Faculty Writing: On the Frictions of Pokémon and the Joys of Vasectomies
Writing in The Paris Review, Joseph Earl Thomas confronts the complicated personal and social tango of playing Pokémon. If an evening spent with Tyranitar on his Nintendo Switch means he can tap into a global cultural phenomenon, rekindle childhood giddiness, or even teach his children math, Thomas’ experience at competitive Pokémon convenings feels more like a synecdoche for his life: “It encourages one to wonder what’s possible in this smaller social world,” he writes, “the structures of almost-togetherness heaped upon with strangers, how I’m besieged by the naive sincerity I had discarded for survival until now, and how this is also a dimension of being a Black man in public.”
Then, again in The Paris Review, Thomas recounts his decision to “get snipped,” while reflecting on the racial and sexual politics of reproduction, birth control, and sterilization. Though frank about the deleterious ways that America’s long history of eugenics has eroded Black trust in the medical-industrial complex, it was nonetheless, Thomas writes, his intimate friendships with other Black military veterans that convinced him to go through with a vasectomy—a procedure that, for him, has meant newfound pleasure and agency. Looking forward, “What I really want,” he writes, “is a more collectively responsible way through our predicament and desires…that is neither hypersaturated by fear and white supremacy, nor curtailed by the shallow dishonesties of public sentiment.”