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While we feel life is becoming more tolerant - could we be labouring under a misapprehension. West London seems to be having an upsurge of attacks on gay men.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/02/homophobic-attack-h...
Why people can't live in peace, I'll never understand.
Angharad.
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I agree Angie.
The problem is education; not so much the lack of good education but the excess of the bad education often provided by fundamentalist churches of many different faiths and persuasions who preach intolerance, murder and phobia ... all sorts of phobias.
Another insidious development is faith schools that tend to promote separation and isolation of communities.
Unlike the provincial cities with their anonymous gay villages, London is a collection of 'cultural villages' each with small town mentalities that promote intolerance and differentiation. Fortunately however in ordinary small towns, violence is less prevalant because the perpetrators are often easily recognised and the police can act. In those same 'cultural villages' in London, the geographical vastness endows anonimity and a consequent licence to indulge one's owns prejudices and phobias. Consequently the transphobic and homophobic thugs can feed their prejudices amongst their own 'communities' and then satisfy their predelictions by attacking anonymous victims up the West end.
It was already demonstrated in the article that the cameras proved useless. Cameras do not prevent the crimes, they only record the crime so that the media can present them to tittilate their audiences with films of gratuitous violence. Often with a final scene of some individual lying injured or even dead on the ground.
The only way to stop these crimes is to put more boots on pavements and that means less paperwork and more coppers. But the vermin in the 'Cesspit of Whitehall' seem only concerned with protecting themselves with armed para-military forces spread thick in parliament square while the rest of us can 'go hang ourselves' and walk whatever gaunlets there are in London or elswhere.
It's all about education, education, education. But that's another service being progressively destroyed in this country.
You're right to ask the question Angie but the 'Vermin of Whitehall' are loath to provide answers or solutions. Their mentality is, 'I'm alright Jack, pull up the ladder'.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
I confess ...
... that I find the whole camp gay scene epitomised in the article very unappealing but my instinctive reaction is simply to ignore it as far as possible. I don't really understand the need to attack it. In fact it leads me to wonder what the attackers motives are; are they afraid it's catching? likely to become compulsory? or perhaps secretly afraid that it's really how they feel? In any case, to paraphrase Shakespeare, methinks they do protest too much.
When I was serving on a jury we were shown camera footage purporting to show the accused as they boarded a train in London. Quite honestly they were just about unrecognisable. Fortunately they didn't dispute the facts so it didn't matter. The quality of the images is so poor I wonder at their use. Perhaps the quality is better now.
Robi
Indeed,
many active homophobes could describe the pyramids in great detail.
Unfortunately,
I can understand it. I spent a lot of time in sociology classrooms, as well as in the theatre at University, plus working as in independent computer technician for the last fifteen years.
You can point at groups that preach intolerance, as well as lack of education. Those are contributing factors, absolutely. However, the core problems are summed up by this sentence.
"Don't judge a book by its cover."
The _reason_ for that statement is that the tribal animal that is homo sapiens is built around instant judgement calls. Think about it. How often have you looked at someone and simply decided that you didn't like them, or that something was 'off' about them? Probably every day. The woman walking down the street in the insanely short skirt with incredibly stupid high heels. "Prostitute?"
Combined that with the fact that historically, 'different' means 'dangerous'. "They ain't like us."
Education can help quite a bit, but it won't stop the underlying issues. They're deeper than education can reach. Ghandi was an idiot, in some regards. Humans are _violent_. They're built that way. (Anyone who has put two strange toddlers in a room together with a limited number of toys can attest to this. One _will_ hit, bite, scratch, or shove the other to try to get a toy.)
So, you have an identification of 'different', and an underlying propensity towards violence. What does that boil down to? "Kill the stranger, he's a threat." White shields, white flags, special garments, these have all come in play as ways to say "I'm different, but I have something immediately noticeable about me to reduce my threat level." Even handshakes are that way. "I have no weapon in my hand." In some cultures, it's a two handed greeting - hands outstretched. "I have no weapon in my hand, and my hands are in plain view, away from my body."
It's not nice. It's not right. It's, unfortunately, somewhat inevitable. The bulk of people just don't move around much, so they always stay with the familiar. I don't see any way to force people to move into a discomfort zone over and over so they can desensitise themselves to the differences in people enough to recognise the similarities.
Anyone here who has moved to a smallish area can attest to the fact that people are not instantly accepted. They have to prove themselves. Some areas, unless you're _born_ there, you aren't "from" that area. You're a stranger until you die.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I don't have a problem
With the noticing a difference, that will always happen amongst more perceptive types -it's the violence which is unforgivable - there can be no excuse for that - and current punishments seem to do little to correct it. It's possible prison even encourages it by brutalising these numbskulls even more.
Long term psychotherapy may help or in the current economic climate - flog 'em, it's cheap and effective.
Angharad
Angharad
See?
You're already advocating violence towards those who are different :)
I didn't say it's WRONG, mind you :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I think ...
... and hope, that Angharad was being deliberately provocative. She's not of the hang 'em, flog 'em tendency - she's a wishy-washy Guardian reader, like I am :)
Robi