Mickey Weems

Mickey Weems
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Born	(1957-12-17) December 17, 1957
Alma mater	Berea College University of Hawaii

Mickey Weems (Michael Ray Oyatayo Ali Abu Maryam Weems) is a scholar whose focus has been on masculinity, violence, communal dance, altered states of consciousness, and communitas. Trained in anthropology, folklore, queer studies, men’s studies, and religious studies, his works have been influenced by his experiences as a US Marine, ocean lifeguard, initiate into Candomblé, circuit party participant-observer, and eventual conversion to progressive Islam. Among his research goals are development of theoretical means for the reduction of public violence as well as the promotion of inter-religious dialogue. He also has done work with his own personal experience on championing the right to choose one’s death when faced with terminal illness as he negotiates his end of life with stage 4 prostate cancer.

Early life

Weems was born to Anna Ruth Keating and Ray Michael Martinez Weems in Fort Smith, Arkansas on December 17, 1957. Never having a permanent home due to his father’s status as a member of the US Army, the large Weems family (8 children) moved from place to place before eventually settling in Jacksonville, Alabama.

Education

Upon graduation from high school, Weems went to Berea College in Kentucky (1976-1981) for a BA in philosophy, then University of Hawaii at Manoa for a masters in anthropology. He got his second masters and PhD in comparative studies and somatic studies, respectively, at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Non-Western Education

In 1991, Weems lived in Jerusalem and studied Orthodox Judaism under the tutelage of Rabbi Noach Weinberg at Yeshivah Ash HaTorah. It was at that point that Weems realized the depths of wisdom possessed by academic institutions outside of the standard western education. “Rabbi Noach is a light to my life unto this day. I mourn his loss.” In preparation for his second masters degree, Weems went to Bahia, Brazil to study African Brazilian religion under Dr. Júlio Santana Braga. “Júlio Braga effortlessly bridges the divide between academic discipline and spiritual practice.” Braga (babalorixa) and Márcia Maria de Souza (iyá kekere) initiated him into Candomblé Ketu, a denomination of West African Yoruba spirituality, a major spiritual and political force in Brazil. In addition to his formal education, Weem’s underwent Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Although he has tremendous love and respect for the Marine Corps, he decided instead to focus on advancing his education and life guarding in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina for 19 seasons. “When faced with the trajectory of my life, I had the choice between a career in the USMC or continue my education and work as a lifeguard. I could not do both. I decided it was more important for me to save lives than take them.”

Lost at Sea

Weems moved to Hawaii at the end of 1983. In January of 1984, he was caught between the islands of Molokai, Maui, and Lanai, on a surfboard with a kayak paddle attached. He had told nobody what he had done. With no rescue party coming for him (the current would eventually send him in the direction of Tahiti), Weems saw a cruise ship pass within 20 yards of him after the sun had set. The ship, the SS Independence, could not see him, but a crew member heard him calling for help. “I had been praying for a helicopter, a stinky fishing boat, anything. I did not expect that I would be at the captain’s table as the guest of honor within hours of being hopelessly lost at sea.” While he was in his darkest moments and knew that he could not get back to land due to rough seas, Weems heard a voice that told him, whether he lived or died, he would be fine. “That experience never left me. Since then, I have had no fear of death.”

Qualia

From 2003 to 2008, Weems and his husband Kevin Mason sponsored Qualia, an academic conference associated with the Folklore Center at Ohio State, to promote queer folk life. Qualia was funded in part by fundraiser dances at local gay clubs. “We tried to blend the academic with the festive, but the results were hit and miss. It was always a toss-up as to which one was going to be more popular, the conference, or the fund raiser. Sometimes people didn’t care about academics, all they wanted to do is dance and we were okay with that.” Money was raised for an LGBT anti-violence organization.

Terminal illness

In 2021, Weems learned that he had stage 4 prostate cancer, and the diagnosis was terminal. Deciding that quality of life was more important than the length of it, Weems decided against chemotherapy, and is only accepting treatments that improve the quality of life. “The will to survive is not the same as the will to live. I choose the will to live.” The state of Hawai‘i allows for terminally ill patients to choose the time of their death. Recalling the voice that spoke to him when he was lost at sea, Weems has confidence that the Universe from which he came will continue to care for him when he dies. He has taken the option for choosing his time of death, and will make arrangements with his friends and family to be around him for that final day. “The idea that I can choose when I depart brings me tremendous peace and joy.” Weems is also putting together a comic book about a superhero with Stage 4 prostate cancer to bring awareness to the stigma men associate with the disease. “For too many men,” Weems stated, “There is stigma and shame associated with a disease that can render a man’s penis, urinary track, and bowel movements unreliable. It is time for men to learn from women in the breast cancer movement to be more open about prostate issues. Better awareness can save lives.”

Two activities keep Weems in good spirits: lifting weights and dancing to house music. “The day will come when I will no longer be able to do either. That will be my notice for me to journey to the next world.”

Legacy

During his final months, Weems is working to establish an academic and spiritual legacy for those who survive him. Included in this legacy is his work on circuit parties, large weekend dance events that attract muscular, over-sexed men who are high on any number of drugs. While doing his PhD studies on these parties as a participant observer, Weems noticed that, among thousands of men, there was little to no violence. He postulates, that mass violence in the world today is caused by toxic masculinity of straight men, who feel that they must exert power through violence rather than attractiveness. “You get 5000 good looking, muscular, macho men, who exhibit aggression through a mean remark or a snub rather than violence. Vanity is expressed with disdain rather than fists. The resulting damage does not result in bombs or bullets, just hurt feelings. If we could redirect masculine vanity away from the urge of violence to less destructive means, the long-term effects could be global and historically significant in preventing war and terrorism.”

Communitas

Weems has focused much of his research on communitas, the social bond that occurs when a group of people bond with each other after they lose all status between them. His experiences in the circuit, in Candomblé, as a Marine, and as a lifeguard, have confirmed for him the power of communitas as a bond to bring strong affection between individuals who prior to then were strangers. In order to explore the concept of communitas as a multicultural phenomenon, he wrote Hunting With Cats, which gives six examples of how communitas works within different cultural contexts. “Communitas may be used as a general term for social bonding that may apply to events in several cultures, but it must be understood as having a specific manifestation derived from the culture in which it takes place. We must first examine communitas from the scholars that popularized it: Edith and Victor Turner.” Weems and their son, Rory Turner, outline how communitas was originally experienced by Rory’s parents, and how it is related to marginalization, isolation, stigma, and danger in its origins. Victor Turner was a conscientious objector that worked with explosive ordinance disposal during World War II. Weems: “Victor and his fellows walked the line between life and death every time they dug up an unexploded bomb. Although he didn’t write about it, Edith confirmed this was the beginning of his understanding of communitas based on Victor’s personal experiences.” The other five chapters in Hunting With Cats deal with the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich (reviewed by Medievalist Lisa Kiser); Sarada Devi (with guidance from author Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya), wife of Ramakrishna; Candomblé priestess Aninha (with input from Yoruba scholar Ayodeji Ogunnaike); American soldier Pat Tillman (with advice from military folklorist Eric Eliason and folklorist Sabra Weber); and the Hawaiian god Ku (co-written with Hawaiian scholar Ha‘alilio Solomon, primary author). “The differences in the stories of each of these examples will hopefully inspire people to look beyond their own differences to appreciate the bonds that are not only necessary for our survival, but also generate joy, when we encounter each other with no barriers between us.” Folklorist Marilyn White contributed the conclusion to the book.

Muslim Outreach

In conjunction with his work on communitas, Weems has been working at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa to bring about a greater understanding of the Muslim community. He has held three separate functions to foster such understanding, with help from the English Department and the grant program, SEED IDEAS. The latest such effort is “Nothing in Common,” interreligious dialogue centered around the Zen concept of Absolute Nothingness as outlined by the Kyoto school of Philosophy. With scholars Aun Hasan Ali, Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Noalani Arista, and Cyrus Ali Zargar, “Nothing in Common” will explore sunyata or absolute nothing in Muslim, Yoruba, and Hawaiian understandings of spirituality to find common ground while maintaining respect for difference. The conference will be held virtually February 7 and 9, 2022.

House music

Since 1998, Weems’ work with circuit parties brought him into contact with multiple DJs who played various genres of house music. Weems was fascinated by dance-floor communitas, by the bonds that were formed instantlyas people danced together. For the last 13 years, Weems has studied the history of house music, interviewed DJs, danced, and learned to appreciate the power that house music has in generating what he calls transcendental solidarity, a communal altered state that participants experience as they congregate, do drugs, and bond with each other through rhythmic music and shared hilarity. His latest work has been with the afterhours scene in Honolulu, Hawaii at Asylum nightclub, a semi-legal dance space for “house heads” to congregate and generate exquisite communal experiences. within a safe haven free of misogyny, queerphobia, and violence. “As ephemeral as the bonds of an afterhours going from 2am to 10am may seem, with exhausted people leaving the club in broad daylight, they often feel a very real affection for each other that can change the lives of participants. This power should not be understated and may indeed be essential for our survival as a species as we go through the trials that are surely coming.” Weems’ most fervent wish is that house music continues for the future generations so that they may utilize it to overcome the looming challenges the catastrophic climate change are bringing. “There is no point in surviving if we cannot feel joy amidst whatever problems we may have. Music and dance should not be considered luxuries but rather essential aspects of our humanity that inspire us to love one another. They are sources of renewal and revelry without which we are no longer fully human.”

Trauma and Communitas

Weems postulates a connection between communitas and reduction of trauma. “Much of what is considered inter-generational trauma may be aggravated by the inability of the traumatized generation to speak of what had happened. Edith Turner teaches us that communitas is best expressed through stories. If the traumatized generation is allowed to remember, mourn, and narrate whatever horrific events had occurred, the result can be healing. Shared trauma has the potential for generating communitas if the victims can turn to each other without fear of social stigma.” As such, Weems believes that communitas can break cycles of violence and abuse resulting from unresolved trauma.

Transcendent Solidarity

From his experiences as a lifeguard, Marine, candomblé practitioner, and circuit party attendee, Weems has witnessed groups of people become as if they were one body-mind. He labels this phenomenon “transcendent solidarity,” the melding of many into one joyful kinaesthetic entity. “Transcendent solidarity is most obvious in two cases: marching and dancing. As a marine in Parris Island recruit depot, I remember the pleasure associated with marching together with sixty other men, and our sixty bodies became as one.” Weems recognizes that part of the transcendent solidarity of boot camp was shared abuse and elimination of status, qualities that put boot camp squarely in the realm of means for generating normative communitas. Dancing, be it in the circuit or at a house music after hours, also involves multiple bodies becoming one, but transcendent solidarity is accomplished through shared joy rather than the oppression inflicted during boot camp. Enhanced by music, drugs, hilarity, a feeling of safety, and a like minded crowd, participants step outside of themselves in communal ecstasy. “This experience of such intense pleasure and fellowship is to me, highly spiritual. It is why DJ Frankie Knuckles called his warehouse parties ‘Church for people who have fallen from grace.’”

The Metta Project

Among the DJs and producers Weems has worked with over the last thirty years, Yves Kline of Metta is working to document Weems’ life in song. The two of them are putting together house music tracks that reflect various aspects of Weems’ life. Among the tracks is “On the Day I Die” (lyrics Mickey Weems, melody and arrangement Yves Kline):

Stars will supernova

Galaxies collide

Everything is new again

On the day I die

Joy will fill the dance floor

Everyone will fly

Gravity will disappear

On the day I die

Bathe me in the ocean

Clothe me with the sky

Wrap me up in love and tears

On the day I die

Help me find forgiveness

Free me from my lies

All my hat will dissipate

On the day I die

Call me if you need me

I’ll be there if I try

My last breath won’t be my death

On the day I die

Published Works

• Weems believes in open access. Everything he has published will be available online free of charge.

• 2008: The Fierce Tribe: Masculine Identity and Performance in the Circuit.

• Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

• 2012: “Taser to the ‘Nads: Brutal Embrace of Queerness in Military Practice” in Warrior Ways: Explorations in Modern Military Folklore (Utah State University Press, 2012), a series of academic essays on how dynamics of masculinity in the US military are expressed.

• 2018: Light Upon Light: In Search of a Beautiful God (MPV Publications). A description of my investigation of Progressive Muslim theology. Forward by Cyrus Ali Zargar, author of Sufi Aesthetics.

• Hunting With Cats: Communitas and Counter-Narrative. 2021

• “Queer Dance: Waacking, Jacking, Flagging, Shenanigans, and Voguing”

• Christopher Davis and Mickey Weems. 2021

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