Democracy and Diversity (pt. 2)

Ok, time to go somewhere I have avoided addressing directly thus far. I want to talk a bit about discrimination and all of those “-isms” and “-phobias”.

I read a couple of articles today that have once again driven me to the edge and made me question my belief that there is some hope for our race.

The first was a tremendously well-written and thoughtful response to a not so thoughtful and offensive article attacking ‘Black studies’ as an academic pursuit. (If you just clicked over to read them, please take 30 minutes to calm down before continuing with my piece.)

The second was an article about a student teacher that was let go for being transgendered. Not only was that story infuriating, but the responses were even worse. People kept on justifying this teacher being removed from the school by saying that sexual preference has no place in the classroom and that this teacher’s appearance was a distraction and disruptive to the learning environment. This was my response:

“I feel the need to respond to some of the comments I have read. First of all, gender identity and sexual preference are completely different issues. This has nothing to do with sex – only gender. I understand it is confusing for most people so allow me to make an analogy. If a white man is physically attracted to black women does that make the man black? Suppose that white man was a teacher and had a picture of his half black/half white daughter on his desk. Would it be inappropriate for him to tell his students that his wife was black when the students asked him who the black girl in the picture was?

Secondly, to comment on a teacher’s appearance as a distraction to their education is absurd. Would you have your school fire any teacher that happens to be extremely attractive? I assure you; a teacher that many students find ‘cute’ or ‘hot’ causes far more distraction than one that dresses differently. Perhaps we should require all teachers to wear an oversized burlap sack with eye holes cut out and a Stephen Hawking style voice box to avoid any determination of the teacher’s gender.

Final point – transgendered people exist and they aren’t going anywhere. One of the most fundamental lessons school teaches (both to students and teachers) is to understand and respect the diversity of human life*. Having a transgendered teacher gave those students a life lesson that very few students have had. Letting this teacher go didn’t support the students’ education – it stifled it.”

*When I say understanding and respect that is exactly what I mean – none of this tolerance bullshit. God almighty I hate that word. Yeah, thats going to make blacks, jews, gays and white men feel equal – being tolerated. (I hope this article circulates far enough into the future to see the day when white men become the minority.)

Both as a teacher and in my personal life things like race, gender, sexual orientation, and economic class have always strongly affected me. It is a complex issue and it boils down to that conflict between democracy and diversity. How do we maintain our own culture and balance it with our ‘universal’ status as human beings?

Allow me to cite a personal example to illustrate my point. Many years ago I was an active member of a Christian church and youth group. That faith and those beliefs became a part of who I was. At the same time, I was beginning to discover my sexuality. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am gay. This was extremely difficult for me. My faith had become a huge part of me and that faith was telling me that who I was and how I felt was fundamentally wrong. But it wasn’t like I chose to be gay, and I couldn’t justify ignoring that part of me either. This is where many people make a choice – suppress the gay or suppress the faith. Start dating women or start going to a different church.

That didn’t work for me either. I believe that every human being needs to find religion/faith/spirituality/belief for themselves, but it didn’t seem right to just pick a church based on the fact that they were ok with gays. Finding or discovering is not the same thing as picking or choosing. ‘Picking’ a religion isn’t like picking a college. That just isn’t how it works – to choose a God just because (s)he fits my own criteria would imply that I am higher than God. If that were the case than I should just pray to myself every night – why bother with the middle man? This certainly made a compelling case for atheism (my mathematical mind cited proof by contradiction) but that didn’t work for me either. It had the same flaw; it was a set of beliefs solely based on what was the most convenient for me – how would that make it ‘right’? (I understand there is a distinction between church, religion, faith, spirituality and God but I hope you see my point despite my sloppy language. Also, this is my own personal journey – yours is certainly different and no less valid.)

So what is my point? The battle being fought in my mind is a microcosm of the issues we deal with as a human race. How can two cultures interact and integrate without compromising the very things that make us who we are?

I don’t hate conservative Christians who push legislation that suppresses gay rights because I know that their actions stem from a sincere desire to ‘save the eternal souls’ of us gay sinners. I may find them ignorant and dangerous, but how could I hate someone who truly believes that they are trying to help me get into heaven? And telling them that they are bad people for thinking homosexuality is a sin is really no different from them saying I am a bad person for acting on my homosexuality. Think about it – trying to convince a fundamentalist Christian that being gay is ‘ok’ is a lot like a fundamentalist Christian trying to convince a gay man to fall in love with a woman.

Now that I have pissed everybody off, let’s consider the solution. Is there a solution? Well, it starts with understanding. It is ok to be different. We’ve gotten pretty good at that when the differences are superficial. The real challenge is to learn not to be threatened by other people whose beliefs and identities conflict with or contradict our own. Why should any disagreement turn into hate and anger? This only happens when we doubt ourselves. If I truly believed that all gays were going to hell, I might try to convince them to ‘stop being gay’ too. But if they didn’t choose to accept what I believe I wouldn’t hate them for it. Perhaps I would be saddened and concerned for a fellow human being whom I thought was going to hell – but I wouldn’t hate them. In fact, it wouldn’t make any sense to hate them. If I hated someone, wouldn’t I be happy they were going to hell? I certainly wouldn’t want them bothering me for all eternity up in heaven – let them be gay (insert evil laugh here).

Hatred can only come from something that casts doubt on one’s own faith – that is where the resentment and anger truly comes from. I firmly believe that the only person anyone is capable of actually hating is themself. And no, I’m not suggesting that any Christian who ‘hates’ gays is struggling with their own repressed homosexuality. That does happen but it just doesn’t hold for everybody. Not to mention that it would imply that any homosexal who hates Christians must be struggling with their own repressed Christianity. It usually goes deeper.

So when I read things that truly anger me I am learning to ask myself why – why do I feel hatred toward this person? Why do they feel hatred towards me?

I don’t always find the answer (almost never, in fact) but I have faith that there is an answer. And it is that faith that will let me sleep tonight.