No style No. 25: Pow-wow, this ain’t.
Click to view full-size.
…what? They can’t all be about being gay. My life doesn’t revolve around being gay, so my comic won’t always, either.
So…yeah. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but part of my highly-mixed ethnicity includes a significant portion of Native American blood. When I say I’m part Native, I don’t mean “I’m white as hell but think it makes me cool to say that I have a great-grandmother nine generations back who was a blue-eyed Cherokee princess”. I mean “You know, next summer I really should take a trip out to visit my uncle and cousins on the reservation.”
So on matters of principle, I don’t celebrate the current common American idea of Thanksgiving - but I also don’t take it as seriously as the comic makes it sound. Every war has a loser, and the victor is often those with the best weapons and superior numbers. I’m not happy that Native culture has been either murdered, assimilated, or erased and is in danger of melting away entirely, but being an a** about it to Americans who enjoy Thanksgiving won’t change the past. So I have my principles, but try to keep a sense of humor about them - hence mocking both myself and my friend a bit via comic. (My friend was wrong, though, when we had this conversation. I do celebrate Christmas, just not from a religious standpoint - more from the “spirit of giving” standpoint, which is why I call it Happy Shiny Buy Things for My Friends Day, as I love giving gifts. And the only reason I don’t celebrate Easter is because I often forget about it until the day after, which happens to be my favorite holiday of the year (especially since it occurs after almost every holiday): Cheap Candy Day.)
For something a little more GBLTQ-topical, Anji sent me a link yesterday regarding the ongoing and tiresome battle over an Okeechobee, FL high school’s gay-straight alliance - in which the school board called the alliance a “sex-based club”. That statement alone is a horrible demonstration of the ignorance in society that helps to perpetuate both prejudices and stereotypes. Understanding one’s sexuality and gathering with those who also seek to understand their sexuality and fight for their rights doesn’t mean that they’re also gathering to act on that sexuality. Being gay isn’t just about having sex, and gay issues aren’t just about sexual experimentation or gratification. At this point the actual sex involved is practically tangential; there are so many more issues of human rights involved that I can’t believe anyone would think a gay-straight alliance, intended to promote tolerance and acceptance, was nothing more than a “sex-based club”.
But that’s not all from the WTF Factory today, kids. Not by a long shot. Apparently, if you disagree with the GBLTQ rights that a particular employer offers its workers, the answer is to buy out as much stock as possible in that company in order to gain a majority interest and, via shareholder vote, force those dirty gay supporters to comply with your beliefs. No, I’m not joking. Reverend Ken Hutcherson is urging conservatives to do just that with Microsoft.
That goes beyond extremism and into insanity. One can assume that most of these people don’t even work for Microsoft, but they’re so bothered by the fact that M$ - who really can’t be redeemed in my eyes, but at least this is one point in their favor - dares to support GBLTQ workers’ right to equality that even though it doesn’t affect them, they want to strip that right away. Why? Because it constitutes “pushing the homosexual agenda”.
What. The. Hell. That’s not pushing a homosexual agenda; I’m about as sick of that phrase as I am of the phrase “sanctity of marriage”. There is no homosexual agenda. We don’t distribute manifestos regarding our secret plan to conquer the country and turn it into a giant disco version of Fire Island; we don’t try to convert or recruit; we don’t do anything other than ask that we, as minorities, are afforded the same rights as other minorities contesting against the majority. We ask to be treated like human beings, like citizens, with the same rights and protections as anyone else. We aren’t asking for superiority. We’re asking for equality.
That’s not an agenda. That’s long damned well overdue.
Hutcherson even thinks that the battle for civil rights for gays can’t be compared to the battle for civil rights for African-Americans…just because ex-gays exist, but ex-blacks don’t.
Just because a biological trait such as homosexuality isn’t physically apparent doesn’t mean that it’s any different from one that is, such as skin color. They share a common factor: they’re things we’re born into, not things we choose. Ex-gays haven’t really stopped being gay; they haven’t changed that biological trait. They’ve been conditioned to ignore it and act against it, and often are psychologically damaged as a result.
The comparison between the two struggles for civil rights is still quite apt. The prejudice against those who are different hasn’t changed; the tactics of discrimination have. Hutcherson wants to say they’re different because homosexuals were never forced to ride in the back of a bus; blacks were never sent to ex-black camps and mentally reconditioned to think they aren’t black, either. It doesn’t change the fact that both minority groups have been discriminated against, denied rights and privileges, abused, and ostracized in the past - and both still are now. Both are treated as less than human; there was a time when being black was viewed as a perversion, an abomination in the eyes of God, and black people were somehow less than human. Isn’t that how homosexuals are treated now? We’re told that we’re sick, we’re sinners, we’re filthy in the eyes of a God that loves and welcomes anyone but us, that views us as little more than rutting animals.
Hutcherson wants to use the race card to play up the struggle of African Americans for equality as somehow superior, morally above the struggle for GBLTQ equality. It’s not. They are the same, and equally deserving of consideration.
We’re all the same. If people could realize that, we wouldn’t even have these arguments.
no style, gay comics, webcomics, humor, gay comic strip, microsoft, gbltq rights, lgbt rights, gay and lesbian equality, workplace equality, reverend ken hutcherson, gay-straight alliance in okeechobee florida, thanksgiving, native americans
November 19th, 2007 at 1:07 am
[...] No style No. 25: Pow-wow, this ain’t. [...]
November 19th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with MS. Peddling Redmond’s wares has earned me a healthy living. And my friends at corporate in Redmond, the business group in Fargo, and the hosting group in San Diego all appreciate the partner benefits and the all-together progressive corporate culture (quite a few senior executives on our team tends to help). Then again, computer people expect a progressive corporate culture; that’s the norm. Any tech company that takes it away will loose all of their employees. Oh, and Microsoft offered partner benefits before any other Fortune Tech-100 company. So eat that, Google and Yahoo.
Meh, the gay vs. black comparison never really floated with me. While we didn’t send black people to camps to de-black them, we did enslave them for a good bit of time. Then again, think of the gays (suspected or actual) that were killed along with the Jews in the Holocaust. Evil is evil and suffering is suffering, there is no need to waste good effort playing the “who suffered more” game. Both sides always lose in that endeavor. One group of people being denied human rights because of their differences from another is always evil. Such hubris a man must have to observe the suffering of a fellow human being and pass judgment on its relative merit or weight.
While we’re black hearted Republicans all, my family is a-typically socially liberal. Grandma and Grandpa marched with Dr. King (Grandpa was beaten by an Alabama state trooper for his trouble). I got a full ride to Purdue, so I gave my college fund to charity (coincidentally, to the American Indian College Fund and the NAACP). Hutcherson makes me regret all of it. He also makes me disappointed in myself for regretting it. But then, I’m a suburban white boy, what do I know?
Before I get too depressing, Happy Thanksgiving to all! Cheap post-holiday candy is the light of my life. God, I need a better life …
November 19th, 2007 at 5:41 am
[...] Sanders wrote an interesting post today on No style No. 25: Pow-wow, this ainât.Here’s a quick [...]
November 19th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I used to get a lot of flak in school for enjoying Christmas even though I was an atheist. Logic was, if I don’t believe in their god, I don’t get to have any kind of festival in winter, because clearly ALL winter festivals must be related to Christ. The kids gave up after I proved I had a better grasp of the bible (and religious history) than they did. I called it Solstice, they called it Christmas, everyone stopped annoying everyone else.
The ’sex-based club’ namecalling is a bit worrying, but unfortunately not surprising in the least. The only that shocks me is that people haven’t called LGBTQ associations that more vocally before now.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Kujo: Light of your life, huh? That’s cute.
Microsoft may be one of the good guys as an employer, but from a consumer perspective I find many of their practices to be unforgivable. I’m not a rabid MS-hater like some and don’t run around worshiping Ubuntu, but certain privacy concerns make me uncomfortable with Microsoft.
As far as the race vs. sexuality debate: to me they’re very much the same because I’ve experienced both. I grew up in a state where if you’re not white, you’re black. Even though I have more Native and Asian in me than black or Scottish, my TX driver’s license says I’m black because that’s what Louisiana decided. (There’s a weird 1/32 rule there.) Personally I don’t identify by any particular race; I’m Adri, I’m multicultural, and my varying perspectives as a result of that multicultural heritage confuse even me. But I’ve lived with being called “that ni**er child” by my father’s first wife and even some of the neighbors before I lived with being called “that fag”. I’ve been ostracized and insulted for both. I’ve also been “that Chink”, “brownie”, “redskin”, and “heathen savage”, but not nearly as often - and with not nearly as many prejudiced assumptions made about my character, intelligence, intentions, or prospects for the future. I was even treated as an anomaly - the only “colored” child in the gifted/advanced classes, with the highest ACT and SAT scores in my high school. They treated me like a monkey who’d learned how to talk, especially since I speak clear and proper English with only a tiny hint of difficulty on L and R sounds (Asian influence; otherwise I sound like I’m from California). Marvel and stare, and make supposedly “kind” comments about how amazing it is that I “rose above” my ethnicity. Yeah, nevermind that I grew up in middle-class suburbia with a nice home; sometimes when things were down we were lower middle class, but we were never really poor…or if we were, we didn’t act like we were. We were well-educated and proud, and yet people looked at us and saw yellowbone (word for anyone who isn’t pitch-black and has other ethnic mixes) ghetto-ni**ers who supposedly lived on watermelon and bought all our clothing at Goodwill. Yeah. Sure. (I’d have taken Goodwill over those shopping trips to Macy’s any day, honestly. ~shudders~)
Both experiences are demeaning; both carry their own painful history that began long before I was born, whether it was Stonewall or the Million Man March, the Holocaust or slavery. So to me it is fair to compare them, just from my own personal experience - because to me the hurt and confusion that came from discrimination for either reason didn’t feel so very different at all.
Del: I’m surprised, as well, especially with the rampant and fallacious assumptions that if you’re gay, you’re ether a promiscuous druggie or an ex-druggie…who’s still promiscuous, and practices unsafe sex to spread disease. (Which I resent, as I don’t sleep around, always practice safe sex, have never tried drugs in my life, and am quite militant about not allowing anyone to be part of my life if they’re into that scene. Oh, but we’re all drugged-up sluts, right.)
It’s like people think GSAs and GBLTQ clubs want to kidnap their children, have hot sex with them, and shoot up heroin afterwards…instead of help them come to a healthy understanding of their sexuality and build their self-esteem by helping them accept it.
…holy cripes, that was long.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Adri, that’s why I read your blog; you always have the sound reasoning to back up your opinions. The same can’t be said for many pompous, bloviating pundits who say the first thing that comes to their head (looks at the Huffington Post).
I did want to clarify: I was speaking of the esteemed Reverend Hutcherson when speaking of the evils of “evil comparisons.” I think I left a sentence out when I was typing. What I meant was that discrimination in any form is wrong, violence based on group association (race, religion, sexual orientation) is wrong, and trying to say “my suffering and abuse is worse than your suffering and abuse, so shut up” is wrong. I forget if it was Jefferson or Adams (or someone else) who made the speech about evil prevailing when good men do nothing. Discrimination is wrong, and we should stop it in every form (be if for race, religion, or even sexual orientation). There, much clearer, but I so hate completely agreeing with liberals…
The north is much better. My great-grandmother was Japanese, so I’m only 1/8th: I have blonde hair and no trace of any Asian features. But my grandma called me Hikaru, so that’s what most of my family calls me. Meanwhile I have the whitest name, live in the whitest suburb, and drive the whitest car in all the land (and my driver’s license and the College Board know me as being white). The closest I know of personal suffering was not having the right toy in my Happy Meal as a child (besides the death of loved ones later in life, charity work in the inner city, and diplomatic missions with my grandmother overseas in the 3rd world).
I had to choose cheap candy as the light of my life. It’s the only thing I could think of that is G-rated. That is, since being a picky serial-dater and gay (mainly the gay part, but the serial dater proves their point about “us gays”) makes me a meth-addicted, promiscuous whore who’s sole purpose in life is to introduce as many diseases into the gene pool and destroy traditional families as much as possible before OD’ing in a gutter outside of a 7-Eleven. I wish I could say that was off the cuff, but 90% of it was taken from a neighbor denouncing “the gays” after a nice older female couple moved in on our street. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t carry a tire iron inside my coat.
Now my comment is long, too. Bad, Kujo, bad. Back to work.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
[...] my slave name and run around calling myself Panther Abimbola. It’s just a little too extreme; there are times when the struggle for gay rights can be compared to the struggle for African-America…, but this isn’t the right way to do [...]