From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: Het Boys (was: Homophobia)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 21:32:39 GMT

In article <9JAN93.20033165@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
    >>>You seem to think the term "lesbian" is an insult.  It's not. 
    >>Well, right.  What do you think MY point was in that thread?  Sheesh. 
    >In that thread, you were arguing that the word shouldn't be used as if it
    >were an insult.  Now you're claiming that it *has* to be an insult, since
    >lesbians are "marginalized".  Which is it?

It's an insult when used by the marginalizer as an insult.

    >>You seem to think the term "het boy" is an insult.  It's not. 
    >>And it can't be, because of what it means to be a white het boy 
    >>in our society.  Its only power comes from irony. 
    >No, its power comes from hate and scorn, just like any other insult.

Scorn for the attitude of most white het boys as typified by Morris
and those who are less verbose (I refuse to use the word "eloquent")
when it comes to the topic of civil rights and (in)justice.  But I'm
sorry: calling someone a heterosexual might be scornful in the right
context (here), but it isn't typically an insult.

Whatever, this is splitting hairs--insults can take many forms: thru speech
as pointed as mine, or through idle musings by a non-Jew on the legitimacy
of firing someone because s/he's Jewish.  However, I think the oppressed
are owed a considerable amount of rhetorical license.  You're free to
disagree.

Listen, I'm a white ex-Catholic boy myself, but I think I have some appre-
ciation for the marginalization and rage of the oppressed, though I undoubtedly
fall short in many areas.  Part of this comes from being gay and
experiencing this myself, but I'm not completely unusual in this regard
as a white person, regardless of my sexual preference.  The best we can
say is that this kind of discernment doesn't usually come for free; white
people generally have to work thru issues or be confronted with the reality
of oppression in some concrete way before it hits their consciousness.
This is only accidentally a matter of being white, non-Jewish, etc.
This is our social patrimony.  It is not being racist to recognize this
as such.

    >>>Are you, *in principle*, against attacking people based on their race, 
    >>>religion, and sexuality, or only against attacking *marginalized* people 
    >>>in that manner? 
    >
    >>You can save your "take the pledge of allegiance" argument. 
    >
    >Which argument is that?

The one quoted here.  I'm struck by two things here: first, an incessant,
Procrustean impulse in rec.arts.books to squeeze arguments into general rules,
when there are no rules and never will be any.  All we have is our eloquence
(or lack of same.)  Look what you end up with when you turn *principles*
into mechanical logic: Morris's monster.  Second, has it struck you the way
majoritarian responses to a claim of oppression invariably turn to picking
apart one's perceived opponent's nits rather than addressing the issue?
The topic was the legitimacy of firing people because they happen to be gay,
and codifying the inability to seek legal redress into a state constitution,
and we end up arguing about how Heather is insulted because I called her
brother a white Protestant het boy.  I don't happen to think the two are
equally weighty issues, frankly.

    >>Institutionalized, pervasive oppression is one-way: from the powerful to
    >>the marginalized, and that's what I'm concerned with.  
    >
    >I figured as much.  

Good.  So what's your problem?

    >Don't be surprised if your attitude turns off a lot of members of the
    >"oppressor class" who might otherwise agree with you.

Than'kee Missi Heathuh, ma'am.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer