“think about how stupid you are going to look in 40 years”
hey, white queers - i’ve seen you reblog this on my dash more than a few times now. (i’m not going to link to who because this isn’t about publicly criticizing folks) it’s just, i thought we had talked about this already. but it seems we need a refresher.
didn’t we go over how it’s not really accurate/reflective/productive to appropriate the civil rights movement for the purposes of arguing in favour of gay marriage?
homophobia is not the same as racism. that graphics like these, using these “parallels”, often tend to erase gay/queer people of colour and also posit access to marriage as the be-all and end-all to the fight for gay human rights. the images used to try to “persuade” straight folks to have the very basic levels of respect for gay folks in these contexts tend to be some incredibly whitewashed homonormative shit.
the idea of trying to change someone’s opinion by saying “go with the flow or you’ll look stupid” as opposed to “unlearn the kyriarchy’s messages of hate and spite and fuck up the system/try to be a decent human being by respecting some very basic human rights”? no thanks. i need some more radical shit.
for more details, read some of rev. jesse jackson’s thoughts:
“The comparison (of gay people not having access to marriage) with slavery is a stretch,” Jesse Jackson asserted in a speech at Harvard last year, “in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote.” (full article here)
or this post by absquesetentia:
You cannot compare these two situations. Gay is not the new Black. The struggle for POC is not over.
comparing the legalization of interracial marriage and the legalization of gay marriage is actually super fucking offensive considering 20-30 percent of republicans still think it should be outlawed in some places
so stop with the graphics of ppl opposing equal marriage with captions like ‘which side of history will you be on’
this shit is not history, it is happening today
now go look at those “inspirational” images again.
this shit ain’t radical. it’s boring, vanilla, and half-assed. i don’t deny that for many gay people the fight for access to gay marriage is seen as key and intrinsic to access many other rights (property rights, parental rights, etc). that said, i don’t think the day that gay people around the world can get married will mean an end to homophobia or discrimination. it’s not a “one solution fits all.” a huge part of ending homophobia is unlearning bullshit like this, that “we’re all the same” and that gay people are just like black people and they’re all discriminated against in the same exact ways and we’re all part of the same fight. it just ain’t true. do some reading.
recommended reading:
- beyond gay marriage and queer separatism: the call for a working class queer movement by lou at gathering forces (october 14th, 2010)
- I still Think Marriage is the Wrong Goal - resource list compiled by Dean Spade and Craig Willse
- dean spade on gay marriage video via man-themed
