearing. Their gender was about feeding family
and raising children collectively; organizing for themselves
when no one else would. Their gender was a challenge to the
world they lived in that was trying to erase them.
As femmes of color—however we identify—we have to push
ourselves to go deeper than consumerism, ableism, transphobia
and building a politic of desirability. Especially as femmes of
color. We cannot leave our folks behind, just to join the
femmes of color contingent in the giant white femme parade.
As the (generational) effects of global capitalism, genocide,
violence, oppression and trauma settle into our bodies, we must
build new understandings of bodies and gender that can reflect
our histories and our resiliency, not our oppressor or our self-
shame and loathing. We must shift from a politic of desirability
and beauty to a politic of ugly and magnificence. That moves
us closer to bodies and movements that disrupt, dismantle,
disturb. Bodies and movements ready to throw down and create
a different way for all of us, not just some of us.
The magnificence of a body that shakes, spills out, takes up
space, needs help, moseys, slinks, limps, drools, rocks, curls
over on itself. The magnificence of a body that doesn’t get to
choose when to go to the bathroom, let alone which bathroom to
use. A body that doesn’t get to choose what to wear in the
morning, what hairstyle to sport, how they’re going to move or
stand, or what time they’re going to bed. The magnificence of
bodies that have been coded, not just undesirable and ugly, but
un-human. The magnificence of bodies that are understanding
gender in far more complex ways than I could explain in an
hour. Moving beyond a politic of desirability to loving the
ugly. Respecting Ugly for how it has shaped us and been
exiled. Seeing its power and magic, seeing the reasons it has
been feared. Seeing it for what it is: some of our greatest
strength.
Because we all do it. We all run from the ugly. And the farther

we run from it, the more we stigmatize it and the more power
we give beauty. Our communities are obsessed with being
beautiful and gorgeous and hot. What would it mean if we were
ugly? What would it mean if we didn’t run from our own
ugliness or each other’s? How do we take the sting out of
“ugly?” What would it mean to acknowledge our ugliness for
all it has given us, how it has shaped our brilliance and taught
us about how we never want to make anyone else feel? What
would it take for us to be able to risk being ugly, in whatever
that means for us. What would happen if we stopped
apologizing for our ugly, stopped being ashamed of it? What if
we let go of being beautiful, stopped chasing “pretty,” stopped
sucking in and shrinking and spending enormous amounts of
money and time on things that don’t make us magnificent?
Where is the Ugly in you? What is it trying to teach you?
And I am not saying it is easy to be ugly without apology. It is
hard as fuck. It threatens our survival. I recognize the
brilliance in our instinct to move toward beauty and
desirability. And it takes time and for some of us it may be
impossible. I know it is complicated. …And I also know that
though it may be a way to survive, it will not be a way to thrive,
to grow the kind of genders and world we need. And it is not
attainable to everyone, even those who want it to be.
What do we do with bodies that can’t change no matter how
much we dress them up or down; no matter how much we want
them to?
What about those of us who are freaks, in the most powerful
sense of the word? Freakery is that piece of disability and
ableism where bodies that are deformed, disfigured, scarred and
non-normatively physically disabled live. Its roots come out of
monsters and goblins and beasts; from the freak shows of the
1800’s where physically disabled folks, trans and gender non-
conforming folks, indigenous folks and people of color were
displayed side-by-side. It is where “beauty” and “freak” got
constructed day in and day out, where “whiteness” and “other”

got burned into our brains. It is part of the legacy of Ugly and
it is part of my legacy as a queer disabled woman of color. It is
a part of all of our history as queer people of color. It is how I
know we must never let ourselves be on the side of the gawking
crowd ever again in any way. It is the part of me that doesn’t
show my leg. It is the part of me that knows that building my
gender—my anything—around desirability or beauty is not just
an ableist notion of what’s important, but will always keep me
chasing what doesn’t want me. Will always keep me hurling
swords at the very core of me.
There is only the illusion of solace in beauty. If age and
disability teach us anything, it is that investing in beauty will
never set us free. Beauty has always been hurled as a weapon.
It has always taken the form of an exclusive club; and supposed
protection against violence, isolation and pain, but this is a
myth. It is not true, even for those accepted in to the club. I
don’t think we can reclaim beauty.
Magnificence has always been with us. Always been there in
the freak shows—staring back at the gawking crowd, in the back
rooms of the brothels, in the fields fresh with cotton, on the
street corners in the middle of the night, as the bombs drop, in
our breaths after surviving the doctor’s office, crossing the
border, in the first quiet moments of a bloody face after the
attack is done. Magnificence was there.
Magnificence was with me in the car rides home after long days
being dehumanized, abused and steeled in the medical industrial
complex. It was there with me when I took my first breaths in
my mother’s arms in Korea, and a week later those first days
alone without her realizing I wasn’t going home.
Magnificence has always been with us.
If we are ever unsure about what femme should be or how to be
femme, we must move toward the ugly. Not just the ugly in
ourselves, but the people and communities that are ugly,
undesirable, unwanted, disposable, hidden, displaced. This is
the only way that we will ever create a femme-ness that can
hold physically disabled folks, dark skinned people, trans and

gender non-conforming folks, poor and working class folks,
HIV positive folks, people living in the global south and so
many more of us who are the freaks, monsters, criminals,
villains of our fairytales, movies, news stories, neighborhoods
and world. This is our work as femmes of color: to take the
notion of beauty (and most importantly the value placed upon
it) and dismantle it (challenge it), not just in gender, but
wherever it is being used to harm people, to exclude people, to
shame people; as a justification for violence, colonization and
genocide.
If you leave with anything today, leave with this: you are
magnificent. There is magnificence in our ugliness. There is
power in it, far greater than beauty can ever wield. Work to not
be afraid of the Ugly—in each other or ourselves. Work to
learn from it, to value it. Know that every time we turn away
from ugliness, we turn away from ourselves. And always
remember this: I would rather you be magnificent, than
beautiful, any day of the week. I would rather you be ugly—
magnificently ugly.
Thank you.

American Academy of Political and Social Science Woun

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from cheryllwashburn

More from cheryllwashburn (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

American Academy of Political and Social Science Woun