2 thoughts on “COL371: HNU: State of the Community 2016”

1. I am glad you guys decided to speak on the topic of the shooting at Pulse..i agree that several media outlets were in a sense flooded with different theories and “information” but at the end of it all we will never know his real intentions and sadly it will leave a mark on our community for years to come..it serves as a reminder that even though we have made so much progress we still have a long long way to go.

   Hugs
   RJ

2. I’ve never really understood why marriage equality was progressive or equal (in a broad sense). Sure it’s equal as it extends the law to those who are excluded from it (and conservative in the traditional sense in so far it calls to uphold the rule of law), but the state’s privileging of married families over others does not uphold the spirit of equality — much less liberation. Not to mention the entire business of legal security is disconcerting for the simple fact that some people have more rights under the law than others and conversely some people have more obligations under the law than others. To put it succinctly, poor people certainly get the short end of the stick when it comes to marriage because they have far more obligations (legal and financial) than rich people. In most cases when poor people get married they end up compounding debt just as when rich people get married they compound their wealth. I certainly don’t have any respect for marriage as it has always been an institution made to compound wealth (mostly unearned) and not necessarily about love. Before the nation state came into being marriage was an institution for the aristocracy — where the church kept a record who married who in order to make sure that money stayed within the family. Poor people did not enjoy such clerical services from the church. For people outside the aristocracy they were married when they got someone pregnant. I outline all of these concerns in the article I wrote for The Huffington Post when DOMA was repealed. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-l-gordon/doma-decision-a-win-for-the-status-quo_b_3520197.html

   We should also note that marriage equality comes at a time when social safety nets have been cut, programs of economic austerity have been implemented, and debt (especially in the real estate sector) through the magic of compound interest is outstripping the underlying economy’s ability to pay it. Did I mention the increasing availability of outsource/insource wage jobs that carry no benefits? It’s never been a better time for LGBT people to start a family. . .

   In any event, there are far more important issues that LGBT people need to address other than marriage equality.

   As an Orlando resident, I’ll skip the Mateen discussion. It’s irrational on all sides and I doubt that people will learn the lessons that need to be learned from it. The pundit who stated that he has a hard time reconciling the shooter’s alleged gayness with his violent expression against the LGBT community is indicative of the irrationality previously mentioned. I would have been equally silly had I expressed the same puzzlement about the difficulty of reconciling the shooter being a minority and him killing a bunch of minorities. The puzzlement expressed by the pundit presumes that because the LGBT community has suffered exclusion, discrimination and violence that the LGBT community and its individuals are far less violent, exclusionary, and discriminatory than the rest of the population. The problem with such a presumption is that it prevents individuals within the LGBT community from looking at how their community replicates and disseminates the same patterns of domination, discrimination, and exclusion expressed by the society at large. For example, when I speak about rape culture, internalised homophobia (expressed primarily against people with HIV) or racism and white supremacy in the bear scene I get blank incomprehensible stares. This commentary in no way excuses the shooter’s actions or lays blame at the LGBT community. However, the commentary does recognize that our community is not as constructive as we think it is and probably didn’t do wonders for the shooter’s mental condition. This commentary also recognizes that dismantling the unjustified hierarchies within the LGBT community and replacing them with more just social arrangements is part of a larger project of dismantling structural homophobia, sexism, racism/white supremacy, and classism within American society and replacing it with more just social arrangements — which will probably help to alleviate much of the mental issues that result in mass shootings. The spiel about hate is also problematic as well — given that the first response to hate crimes is a carceral one. Much like carceral feminism, toughening hate crime legislation (while protecting middle class or rich gay people) increases police surveillance in poor communities of colour and will most likely incarcerate poor people in the LGBT community. Violence, including mass shootings, are a serious problem. To solve it, we have to think hard (rationally and collectively) about how violence saturates our society at large, work to dismantle the unjust hierarchies and institutions that legitimate such violence (the police would be one of them) and replace them with more just and democratic social arrangements that engender political autonomy instead of undermining it.

   I’d talk about Brexit, but I don’t want this post to be of indeterminate length.

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