Okay, I was telling my roommate's sons (K and N) and their two friends over for, "Three Days of Gaming Before School Starts Again," (C and D) about the incidents reported to us, here (by Karen J), when this is what happened:
Ages of those involved:
C = 17
N = 17
D = 18
K = 19
"That's Gay!" said C.
"Hey!" I responded and pushed his shoulder admonishingly.
"Even my girlfriend says that, and she's bi," put in K authoritatively.
I sighed. "It's different when someone who is bi, or gay or lesbian, use that than when a straight person does. To those of us that are GLBT, being gay has meant a very hard road full of trials."
"That's stupid," said N from the computer in the corner, "it shouldn't be able to be used by some and not all," with D agreeing vehemently from the couch as K and C nodded.
"Look, guys," I started to explain, "It's like someone who's black using the 'Enn-Word' and someone not-black using it."
"That's wrong, too," N and K both began at the same time.
I looked at K and tried a different tactic. "Words have power, K, and you know that."
He actually jutted his chin at me in defiance, the way a three-year old would, and replied, "Yes, they do, but that's just --"
"I've known N****** and I've known African Americans," interrupted D.
Silence over the room as all four boys' gaze found their way over to me.
"I have a problem with that," I said quietly.
"I don't care," responded D with a shrug.
If I had continued the conversation there, I realize my arguments about 'Would you say that in front of someone who fit your definition of either one?' would have fallen on the deaf ears and bravado of male teenage mid-America.
Instead, I returned all of my belongings to my room, blocked my door from the inside, and used my private door outside to curl up in a comforter in a deck chair on the patio for an hour before drifting off and sleeping for three. I will NOT sleep under the same roof as such an attitude (D's). For when you sleep is the only time you are truly vulnerable. I don't know if he would have attacked me or not. I'd like to think not. I'm not going to take the chance that such bigotry would lie dormant, when the taking of such chances has gotten me beaten to a pulp several times.
What would you have done?
Comments
Words vs. Intent
I have great sympathy for your reaction, and I can understand why you feel entitled to it.
However, I think you're attributing hostility and intolerance where none exists. It's unfortunate that the current argot appropriates a word that meant something different to prior generations, but this generation is perhaps the most accepting ever of sexual diversity, and deserves proper respect (do the kids still say "props," or is that so 10 years ago?) for that. The word choice is unfortunate to those of us with reflexive reactions to it, but don't forget, it was only a few generations ago that "gay" simply meant a party animal, and not too many years before that that it meant cheerful. That this generation has essentially revoked the word's euphemism status for "homosexual" may not be that significant in the long scheme of things.
As for the explanation of their use of the "N"-word, I sense a bit of floundering and overreaching (duh. they're teens, right?) on their part, but again, no hostile intent.
I know guys in their 40's
Who still differentiate between "cool Blacks" and N-black..and what they call N-whites too. Not being there when this happened, all I can say from your description isn't I didn't detect hostility towards you. Indifference to your feelings on the matter but that's about all.
Did they even have a real interest in the story to begin with, or was it something you felt you should share with them? What are the dynamics?
Hugs
Alexis
Misquote
I think D was attempting to reference a Chris Rock routine.See Wikipedia entry
I'm curious
I'm curious Edeyn. What was C. initially referring to as "gay". The principal's behavior & the Florida town's
reaction in your anecdote? As in "HOMOPHOBIA IS SO GAY"?
The mind boggles at this (I could imagine it as a bizarre pro-tolerance slogan) yet it wouldn't surprise me. Kids I've talked to can't seem to---or just refuse to---make the connection between gay being used to describe anything that's shoddy, lame, weak, or wrong and that use having any impact on anything. "I didn't say anything about Gay people, I just said it was gay ....... Sheesh! What's your problem?"
Too bad they (the ones that aren't consciously bigoted but just unthinking about their choice of terms) can't be outfitted for a few days with translator earphones that turn all derisive terms into their name: "That t.v. show last night was so Andy Johnson! Did you ever say anything so pathetically Andy Johnson? They were all dancing around like a bunch of Andy Johnsons! Well I have to go out in the yard now and pick up the dog Andy Johnson..."
Maybe it'd sink in, maybe not. Then there's the whole language of misogyny (sexism, homo & transphobia all somehow interlinked), which I won't even get into here. But Lord knows, I'm not singleing out kids. It's just that bigoted adults seem pretty well beyond- if not redemption then beyond the power of verbal persuasion.
~~hugs, Laika
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
im curious
I think that, the younger generation are giving the word gay a totally new meaning, and it doesnt have to do with sexual preference.
"HOMOPHOBIA IS SO GAY" may sound totally silly, kind of like an oxy moron but given its new meaning, i understand.
perhaps in 20 years when the this younger generation rewrites websters dictionary, the word gay wont have anything to do with sex or sexual preference.
HOMOPHOBIA IS SO GAY
In view of the psychological truism that people often hate most in others what is most like themselves, it seems entirely possible that it is.
It would certainly make a wonderful advertising campaign.
Anita Bryant, notoriously bigoted about all forms of sexual "deviance," managed to raise a homosexual boy.
Since God loves sinners, it's particularly instructive that her vendetta against "faggots" resulted more or less directly in her rapid decline in popularity, the loss of her lucrative advertising contracts, her fancy thirty-three room mansion, and her marriage with an excursion into bankruptcy and other personal failures.
Her former followers, devout Christians all, now shun her, because divorce too is a sin in their limited worldview.
In 1998, Miami-Dade county re-enacted the human rights protections for gays and lesbians that had sparked her initial outrage. Five years later, the Christian Coalition tried to have it repealed again but lost at the polls
Ms. Bryant, possibly having learned some tiny lesson, made no public comment.
Life is good, and living well is the best revenge.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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P.S. Frank Rich, a columnist for the New York Times, has a lovely article, Just How Gay are Republicans? that is worth browsing, although it references the 1962 film, Advise and Consent, which just happens to be about the politicsa of homophobia during the (fictionalised) Kennedy administration.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I'm sorry, but
I disagree with your statement of the N-word. I think it's wrong and no one should say it, it doesn't make sense that some people can use it just because of who or what they are. So I disagree with what you said about something being so "gay" I don't use that word personally. No one should use it in a derogatory way, whether they are gay, straight, lesbian, bi or trans. Also I'm straight, so why would I be called gay? Yes I'm trans but trans has nothing to do with sexuality. Well anyway I think with your past experiences it's good to take precautions. But in my opinion it's wrong no matter who uses it, gay, straight, lesbian, trans or bi. I have gay friends so yes I find homophobic words to be offensive. I also have black friends, and I've never really heard them say it. Words DO have power, that's why offensive derogatory words should NEVER be used no matter what or who you are.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Things change...
The notorious "N-word" was, at the time it was first applied, a *euphemism* for Black, less offensive to the refined ear and more respectful, being descended from Latin, that most refined of languages. All the best words, the most acceptable in high society, are Latin, except for those few which are Greek.
We note that the word is still in use in Africa, indeed entire countries are named with it, Nigeria and the Republic of Niger, so we must presume that the inhabitants don't feel particularly insulted by it.
In the USA, almost all words associated with persons of African descent are fraught, because the taint of chattel slavery, the "Jim Crow" bigotry which still exists in a substantial portion of the population, and prior usage colours every word ever used to describe any person even remotely resembling this racially diverse and often mixed and amorphous ethnic group.
Black is now avoided almost as assiduously as the "n-word," and the convulsive use of such euphemisms annoys me, although I do here as a courtesy to those unwilling to face it.
"African-American," the current vogue, will eventually become tainted as well, so we may eventually come back to the original euphemism, avoiding as much as possible any thought that the people *harmed* by vicious past and present racism and brutal enslavement in times past are actually real, that the fortunes made in the slave trade, in the ownership and exploitation of slaves, doesn't still underpin the wealth and status of the very "best" families and politicians in America.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-----------------
If you as parents cut corners, your children will too.
If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money
on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities,
colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your
children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial
and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the
poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.
--- Marian Wright Edelman
Q: What do you call a black man who flies a plane?
A: A pilot, you racist schmuck.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Yes, but
Not all black people are african american too, I asked a black friend of mine he said just to refer to them as black, so I do. Because there are many different variations. Also I know how racial prejudices work, believe it or not I'm Cuban. When I was a little girl I used to look a lot more Cuban but for some reason when I grew up I turned white as a ghost xD Just because I was Cuban in school, I couldn't get help from teachers when kids would bully me. My daddy and mommy had to call the police just to get the stupid school to do anything. But no, for the white kids they would work it out right away, so yes I understand prejudices >< However I don't go around calling my fellow Cubans wet backs and FOBs. That would be just mean, that's something I don't understand about the N-word, in my opinion AND my black friend's opinion it shouldn't be used by anyone.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
But, really...
I quite agree. It's a bad idea to use such words locally, including both spatial and temporal specificity, but it's also useful to take the long view.
In my lifetime, "woman" has gone from being a pejorative label showing profound disrespect to the female human being so described to being the preferred term.
"Queen," arguably a term of respect, shows its mixed heritage in being simultaneouly used to describe flamboyant homosexual men.
Originally, it meant merely "woman," then "The King's Woman," and then "a ruling royal female in her own right" at the same time that it retained its original meaning and made a side-trip through "prostitute," from whence it was appropriated for certain gay men, as fellow denizens of the demi-monde and practitioners of a common craft.
There are no words in English for human females which have not a similar history of contempt and disrespect. Shall we then refrain from using them?
Why not take the opposite approach, and reclaim them, simultaneously denying the appropriation of our common heritage as "men." "Man," originally meant only "human," and referred equally to men and women?
Wyfman, the original of "woman," meant exactly "female man," as "werman" meant "male man," which seems redundant only lately. "Man" quite possibly referred to our mutual possession of hands*, the quintessential attribute of humanity, the outlines of which were painted on rocks across the continents and throughout prehistory as the original graffiti, "a human being was here."
http://tinyurl.com/6gs55z
http://tinyurl.com/6a87lq
We are most all of us inhabitants of la frontera, meztizas living in the borderlands, strangers, most of us, in lands we have few ties to, cast out among strangers, speaking in tongues, linked only by our common humanity. All else but the trappings and the suits of faux tribes and pseudo-nations.
Yo soy meztiza.
Puddin'
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* Some say the word may be related to "mens," meaning "to think," but we all know *that* seems improbable.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Ah, Drink less coffee maybe?
Over reaction? Wasn't there. Conversations like that between kids, hmmm, maybe just idle mindless dribble. Maybe not worth getting indignant over?
The power of words
Thirty years ago I wrote a comic book script about a black superhero, some black revolutionaries and their white bigot hostage. It was called, "Death of an American." In it, the white bigot is rescued by the masked black superhero who is forced to kill the revolutionaries.
The bigot goes into a rant about 'those people' whereupon the black hero pulls off his glove to show his skin color and scares the bigot into running away.
Ten years later DC did a nearly identical story in the first volume of the Checkmate comic back in 1988 but I did this for a small company in 1978 and I had first written the story in 1972. The DC story was just coincidence, I'm sure.
I wanted someone with sensitivity to the issues to draw this comic so I asked several black artists I knew if they would do it or knew someone who would. I finally met with a white artist and his black fiancee to discuss it. They both said that they liked the story but that I had scripted the bigot's lines so well it was scary. It finally came down to a discussion of the TV mini-series, Roots.
The fiancee said that during the filming of the TV show, the black actors had to teach the white ones how to say a certain word, correctly. She asked me if I knew what she meant and if I could say the word. I said the word. She approved her boyfriend doing the comic.
It never got published, small press comics were pretty shaky back then, but I still have the artwork in a big envelope.
Words do have power because people give them power. It's complex and the words can become more important than the people using them realize.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Thats So Gay
is a comment I hear frequently out of young teens and there is nothing homophobic connected to it, morphed venacular. That part I feel you just need to get over; looking for malice where there is none.
On the other hand, there is no mistaking the N words meaning coming from a non-black person. I find it hard to hear it coming from a black person and not being offensive. It does not make it any more attractive coming from their mouths and I do not think they have any entitlement to using it in a non malicious manner either. But I have been known to be wrong before.
That's just trans
The notion that the use of gay to denote lame, stupid things---arising as it did just as Gay people were becoming increasingly visible and empowered---does not have its roots homophobia is just too big a coincidence for me to swallow. This supposition seems totally trans.
Trans (or tranny) is a word usage I have just now coined, that means anything false or misrepresentative. Con artists, poseurs, name-droppers, artificial Christmas trees and horrible fiberboard furniture coated in fake wood-grain contact paper are all trans. Of course this has NOTHING to do with transgendered or transsexual people. The fact that it's the same word and seems to echo a popular bigoted sentiment is just a coincidence, and only a paranoid cry-baby idiot would be offended by it.
~~~hugs? Laika
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Oh My God
Oh My God Laika, you're so Trans!
How am I doing? not sure the Valley Girl inflection came through right ;-)
Trans -- Not So Sure
Give it the acid test.
Precede the word with "You're nothing but a &%$^#@% ______ ."
As an option, after whatever word you're testing you could add ______ #$@@&*.
Under this test ("You're nothing but a &%$^#@% Trans #$@@&*.) it doesn't sound so good.
Which I think you knew.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Mom's response
Let me begin by saying I can assure you that you were never in ANY danger. My boys may engage in philosophical debates on the use of words, but I guarantee that even if there was the slightest chance that D would attack you (which he never, ever would) they would certainly put a stop to it and get help.
Now, as for the attitudes: The boys were actually completely appalled at the story of what occurred in Florida, even though C's choice of wording for expressing that was definitely unfortunate. As for D, he lacks the capacity for empathy and responds to any attempt to gain his understanding with indifference. I have never been able to get through to him, and he lived with me for a year.
Words...I think the boys fail to grasp the symbolism that is attached to certain words and images, therefore they fail to understand they emotional volatility they evoke. It is a matter of maturity. Also, my boys in particular, tend to react instinctively against anything they judge to be unfair, such as the double standard of usage regarding words like the "N"-word or "gay". It is not logical or reasonable to think that one group can use such words freely, with impunity, and others are completely reviled for such usage. So, they resist this inconsistency almost without thought.
I mean, honestly, they are very young. They have not really experienced the kind of evil and hate that can be attached to such words, have never seen the horrible things that one person can do to another simply because they belong to a different race or have a different sexual orientation. They have, thankfully, and unfortunately, lived the sheltered lives of white middle America, relatively buffered from the ugliness of the world. As they see more of what this world is capable of, I am sure their attitudes will adjust accordingly as they are about as free of bigotry as anyone I know.
I do understand why you became fearful, certainly. Your past would generate such fear in the face of apparent bigotry. While D may harbor some prejudice considering the environment he was raised in, I truly believe what you encountered in him was more indifference and lack of empathy and social awareness than true hatred. And I don't think that he harbors any sort of ill will or discomfort towards you whatsoever. Mostly he is just a stupid kid, who lacks the social awareness and empathetic abilities he should have developed by now. And the others, they just lack a little experience and maturity. But hatred? I don't think so. Not at all.
Elandria
Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream...(A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Elandria
Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream...(A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Critical Mass
Whether or not you responded correctly to the word "gay" is a matter of conjecture.
However -- when you put your hands on the young man in front of his friends you created a tense situation. Touch can be even stronger than words.
One boy is much different than that same boy when with three friends. Boys are pack animals. (Think Danny in Grease or Lord of the Flies or even Rudyard Kipling -- For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.)
If you wanted to admonish "C" you would have been better to quietly state (without touching), "I find that word offensive" -- and then keep an open mind.
"D"'s comment was probably prompted in part by your actions and the part by the pack -- and although inexcusable, seemingly without malice. In some circles that word IS used to delineate a certain set of black men. It is wrong to ever use the word, even for pathetic, young, gang-banging, misogynistic, homophobic, hate-filled African-Americans, who will kill for sport, and who perceive jail or early death as a logical and inevitable part of their existence, but that doesn't stop many from doing it.
If you felt threaten, you responded correctly by removing yourself and taking steps to prevent confrontation. If you took those steps to make a point (such as, I won't sleep under the same roof as someone displaying such an attitude) you crossed the line to drama queen and will have built communication walls.
You've told us the boys' words, but you haven't shared their body language, facial expressions, gestures, etc. which I'm sure gave you a much stronger message than what you can ever communicate here. You were there; we weren't.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)