A threat to justice everywhere
Someone grabbed hold of the issue of the proposed LGBT student center at NC State University and posted a little about it on The Data Lounge, a large, 10 year old, well-trafficked online forum for the LGBT community.
Someone else posted portions of my various posts on NC State and the hateful and sometimes extremely violent language about LGBT people from NC State students.
Yet another someone else grabbed hold of a portion of one of those posts highlighting some more hateful language - that time from an African-American student. Here is what I said in that post:
Since when did it become so okay to so freely and openly use anti-gay slurs like fag, faggot and queer? Oh… that’s right: It’s always been okay.
Why do DeAndre’ and Ishma, African-American men, think it is okay to use words like fag and faggot? How would they react if a white person used the “N-word” to describe them or to refer to them? I don’t know the answer, because I’m not in their minds, but I could take an educated guess.
African-Americans … have absolutely no right to bash other people or put other people in a state of second-class citizenship or to favor discrimination against a whole class of people. You have to wonder if these folks learned anything from those history lessons on hundreds of years of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination against people just like them.
Since then, the debate on The Data Lounge has quickly turned to me. I guess I should have expected it. Everytime I open my mouth I piss someone off, no matter the original intent or message of my words. I should be used to this by now.
So, after it being said that what I said was racist, I had this to say:
I sincerely believe that any group of people who have experienced wide-ranging legal, social and civil discrimination from society throughout their history should be able to know the dangers of discrimination against another group of people solely because they belong to that group.
I’d say the same thing to LGBT racists/sexists/etc, Jewish racists/sexists/etc, Native American racists/sexists/etc, Female racists/sexists/etc, Special-Needs or disabled racists/sexists/etc, Hispanics or Latinos (especially in the U.S.) racists/sexists/etc, etc. etc. etc.
If you are a person who has grown up not only learning about the long train of abuses done against your ancestors, but also a person who might have grown up experiencing continuing abuses because of those historic prejudices, it absolutely blows my mind how that person could turn around and advocate for abuses against other people or groups of people.
I don’t understand it. More than anyone, minorities should know the dangers of discrimination and stand against it where ever it exists.
That is what Gandhi taught. That is what Christ taught. That is what Martin Luther King , Jr. taught. That is what King’s widow, Coretta Scott King taught.
Every great civil rights and social leader has taught the same thing (taking from Martin Luther King, Jr.): An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
I kinda assumed that the “average reader” would be able to understand from what train of thought I was coming (the blockquote directly above) when I originally wrote the first reference to African-Americans who advocate for abuse and discrimination against other classes of people. I guess I was wrong.
If believing that all of us should be equal and that all minorities should know the lesson on the dangers of discrimination and social prejudice (because they have, after all, lived it - in some part - themselves) makes me a racist, then so be it. I happen to believe that all those great civil rights and social leaders would agree with me: If you are a part of a minority group which has itself experienced discrimination and prejudice, how dare you advocate for that same inhumane treatment to be cast upon other people.
But I could just be missing something. Maybe The Data Lounge isn’t a place for serious discussion… maybe it is just a place for people to rip on each other and laugh. If it is a place to rip on each other, then I seriously misjudged when I thought I could go there for serious discussion.
Matt, 22, is an LGBT journalist, activist and youth advocate currently living and working in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the Editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT news source. A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is still continuing to pursue his bachelors degree. He is the Owner & Editor of InterstateQ.com and has been active in LGBT advocacy work since the age of 14.
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