Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: wearing symbols
From: stevenz@milori.ccit.arizona.edu
Date: 19 Aug 92 02:35:30 MST
Distribution: world,local
Nntp-Posting-User: stevenz

In article <1992Aug18.184645.22313@gordian.com>, mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas) writes:

[BBC's example dialogue deleted.]

>     ?!?! This is *bad*? I mean, really. A straight person thought gay
> is a *bad* *thing*? If more straight people were thought gay you don't
> think there would be a few more howls of protest? A little more thought
> into just what exactly it's like to be gay? Oh, puleeze!

The point isn't that a straight person is thought to be gay, the point
is that the symbol of solidarity, community, shared experience, etc.,
no longer means anything.  And do you really think that being thought
to be gay by a gay person is going to change anyone's mind.  Heck,
people don't realize that human rights legislation protects
*EVERYONE*.  You don't really have to be gay/black/hispanic/on
welfare/etc. to loose your job/your apartment/etc.  All it takes is
the person making the decision to *suspect* it.

>   To paraphrase a Doritos commercial:
> 
>   "Go ahead and co-opt our symbols, we'll make more"

huh? [and/or why is this a good thing?]

>   The same general argument could be made wrt black culture earlier this
> century. Do you honestly think that Jazz and Blues etc had *NO* *PART*
> in the general civil rights movements? I'll stand by my first statement,
> cultural cross polination is powerful tool. If it is kept secret where
> it came from whose fault is that?

I don't know, who's fault is it?  Is some governing body of queers
supposed to hold a press conference and say "The pink triangle is
ours! ours! all ours!" when the local shoe store uses it on the signs
that advertize the sale price of women's shoes!?

I had a curious conversation with someone at an academic conference
two weeks ago.  I commented on the pink triangle pin on his bookbag (a
symbol that still generally means some definition of gay, and is
generally only recognized by gay-positive people, therefore instantly
identifies the bearer and the person asking).  Then I asked about the
other coloured geometric shapes he had pinned to his bag.  I think one
was a lavender triangle, which he thought meant bisexual, but I
thought meant lesbian.  The disturbing part was that a) the reference
wasn't clear (dilute symbolism) and b) the more one-coloured simple
geometric symbols there are, the less power each has, the more likely
they are to be confused, forgotten, misused.

>    Look, there is a big difference between tolerance and open armed
> acceptance. We don't even have the former for the most part, expecting
> miracles on the later is a little too much wishful thinking for my taste.
> When people/companies stop making outright attacks this is progress. It
> is not perfection, but it is progress. I would be happy to just see
> a tolerant society at this point which does not advocate our extermination
> (or admission to mental hospitals). 

But, the point of using our symbols without acknowleging their meaning
is that the symbols become non-symbols and we become invisible.  Since
we're not a minority distinguished by some visible feature like skin
colour, when our symbols become invisible, we don't exist (outside of
our own phyches).

Consider the current power of some of the former symbols of gay male
culture: the hanky code, keys hung from belt-loops, earring, red
neckties.  I recently saw several posts here from people who didn't
even know there had been a hanky code, and I don't think I have to
tell you what has happened to the earrings or keys.  The only
reason I know that red neckties were once a way that gay men
identified themselves is because the leader of the Liberal Party of
Ontario pledged (c. 1985) to always wear the party colour on his
necktie.  Older gay men thought it was kind of ironic.

[About International Male:]
>   So don't patronize them, and tell them so. If IM is really co-opting
> gay culture and trying to have it both ways, they deserve a rude awakening.
> IM, from everything I've every heard, has gay oriented clientel. If they
> are taking us for granted, they deserve to be told that we're not happy
> with our wallets. You don't think they'd get the message?

That's exactly BBC's point.  All of that gay-oriented clientel isn't
saying anything, is continuing to buy their products, isn't saying
they're not happy, and is not sending the message.

>   So whose fault is this? If you think that people/companies are going
> to take steps in the right direction, all on their lonesome, with no
> external motivation/influence, you are living in a dream world. We
> are, in the end, the ones that have to take the initiative to improve
> our own lot. If you think the world is going to sit down and have
> an abstract intellectual discussion with itself with no proding and
> cajoling from us, you've got a significantly more optimistic view
> of the way that people operate than I do.

BBC isn't suggesting that people/companies will "take the right steps
all on their lonesome".  What he's saying is that we aren't providing
the "external motivation/influence" that we should be if we want to
continue to exist as anything more than isolated individuals without
power or voice.

Steven
-- 
Steven Zepp           /  (602) 621-6900                 /  B3/0 h f w c
Dept. of Linguistics  /  zepps@convx1.ccit.arizona.edu  /  g(+) k+ sv
Univ. of Arizona      /  stevenz@rvax.arizona.edu       /
Tucson, AZ  85721     /  stevenz@arizvm1.bitnet         /