It’s nice to see that some people understood my point in response to Mr. Brotman last week. But there were a few authors who either still don’t get it or have misunderstood me. Either way, I’ll try to clear up a few things:
First of all, Ms. Tongo, I don’t choose the title of my Wespeaks, because I found that when I have a title I like, the Wespeak layout folks change it anyway, and so why bother? The title they gave mine last week about “reverse oppression,” did not fit what I was saying at all, and if you’d like, you can take it up with them. Gay pride banners are NOT “reverse oppression” and I never said they were. Furthermore, I of course thought several times over about quoting John Lennon’s “nigger of the world” lyric, but I decided to use it anyway because it accurately illustrated what I was trying to convey. If you think Lennon is a bigot, feel free to take it up with his Japanese wife. It’s just a word, Ms. Tongo.
The issue at hand here is NOT an issue of expressing your identity or taking pride in it or those you love, but rather force-feeding that so-called pride to other people. Do you need other people’s acceptance for who you love—do you put greater importance in what other people think than you put in your own self-assurance? If you would like your “voices, experiences, struggles and accomplishments” to be celebrated, clearly no one is silencing you—certainly not on this campus. Yes, there are people who don’t care about what homosexuals have to say, but who needs people like that? You can’t use a logical argument to convince illogical people—as this debate makes apparent. Homophobes and racists are not likely to reach a logical conclusion about homosexuality or skin color based on Gay Pride banners and Black History Month. In case it hasn’t become painfully obvious, this “movement” is entirely ineffective. You are preaching either to those who have always “gotten it” or to those who never will. Instead, take pride in who you are, share who you are, and leave behind all those who refuse to accept you for you. I do it every day, with pretty good results.
What I am noticing here with this “movement” is pure anger. Look at the responses I got from Tongo and Brotman— an angry need to force their identities onto people. If you want to wear a rainbow patch on your sleeve, go ahead. Please do not hijack my library and my entire campus to express your identity. You will not make friends that way, and it is not effective at achieving what you are hoping for. Where is my “Libertarian History Month?” Where is the “Objectivist” café? You are NOT the only minorities on campus, dear friends. Not all of us have the “privilege”—or the need— to paste our political beliefs on every wall of the school (at least not without hearing the whiny din of liberal activists).
I am not pretending to be the Stephen Colbert-persona who declares “I don’t see race.” It’s difficult not to see race, and it’s true what Lee Pender said—we do not want a monochromatic, mono-sexual, mono-cultural society. But to rabidly insist on drawing the distinction between “Students of Color” and the rest of us white-bread folks will not help anyone gain acceptance from anyone else.
Instead, you should be focusing on making sure that YOU are the best you that you can be— that will shut the homophobes up pretty damn quickly. You will gain acceptance only when you accept yourself. Such bigots should be intellectually discredited and politically ignored, not badgered to death by whining activists.
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