[MCP] Lafe's Rejected Post

Fri Nov 16 08:47:26 EST 2007

Thank you Shiva,
Now that is the scholarly and collegial conversation that I really
appreciate on this site. Thank you, I learned several things I did not
know before.  Its nice to have disagreements but in a way that people
can learn new things and discover that there are other ways of thinking
when we open our minds.  Great job!
Lisa C.

________________________________

From: mcp-bounces at edchange.org [mailto:mcp-bounces at edchange.org] On
Behalf Of Sivagami Subbaraman
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 3:38 PM
To: 'Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social
justice,and multicultural education.'
Subject: Re: [MCP] Lafe's Rejected Post

Hello all:

I have been following this thread quite a bit. I don't post very often,
but I felt I needed to share some things.

I write as a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
communities. Just a couple of thoughts:

1.	Lafe: you have asked why "homosexual" is a derogatory word. Many
folks, including you, perhaps see that term as a "scientifically
accurate" and "neutral term." In fact, it is a term that was and is a
"medical diagnosis." Until 1973, the American Psychological Association,
and the American Psychiatric Association classified "homosexuality" as a
"mental illness." It has been de-medicalized only after 1973; and by WHO
since 1995. That is precisely why it is not a term used by members of
the LGBT communities. To use the term homosexual in a cultural and
social context is to invoke this medical legacy; and it would be
comparable, NOT analogous, to racial terms that similarly evoke either
painful medical pasts, or historical pasts. 

2.	As for the racial analogies: It is not very useful to say that
sexual orientation is similar to or comparable to "race" or even, to
some extent, "gender." Because unlike either of them-to a large
extent-though not always, sexual orientation is an "invisible identity"
that requires disclosure in order to be even available for public
scrutiny. As such it follows quite a different trajectory in terms of
our own understandings of how it works. Having said that, I also want to
point out, that in general human development, sexual identity is one of
the last pieces that gets put in place. As such it comes into place
after racial identity; and is affected and modified by other variables
and factors. As a South Asian lesbian woman, my identities as woman,
south asian, gay-are modified each by the other-and I am not sure it is
very useful or valuable for me to parse them out-except as a piece of
academic analysis. 

3.	While everyone does have a right to their moral objections based
on religion or anything else, I do want to point out that Christianity
was also invoked to justify slavery and was seen as a god-ordained
system. This is NOT to say that those of us who are lesbian, gay,
bisexual or transgender are like slaves; so don't go mis-reading me! But
this is to say that religion gets used for a variety of social
injustices; just as it was equally effectively used by Frederick
Douglass, and several generations of African Americans to empower and to
liberate themselves. 

4.	I would politely ask that you do not call me or refer to me as a
"homosexual"  regardless of your personal feelings about the morality of
who I am; anymore than I would -on a public listserv-refer to you or
anyone by the N word, or "the chink word" or any host  of other
words-regardless of my personal feelings about other races. After all,
it was only a month ago, that a Nobel Prize winner still insisted on the
"natural inferiority" of Black races....so we are not as far along as we
would like about most of these things. 

I don't think your posts were Hitler like or anything of that sort! 

Thanks 

shiva

Sivagami Subbaraman

Associate Director

Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &

          Transgender Equity

0119 Cole Student Activities Building

University of Maryland

College Park, MD 20742

301.405.8498

http://www.umd.edu/lgbt

________________________________

From: mcp-bounces at edchange.org [mailto:mcp-bounces at edchange.org] On
Behalf Of Lafe Taylor
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 11:55 AM
To: Multicultural Pavilion's discussion group on equity, social
justice,and multicultural education.
Subject: Re: [MCP] Lafe's Rejected Post

I'm not turning anything around. I just find it funny... addressing
Steve as well in reference to what I said is a joke, that I never made
any hetero- anything comments in my initial posts. Steve made mention of
it, and I stated my opinion based off of what Steve said in what seems
to be an unrelated post. This has almost gotten off on a rabbit trail so
to speak. Again, I don't apologize for anything that I've said. It's
also funny to see how you still don't see how the initial convo has
gotten off base. No one has even addressed John's statement about , if
different terminology was used (same-sex vs. homosexual) if the
conversation would have even gone this way.

Steve as far as you bringing up the Christlike Clothing... it's not even
my company.

And for Paul, you mentioned homo and homosexual as being wrong
terminology ... what then is the right terminology?

I still don't know why Steve and Paul are insisting that I'm being
defensive. I don't care what you think of me or my opinions. I entered
the forum based on the topic that was sent me. Period. Obviously it
seems to be of less concern than what I thought.

Paul, to compare me being a heterosexual to being a privileged white is
absurd to me. And on the basis that I used "homosexual agenda" aligns me
with racists, sexists, heterosexists, classist and imperialist is far
more ridiculous. You mentioned in your post about why my post was
banned, about personal attacks and what not, but I find it ironic that
the post concerning me are just that.

Lastly as far as turning the conversation around as trying to avoid an
issue, I've not avoided anything. It seems that the only thing being
avoided is the initial post.

Maybe by the time this string is over, I'll be aligned with Hitler,
Osama and Clinton (yeah he's dropped the "N" bomb a few times). But in
defense of my protractors I'll the comparison will be in a non personal
attacking way.

Lafe Taylor

Graphic Illustrator

CHECK THE SITES!!!

http://lafetaylor.com

http://www.wgomag.com

lafe at lafetaylor.com

On Nov 15, 2007, at 1:18 AM, Paul C. Gorski wrote:

Lafe,

Regardless of your intent, the word "homo" is horribly derogatory, and
you used it several times in that post. Unintentional oppression is just
as potent--more so, perhaps--as intentional oppression. 

Nobody would use the term "hetero agenda," and this is not the same
thing, anyway, because heterosexual people are not oppressed, killed,
denied access, etc., for being heterosexual. And nobody's asking you to
apologize for being heterosexual or Christian. 

I didn't specifically ignore anything you said about the black
community. Like I initially stated, I preferred not to enter the
conversation at all. In fact, I rarely enter the conversations here
unless somebody says something oppressive that I fear will create a
hostile environment for some members of this list. You made heterosexist
remarks, so I entered the conversation to address that specifically.
Anybody who's been on this list for a while can tell you that we talk
about a whole range of issues here and that, in fact, racism is by far
the most common topic. I have data on this collected over ten years. The
fact that you were talking about the African American community does not
mean you didn't do so in a heterosexist way. 

So unless you're purposefully trying to be oppressive, I find it nearly
inconceivable that you cannot at least acknowledge, now that you know,
that "homo" and "homo agenda" are derogatory, oppressive language. And,
truth be told, "homosexual agenda" is not much less problematic. Not
only is the term "homosexual" used by the Christian right as a way to
stir up heterosexism, the term "homosexual agenda" was created by the
Christian right to scare people into a right-wing political agenda. So
just by using that term you align yourself with one of the most racist,
sexist, heterosexist, classist, imperialist segment of the U.S.
population. 

And this I find fascinating. You insist that we shouldn't draw any
parallels between racism and heterosexism, but I can't help but notice
that your responses to issues raised about your heterosexism are so
incredibly similar to the responses of many of my white students the
first time they're confronted with concepts like white privilege and
power. They, after all, "will never apologize for being white." And
really, they didn't "mean to be racist"--they never considered this or
that term racist. "It's just language, for goodness sake." So while I
agree that it doesn't make sense to draw direct comparisons between
oppressions or histories of oppressions, I think there are insights to
be had by observing how folks respond when confronted with their own
oppressor status, regardless of the identity around which it revolves.
The bag of avoidance and redirection techniques are strikingly similar.
And when they don't work, it's time to turn the conversation around,
suggesting they're the ones being oppressed "by even having to listen to
such nonsense." 

Paul

Paul

Lafe Taylor <lafe at lafetaylor.com> wrote:

		I'm not concerned about agreement. Apparently you think
I am super sensitive. Not the case. I don't care if everyone here
disagrees with me. But because I used the term: 

		homo agenda. 

		... this means I'm being super oppressive or derogatory.
And for you to classify that in terms of using the "N" word, is
incredulous. I used homo in short of homosexual... period. If I wanted
to be so derogatory I could use far more derisive wording.

		To me this forum is a joke on the basis that you
continually try and make the plight of homosexuals on the same vain of
blacks or paralleled with being black, while completely ignoring my
original statements about the black community. That's the joke.

		I don't apologize for my religious views or anything
that I've said. And I don't apologize for being a heterosexual.
Question... if hetero agenda was used, would it have gone through? A
thought to ponder.

		Lafe Taylor

		Graphic Illustrator

		CHECK THE SITES!!!

		http://lafetaylor.com <http://lafetaylor.com/> 

		http://www.wgomag.com <http://www.wgomag.com/> 

		lafe at lafetaylor.com

		On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:30 AM, Paul C. Gorski wrote:

		Lafe,

		I would not post a message sprinkled with racist
language, such as the 

		n-word, or sexist language, such as the b-word, and I
won't post a 

		message sprinkled with heterosexist language.

		I acknowledge and take full responsibiity for the fact
that lines are 

		often unclear on this. I've probably blocked a total of
10 or 12 

		emails for language or personal attacks in the entire
10-or-so year 

		history of this listserv. But I have to say, yours was
an easy call, 

		however unintentional it was on your part.

		If you'd like to post the heterosexist term you used so
that we might 

		discuss why (or even whether) it's problematic, that
would be 

		great--that would be a conversation about equity and
social justice. 

		But I won't allow this forum, which is supposed to be
focused on 

		equity and social justice in schools and society, to
become another 

		place where people have to be oppressed by hateful
language.

		I'm sorry you see this forum as a joke. I'm guessing you
wouldn't feel 

		that way if this conversation was about racist or sexist

		language--about whether somebody ought to be able to
post something 

		sprinkled with the n-word or b-word. And I'm guessing
you wouldn't 

		feel that way if we all simply agreed with you.

		Paul

		Quoting Lafe Taylor <lafe at lafetaylor.com>:

			I see this forum is a joke. Please post what I
said and let everyone

			see what I said.

			Lafe Taylor

			Graphic Illustrator

			CHECK THE SITES!!!

			http://lafetaylor.com <http://lafetaylor.com/> 

			http://www.wgomag.com <http://www.wgomag.com/> 

			lafe at lafetaylor.com

			On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:08 AM, Paul C. Gorski
wrote:

				Hello, all.

				To clarify this, I did not reject Lafe's
post because he was being =20

				offensive. If that was the case, I
would've rejected many posts by =20

				many people over the last few days.

				I rejected it because he used an
extremely derogatory term referring =20

				to gay and lesbian people, which is
clearly against the groundrules =20

				established for this discussion group.

				As those of you who have been on this
list for a while know, I almost =20

				never reject posts, and only do so in
one of three situations:

				1. the use of very derogatory terms or
hate speech (and yes, I have to =20

				do some interpreting here, but the
language Lafe used was very clearly =20

				derogatory, although he says he didn't
realize it)

				2. when posts are only direct personal
attacks--attacking people and =20

				name-calling as opposed to attacking and
challenging ideas (and I'm =20

				VERY liberal with interpeting this--as
you can see there have been =20

				many posts the past couple days that
have toed this line)

				3. when posts were clearly intended only
for a single person and =20

				mistakenly sent to the list

				Paul

				-- 

				Paul C. Gorski

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