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Apr. 12th, 2012
On race and bigotry, within and without.
Apr. 12th, 2012 08:52 pmFor the past month I've been following @homophobes on twitter. Its an account set up to retweet homophobic submissions. All well and good, I don't mind engaging the mental midgets in a war of words -- as the cliche goes, they are inevitably unarmed. Fish in a barrel.
The account maintainer has also put up a couple of aggregates on Storify. Here's one:
http://storify.com/homophobes/60-shocking-homophobic-tweets-from-the-thingsigott
There's a trend there.
The vast majority of this filth is being spewed by people of African decent. Mostly American, some British or Caribbean. Checking their feeds I usually find that every other entry contains the n-word in some form used as casual address. Some patois beyond Ebonics is typically employed. The end result comes across as sheer ignorance. One young woman spoke about "fags b nasty" and then a few minutes later complained about having to take a physics exam.
I find it astounding. Baffling. Is this what the future holds? People are still fighting for their own equality are so quick to denigrate and decry another minority?
What if Trayvon Martin was gay as well as young and black? Would the black community still have put on hoodies in solidarity and marched? Or would he have been called a "nasty azz fagit batty clot" and mocked for buying Skittles? Taste the rainbow, indeed. Would Zimmerman be a hero instead of a villain?
It makes me sad and afraid and tired. But I won't stop trying to engage people who say these hateful things. Everything has a consequence. Everyone has responsibility.
The account maintainer has also put up a couple of aggregates on Storify. Here's one:
http://storify.com/homophobes/60-shocking-homophobic-tweets-from-the-thingsigott
There's a trend there.
The vast majority of this filth is being spewed by people of African decent. Mostly American, some British or Caribbean. Checking their feeds I usually find that every other entry contains the n-word in some form used as casual address. Some patois beyond Ebonics is typically employed. The end result comes across as sheer ignorance. One young woman spoke about "fags b nasty" and then a few minutes later complained about having to take a physics exam.
I find it astounding. Baffling. Is this what the future holds? People are still fighting for their own equality are so quick to denigrate and decry another minority?
What if Trayvon Martin was gay as well as young and black? Would the black community still have put on hoodies in solidarity and marched? Or would he have been called a "nasty azz fagit batty clot" and mocked for buying Skittles? Taste the rainbow, indeed. Would Zimmerman be a hero instead of a villain?
It makes me sad and afraid and tired. But I won't stop trying to engage people who say these hateful things. Everything has a consequence. Everyone has responsibility.