:: SDF: Here in California the big issue preoccupying the legislature, & which will also show up as a ballot proposition in next year's elections, is one of whether the State will forbid marriages between members of the same sex. Now, even to GET a ballot proposition on the ballot in the State of California requires at least 100,000 signatures, involving a sizeable amount of statewide campaigning. Sure as hell doesn't seem to ME that the heteros of California are going to shut up about people's PRIVATE lives & about whom they can or can't choose to marry...I believe it is best to discuss the actual reservation people have to homosexual marriage rather than rhetorically inculpating people with false motives. The issue in practical terms is whether or not society is better served to isolate hetrosexual unions for veneration or if society benefits more if it allows the homosexual union equal status and is inclusive of gays. There are valid arguments on both sides of the issue and you boil it down too simply.
: And I do want to say something about "pride" marches. Whenever a particular social group wants to hold a "pride" march, it usually has only a tangential relationship to the word "pride". We might be proud of our accomplishments, our possessions, our girlfriends, our boyfriends, or the freckles on our cheeks, but this "pride" of ours typically has little to do with marching, much less to do with going to City Hall to obtain a march permit and police protection, that little chore isn't a matter of "pride" for the organizers either. So we then have to re-understand (the Spanish verb "revisar" seems appropriate here) the word "pride" as it's used for "pride" marches.
: I've concluded that "pride" marches are a polite-society way of saying "this is our share of the symbolic power in this society." "Pride" in this context means "we're not ashamed of being the targets of discrimination within a society where economic and political dominance rests in the hands of rich White alpha-males." (Of course, the meaning and import of such discrimination often gets lost in particularistic "pride" marches... but have you really ever met a Black person who wanted to talk about racism, or a gay male who wanted to talk about heterosexism? And if they did, did you want to listen? Maybe not. How embarrasing! So there's another social problem to overcome.)
: Racists in this country use the same rhetorical tack that heterosexists such as Lark use. Lets' look at Charlton Heston's question here, in a site sponsored by Ku Klux Klan president David Duke:
:
So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is
: "Hispanic Pride" or "Black Pride" a good thing, while "White Pride" conjures shaven heads and white hoods?
: It's really quite simple, Charlton, once you drop the polite-society jargon and talk instead about society's real power relations. "Hispanic pride" and "Black pride" mean celebrating one's resistance to racism, whereas "White pride" means celebrating the racism itself.
You can't have it both ways, Sam. Hispanic and Black pride are in essence, celebrations of skin color assuming a monolithic response to being brown or black. That is inherently racist and nothing more noble than white celebrations. It is true that shouts of "white pride" conjure up the images mentioned but many of the Hispanic and Black pride movements have long departed from a rational anti-racism motive. Farakahn, Sheldon, and friends are the rage these days. I don't celebrate being white and I don't like anyone celebrating such an incontrollable thing (Michael Jackson notwithstanding) as skin color. I celebrate good character where I see it. So did Matin Luther King who would be appalled to see what his movement has degenerated to.
Stuart Gort
