(Cross posted at DKos)
What if your whole life was a joke? What if you’re lifestyle was considered a bad word?
I begin to think about those questions recently in relation to gay issues. I am not gay, so any insight I may have is pure guess-work.
I am Albanian. No one really knows exactly where Albania is, and since I’m white I can’t think of any discrimination that has happened to me because I am Albanian. It has happened because I am foreign, but not relating to my specific country of birth. What if two friends were talking and jokingly:
“You know that guy Jack? Always thinks he’s a big shot and shit.”
“Yeah I hate that dude, totally Albanian.”
I would be pretty pissed off. I would be pretty pissed off if something that I have absolutely no say over, something that determines exactly 0% of what kind of person I am, was used as a joke. But I have a confession to make. I have used the word fag repeatedly.
Now, I tend to watch my mouth when I use disses. I have switched to things like “idiot” or “ignorant” instead of “faggot” or “bitch”. Mainly because sense I have gotten into politics more and more, and read this site, I have gotten a sampling at the full range of human rights issues and have heard the experiences gay people have faced. It’s forced me to think about the things I said, and in a sense it makes me a little scared.
Scared because when I was using the word fag, I didn’t feel any animosity towards homosexuals. I didn’t care one way or the other. To me it was just sex. And now I realize just how discriminatory I was.
Imagine some place in Alabama where nigger is used as an insult. A person growing up there would use it because it was the norm. But what if that person harbored no ill feelings towards blacks? I’m sure I, along with everyone else, would still say it was wrong. That nigger has a horrible connotation that has a racist legacy. Anybody calling someone a nigger on T.V., even to a white person, would face an onslaught of criticism.
But for gays, it’s a different story. If you don’t hate gays and use fag its assumed to be alright. In the recent movie Team America World Police, Alec Baldwin is part of a group called “fag”. It’s meant to be funny because it means he is a “pussy”. But would we call George Bush a nigger because he is stupid? Does the mention of such a thing invoke strong emotions? But did you find Team America funny?
The point I am trying to get is that there is a double standard on using derogatory terms, and making jokes, about homosexuals than there is for something just as arbitrary; race. I know that I was once a part of the problem even if I was more liberal than 90% of the population.
Looking back, the only thing I can say is that I hope one day fag becomes just the same as nigger and becomes a symbol of how far we have to go.
