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I didn't say that my (or anyone's) aesthetic likes or dislikes were "good", or apolitical, and i'm fully willing to concede that there may be cultural conditioning inherent in my aesthetics. (I also think there's probably a good dollop of self-hate in there, but that's probably somewhat separate). However, i think i fairly carefully said not "black people" and "white people", but "dark skin" and "light skin" - ie, to make it clear that the aesthetic feelings i have are associated with the physical characteristic, not with race, politics or culture.
If that's still racist, then presumably absolutely any aesthetic association of positive or negative qualities with a physical characteristic associated with a "race" is racist - which leads to the (frankly untenable in anything approaching a real world, IMO) conclusion that, in order to not be racist, we would have to not notice (or at least, not associate with anything) people's physical appearance. That, i think, is not only incredibly unrealistic (unless you seriously want to aim for some sort of misguidedly-pseudo-Gnostic ideology where the body is entirely irrelevant, and caring about it in any way is seen as a sign of prejudice and weakness), it's also, if we're talking about a situation of being attracted to someone, frankly fucking insulting. If your lover was of a different colour to you, would you like hir to say ze didn't care about your skin colour, and found it irrelevant, or to find your skin colour attractive and associate it with positive attributes? I know i'd prefer the latter.
Also, while i dislike drawing comparisons that imply equivalence between "race" and gender (mainly because i think the latter is a real and biologically valid category, whereas the former isn't), if it's racist to find bodies of one skin colour more attractive than those of another, then i think it is a logical extension of that to say that, likewise, it's sexist to find bodies of one physical gender more attractive than those of another - so, am I also a sexist for finding female bodies attractive and male bodies (including my own) repulsive (and having aesthetic associations, similar to the ones about skin colour mentioned above, of male bodies with ugliness, violence, stupidity and brutality)?
Now trying to get back to the initial subject. There's a part of me that thinks that, if you're a homophobe, you frankly deserve to be a victim of racism, and vice versa. However, i agree that that isn't really helpful, if combating prejudice of all types is your objective. I do think that a lot of the outrage specifically over "black" homophobia (see also Peter Tatchell vs. various reggae artists) has to do with the implication of a blatant lack of solidarity - the "but you of all people, with the parallel prejudice you've experienced, should know what it's like for us and sympathise" factor.
In response to that, i think there are at least two things that are important to consider: firstly, the fact that enmity between different minorities is useful to the establishment in preventing coalitions of dissent, and therefore that, consciously or unconsciously, the old "divide and rule" tactic will always be present - thus, all kinds of tactics get invented in order to prevent sympathy and solidarity occurring between minority groups, including media portrayals (both blatant and more subtle), agencies set up to conbat one type of prejudice being put into financial or political conflict with those set up to combat another, the exploitation of demographic statistics to manipulate a "zero-sum" model of identity politics, etc.
Secondly (which is really a specific incidence of the first type of thing, on a longer historical scale), with particular relevance to the "black = homophobic" and "gay = racist (and specifically racist-against-people-of-African-descent)" stereotypes, the historical role of religion in the African diaspora has a lot of influence, IMO - specifically, the widespread use of liberation theologies rooted in Christianity, with the European imperial powers compared to the Roman empire, and homosexuality being identified as a) something deriving from, and existing only in, European (Graeco-Roman) culture(s), and b) a "symptom" of imperial decadence. There's also a big class factor in this, with (male) homosexuality being identified with aristocratic, "spoilt" stereotypes, and associated with parasitism both literal and figurative. (This isn't helped by the most prominent homosexual figures in popular media being the likes of Elton John or Graham Norton, who are hugely and extravagantly rich, friends of the royals, etc).
Hence things like (to take a recent example) Phi Life Cypher's album being peppered with references to "homosexual MPs" etc, despite having an otherwise sound and coherent socialist and anti-imperialist critique of society - while i doubt he was being that explicitly political in his associations, i think it's at least possible to put George Hardaway's homophobia in a similar context...
OK there was other stuff i was going to say, but i'm frankly too intellectually and emotionally exhausted to think of it right now, and i think i've already written far too much for a post in conversation. I'm willing to take this to Head Shop (probably at a later date tho, due to having a lot on at the moment) if anyone wants me to... |
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