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Mar. 29th, 2004 09:53 pm
Random observation
I've noticed something unfortunate lately. People being isolated in small conservative towns obviously leads to tunnel vision because they never see anyone outside of their homogenized lives, but people in *liberal* places have the same problem. They don't see discrimination in their immediate environment so therefore they don't think it exists. There are times I'd love to do some sort of exchange program, with one teen from some liberal college town, and one from a conservative Bible Belt town, and see what they can learn out of it.
You'd think, with global communication, this would be clearing up, and perhaps it is to some degree, but I also think there's a bit of sample bias going on with that, too. The internet, while it has pockets of bigotry, especially since access became wider, is a largely-liberal place. People see very little overt bigotry online, and what they do see is usually punished quite swiftly by moderators, ISPs, etc. so I think some people might be getting lulled into a false sense that bigotry is evaporating.
Concrete positive change is certainly happening. But we still have an incredibly long way to go. It still amazes me when I find people who don't realize that firing someone for being gay is legal in most of the US. When gay sex was finally decriminalized last year, I saw a lot of people who were surprised it was illegal in the first place.
People still have blinders on, and they're still very much in need of education about how rotten things really are outside of their insulated worlds. There are people who truly believe that homophobia only means physical gay bashing, and that since they don't see that on the news every day, that gays aren't suffering. There are people who have grown up seeing gays on MTV, and Ellen and Will and Grace, and they have no idea what the world was like before 1994, and what it's still like in most of the US (not to mention the rest of the world. I was crushed to hear that the orientation clause on the UN rights charter was yet again tabled.)
It's incredibly frustrating to see how complacent people are, even queer people, because they themselves aren't experiencing or witnessing overt bigotry in their day-to-day lives, so they don't think it's an issue anymore. And yet, the real irony? A lot of these queer people who are so complacent aren't out. You ask them why, and they mumble something about no-one's business, or I don't want to be an activist, or what I do in private is my own thing, etc. They don't realize that the reason they're not out is the very reason that they *should* be. Gay-bashing (though it still does, of course, happen) may not be as overt as before, but homophobia is still incredibly widespread. It's not just things like gays not being able to marry or adopt, but things like someone, even in a gay-friendly company, not coming out at work because they know it'll make people see them differently, and change how they're treated. It's things like people assuming that they can tell gay jokes when they think they're in all-straight company. It's things like people saying I don't care what two men do behind closed doors as long as I don't have to see it.
I guess I just want people to open their eyes a little more. Realize that this stuff is still happening, even if it's not on their front porch. And act accordingly.
You'd think, with global communication, this would be clearing up, and perhaps it is to some degree, but I also think there's a bit of sample bias going on with that, too. The internet, while it has pockets of bigotry, especially since access became wider, is a largely-liberal place. People see very little overt bigotry online, and what they do see is usually punished quite swiftly by moderators, ISPs, etc. so I think some people might be getting lulled into a false sense that bigotry is evaporating.
Concrete positive change is certainly happening. But we still have an incredibly long way to go. It still amazes me when I find people who don't realize that firing someone for being gay is legal in most of the US. When gay sex was finally decriminalized last year, I saw a lot of people who were surprised it was illegal in the first place.
People still have blinders on, and they're still very much in need of education about how rotten things really are outside of their insulated worlds. There are people who truly believe that homophobia only means physical gay bashing, and that since they don't see that on the news every day, that gays aren't suffering. There are people who have grown up seeing gays on MTV, and Ellen and Will and Grace, and they have no idea what the world was like before 1994, and what it's still like in most of the US (not to mention the rest of the world. I was crushed to hear that the orientation clause on the UN rights charter was yet again tabled.)
It's incredibly frustrating to see how complacent people are, even queer people, because they themselves aren't experiencing or witnessing overt bigotry in their day-to-day lives, so they don't think it's an issue anymore. And yet, the real irony? A lot of these queer people who are so complacent aren't out. You ask them why, and they mumble something about no-one's business, or I don't want to be an activist, or what I do in private is my own thing, etc. They don't realize that the reason they're not out is the very reason that they *should* be. Gay-bashing (though it still does, of course, happen) may not be as overt as before, but homophobia is still incredibly widespread. It's not just things like gays not being able to marry or adopt, but things like someone, even in a gay-friendly company, not coming out at work because they know it'll make people see them differently, and change how they're treated. It's things like people assuming that they can tell gay jokes when they think they're in all-straight company. It's things like people saying I don't care what two men do behind closed doors as long as I don't have to see it.
I guess I just want people to open their eyes a little more. Realize that this stuff is still happening, even if it's not on their front porch. And act accordingly.
