Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community (yay, my internet is back!)

Dennis Carlsons, Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community, is about welcoming homosexuality and gayness into the American way of life like we have begun to welcome different cultures and ethnicitys. He feels strongly that people should not be at a disadvantage for being gay in the workplace or socially but also that homosexuals should be free to say that they are homosexuals and be able to talk about it without feeling uncomfortable or scared.

This piece started out kind of boring to me because of the way that its written but quickly picked up and then i couldnt put it down. The way that he talks about gay as being not just a sexual preference but a way of life that impacts everything about you is a strong message. He calls this the 'gayness' being the way that you dress, act, speak, all showing you to be gay. He wants the topic of homosexuality to be taught in school, not just that it is a sexual preference but that it is a way of life. He says, "... Normalizing texts systematically exclude and neglect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or legitimating the dominant culture as the only significant culture worth studying." i believe that this is also true with people of different ethnic backgrounds. A lot of what Dennis says actually could be related to racism. He says that though many men and woman who are gay are "out" to some co-workers, "...the intimidation still continues...this policy ("dont ask dont tell")... has not been forcibly challenged by gay teachers in public schools yet, perhaps because they feel (probably rightly so) they could not win if they pushed their case. This reminds me of the struggle of a black man in a racist America because it is like asking him to wear white makeup and pretend that he is white even though you know he is not, just to make things easier. i agree with Dennis' point that being gay is not just a sexual preference, it is a way of life, a culture that you can not get rid of, it is part of you (though you can try to hide it.)

There is a story that Dennis tells about a student and teachers being mistreated for being gay and feeling "afraid to stand up for themselves" fearing that they may get beat up or fired. This reminded me a a Denzel Washington movie, "The Debtors" that i just watched. In the movie a black man runs over a white mans pig and has to pay the man all the money that he has, his entire pay check even though it was an accident and the pic wasnt worth that much because the white man was intimidating and the black man was, what Dennis would call an "other," afraid that a court may take favor of the white man like a school system may take favor of a straight man. I understand why people are afraid to stand up for themselves. they are afraid that by defending themselves they will constantly be causing waves and seam as though they are always starting something when they could just walk away. It is hard to defend yourself when you have the risk of losing your job and all that youve worked hard for when it is so much easier to just let people harass you or make you put on white makeup and pretend you arent black or arent a religion other than christian or arent gay.

When first reading this piece i thought to myself, when he says, "homophobia and oppression are directed against homosexuals as a group," that men are oppressed more so than gay women. However, looking back at my junior high years, i remember that i had a gym teacher who was a lesbian and she used to sit in the locker room while we changed to make sure we werent fooling around. This freaked all of us out and we used to always make fun or her and look to see if she was watching us when, in fact, she was usually reading a book or news paper while we changed. Even recently if i was asked about that teacher i would say "ew, she was a lesbian and used to watch us change" just because that was the thought process that i was in. It is sad that if i hadnt known that she was gay that i would probably have never thought twice about it but knowing that she liked woman, if a student had complained or something than she probably would have been fired.

Another example from my past teachers was a gay highschool english teacher that i used to have. When Dennis spoke about, "verbal and physical intimidation of gay teachers..." that teacher came to my mind. He was often times getting in trouble for stupid little things and every time new freshman would come in us upperclassmen would here him being made fun of behind his back and, in fact, when we were freshmen, we used to do the same thing until we got to know him and accept him. What also reminded me of this teacher was when Dennis talked about how straight teachers can talk about gayness. especially if they are saying that it is wrong, but a gay man has trouble even talking about a text with gay themes. A teacher said, "Theres a kind of terror that runs through my mind." I totally understand what he is saying because, looking back at my English teacher, if he had being teaching us about homosexual symbolism in Whitman some of the students may have felt uncomfortable and he may have gotten in trouble whereas a straight man talking about it may not have thought twice because he doesn't have to deal with that same fear.

Whitman is a wonderful writer and i actually didnt know that he was gay. When Dennis says that, "This cleansing of gayness from the literary canon is often defended as an effort to maintain the reputation... of authors." This is funny to me because, although they may be maintaining the authors good rep. for the time being, it is just hurting the "gay name" as a whole because it is taking away the successful people who could vogue for homosexuality and say that its ok to be gay and even though you are gay you still still be a wonderful, famous writer. This same striking at gayness is seen through the number of gay children who are involved in drugs and killing themselves. He says, "...up to one third of all adolescent suicide victims are gay, approximately one quarter of all homeless youth in the United States are gay and drop out and drug abuse rates among gay youth are likewise high." The reason for these gay children killing themselves and doing drugs is because they feel unaccepted, however, the outcome of these suicides etc. are making gay people seem like insane, bad remodels, with serious issues.
ok...my Internet is back in business so... these are my final thoughts:
As i stated earlier, the way that people are reacting on the issue of gayness is much like the way that people react to racism. Dennis actually uses this as an example in the text. He says, " in recent years, popular culture representations of gayness have moved beyond the stereotypes embodied in La Cage aux Folles, much as representations of blackness have moved beyond the stereotypes of Amos and Andy." I also want to look at this quote from a different angle because what it is saying is that we should not be stereotyping and that, thankfully, stereotypes are starting to fade. His description of a stereotypical gay man is described as, "flamboyant, emotionally unstable, feminized..." This strikes me because, though we should be moving away from stereotyping gay people like they do in The Birdcage, most of the gay men that i know (im a musical theatre major, i know many) are, in fact, flamboyant, emotional (not to the level of unstable) and very feminine. i do not mind that he criticises the movie the birdcage for the way that is represents homosexuality because he knows what he is talking about and has the right to his own opinion. however, in the movie we are seeing two gay men that are also drag queens at a nightclub they own. If the movie was about two gay lawyers that act like this then i would understand being critical, however, looking at the background of these man, from my experience, gay men in show business act like a stereotypical gay man and we can not expect that the stereotype will go away until gay men that act flamboyant and feminine also go away. This, however, i believe will not happen and am thankful for it. i love my gay friends and acquaintances and their flamboyant, emotional attitudes.
Dennis also mentions that, not only are steriotypes starting to fade, but there are more and more support groups for people who are gay and want to be able to speak freely about it to non judgemental people. However, he mentions that, " For the most part the institutions that make up the gay community are not open to adolescents, so most gasy youth continue to stay unattached and even unaware of this potential unity of support." I would like to take this opportunity to praise my highschool because we had a gay streight alliance that way established my freshman year by some friends of mine and is still up and running. They have meetings once a week and are able to tell stories or do whatever they want in that free, safe environment. They also try to raise awareness by holding events and posting the times of their meetings saying that, "anyone and everyone is welcome." It is a great thing when schools do these types of thing but i feel that Dennis still does make a huge point when it comes to youth even younger than in highschool. Im not sure that it would be very possible to set up institutions for these young children because they are, in fact, so young that it may be crossing a line to speak to them about homosexuality. I think that most children may just go to councelors who, hopefully, do not tell them that they are strange but, instead, guide them to accepting themselves.
Another point that Dennis makes that i can very much relate to is his statement that gay people are seen and represented as mostly middle class because they have "found more acceptance within the middle class and among the college educated then within the working class." i believe that this is because many college educated people may not be as ignorant to the idea of homosexuality because they have been exposed to it more. He says that many working class people, especially men, are "failing to come to terms with homophobia." An example that i have about this is my environment and my friends/ co-workers behaviors in contrast to my boyfriends. he is a working class man that drives fork lifts at staples, many of his co-workers are older man, non of which have a college education and he, as well as he co-workers are slightly homophobic (which pisses me off beyond beliefe but thats another subject.) Anyways, his co-workers are constantly making gay jokes and, despite many of their mature ages, they make stupid, imature, gay comments. For example, if a male was eating a bannanna he would get harrassed by nearly every other man in the work place. They would say something like, "oh, you like those bannannas dont you? or something dunb like that because that is the environment that they have been xposed to. had andy of them gone to college or made a gay friend or even taken a class that exposes them to the reality of "gayness" they may act differently. My life is very different than this and if i ever heard one of my friends, who are by the way far younger than many of the adolescent sounding individuals at staples, make a joke about a man eating a bannanna, i would be shocked and displeased because it id not only immature and naive but it is making a mockery of the homosexual lifestyle.
The final statement that i have to make is about the Public Schools and Community In The Postmodern. Dennis talks says, "For the time being, at least, this means that the public schools are caught in a dilemma over gayness, unable to please anyone, and unable to act without inviting attack from one side or the other." i understabd this statement and i believe that there is no way that public schools could please everyone when it comes to this topic, however, since when do we need to please everyone? We need to do what is right. We were not pleasing everyone when we allowed and even pushed for black people and white people to start going to the same schools and have equal opportunity. We faught for what was right, we faught for change and we pissed a lot of people off but thank God we did and how is this any different? Yes, we do allow gay people into our schools but we do not allow them to feel comfortable expressing their gayness and, in many cases, we push them to hide their gayness. There is nothing taught in schools about being gay and THESE are the reasons why we are in the rut that we are in. We are stuck in this rut because we are not exposing people to gayness so they may learn to accept it. We are, instead hiding gayness and pushing it aside like i stated at the begining of this blog when i talked about Whitman and the statistics about gay adolescents drug use and suicide rates. It is because of our neglegence to expose people and teach people about homosexuality that people are fighting homosexuality in the way that they are.