So I was talking to someone about how awesome Carren Strock is and about her book Married Women Who Love Women. I mentioned how Jezebel and I had joked about promoting the book by reading it together on the train, my head on her shoulder, saying "Oh this is such a great book".
And then... this happened:
"You're lucky some black girl didn't kick your ass for reading that."
"Wow. It was just a joke, but way to turn it into both homophobia and racism."
"I was just joking too."
"Yeah, but your joke was homophobic and racist."
"Well you were the one who told me that black people are more homophobic than white people."
"Um, when exactly did I tell you that?"
"You told me about how that marriage bill in California passed because all the black people voted for it."
"You mean how racists blamed blacks for passing Prop 8, but it wasn't actually true? Great to know you were listening so well."
"Well... still there are a lot of homophobic people out there."
"Yeah, there are, and a lot of them are white. Also, you can be against homosexuality without feeling the need to beat gay people up. Unless of course you're suggesting that a black homophobe would be more likely to beat us up than a white homophobe because of the racist belief that black people are inherently more violent. You're not suggesting that are you?"
"No... I wasn't... I was just... Oh forget it."
I swear, sometimes it feels like I have to do this every day.
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3 comments:
Well now we have to read it together next time we're on the train just to see what happens. Think about how much homophobia we could confront!
Hell, grab me a copy and I'll do the same with a female friend. We can start a movement: "How many homophobes can we provoke with our choice of reading material"!
P.S. I wrote a post at 3 am last night inspired by the term one of you guys used (slut shaming). It'll be up tomorrow!
It seems people think they can say whatever they what without repercussions by saying "it was just a joke." It wasn't too long ago that a guy in my painting class said "All women are crazy." When I called him out on his sexist remark, first he called me an idiot and then later said "it was a joke." What a jerk!
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