debitage

20.10.07

Which Brings Us To Tonight's Word ...

Duke1676 raises an interesting issue with respect to how the pro-immigrant movement has trouble controlling the terms of debate. As the anonymous friend who raised the issue to him put it:

The word for what abolitionists fought was "slavery." The word for what South Africans fought was "apartheid." Words for what the civil rights movement fought (and fights) include "racism" and "discrimination." Those words convey a clear, one-word enemy. A wrong that needs correction.

In one word, can you say what the wrong is that needs correction in our fight for immigrants?

Duke suggests "welcoming" as a good candidate for a one-word description of what we're for, and I agree. Finding the word for what we're against is harder. It has to be broad enough to capture the whole range of concerns that the pro-immigrant movement has, yet specific enough to evoke (and be evoked by) the particular problems that this specific movement is attacking (i.e. it can't be something that could as easily apply to feminism or the disability movement -- although it's also important to understand the larger principles that do unite the various social justice movments). It needs to be negatively loaded, of course. And it needs to be something that doesn't come off as an awkward neologism -- both to avoid turning off potential sympathizers and (more importantly) because the word should automatically fill in a sketch of the movement's content for a hearer, rather than requiring us to explain the movement's content so that they can fully understand the enemy label.

I like a word that Duke actually used in the headline of his previous post: "nativism." It references the idea of national boundaries more than the similar "xenophobia" (and also avoids implicitly psychoanalyzing the enemy, which is a known difficulty with "homophobia"). And it's got the pejorative suffix "ism," a la "sexism" and "racism," but it doesn't (at least to me) come off as an awkward neologiosm a la "ageism" or "ableism" (not that ageism and ableism aren't serious problems, it's just that their words sound silly and PC to outsiders). And it gets at what I see as the core of the problem, which is an exclusionary privileging of one way of life and of the set of individuals who are already practicing that way of life.

Stentor Danielson, 10:18, |

19.10.07

Two Kinds Of Christian Homophobia

Slacktivist points out some research showing that the dominant image of Christians by non-Christians is that they hate anyone who's not straight. The archetypal Christian these days is Jerry Falwell or Tom Haggard, fulminating against gays as the number one menace to our society. Slacktivist is in the midst of a series of posts analyzing the causes of Falwellian gay-bashing.

It seems to me, though, that Christian homophobia is being defined too narrowly here. It's easy to see how the foaming-at-the-mouth crowd is homophobic, because they're always talking about same-sex sex. What gets ignored is the homophobia-by-omission that characterizes much of Christianity.

Slacktivist's background is in "evangelical" churches (Southern Baptist, IIRC), so it's natural that he'd focus on the Falwellians. But my church-going experience is quite different. I've spent a lot of time in "mainline" churches, mostly ELCA. (Despite the name, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is not "evangelical" in the way we usually use that term to describe a subset of Christianity.) In all the sermons I've listened to growing up, and peripheral literature I've seen, I cannot recall a single mention of homosexuality*. I arrived at college with only the barest conception that there were people out there who were attracted to members of the same sex.

It would be easy to point to churches like the one I attended as evidence that Christianity is not anti-gay. To do that, though, is to conflate homophobia in general with the particular form of overt homophobia practiced by Falwell et al. That would be an error similar to the way white liberals assume that anyone who's not wearing a white hood or endorsing racial IQ disparities is not racist. But in fact you can be homophobic** without directing active hatred toward non-heterosexuals.

The churches I've attended can be described as "unreflexively heteronormative." The Falwellian strain of homophobia recognizes homosexuality as an alternative way of life in opposition to the conservative Christian one -- Fred Phelps has to highlight homosexuality and describe its contours (in whatever twisted way) in order to actively attack it. Unreflexive heteronormativity, on the other hand, represses homosexuality by failing to acknowledge its existence. I'm not saying that the people at the churches I've gone to don't know about the existence of LGBTs. What I'm saying is that that knowledge is detached from everything else in their lives. If nobody is specifically raising it as an issue, they go about the life of the church on the assumption that everyone is heterosexual (and, to a lesser degree, that they come from and desire to start a "normal" nuclear family). Accommodation for LGBTs has to be created by carving out exceptions on a case-by-case basis, and will only be done when a person specifically raises the issue.

I'm not interested in debating which type of homophobia is how much worse than the other (though this post would be a lot more powerful if I were LGBT and could describe the particular pains of growing up in an environment that, instead of actively attacking me, simply failed to acknowledge that I and my struggles existed). The point is that homophobia comes in more than one flavor, and over-focusing on the Falwellian typw can lead to ignoring the need to address unreflexive heteronormativity (both inside and outside Christianity***).

*This was my experience in the Boy Scouts as well. Much of my analysis of the two forms of homophobia in Christianity could doubtless apply to the Scouts as well.

**I describe people as "homophobic" and "racist" for convenience here, though in engaging with such individuals I would be more likely to describe them as "doing things that perpetuate oppression on the basis of sexuality/race." The longer phrasing is better because it doesn't imply any presuppositions about the person's motivations, and because it keeps the focus where it belongs -- on the effects of one's actions on LGBTs or POC, not on the purity of one's soul.

***The fact that Falwellian homophobia is so closely linked to one sect of Christianity while unreflexive heteronormativity crosses religious lines may be part of the explanation for why it gets so much attention -- it's a lot easier to identify an attack an overtly hostile Them than to do the therapeutic work of overturning more widespread harmful assumptions.

Stentor Danielson, 09:46, |

14.10.07

Don't Run, Al

Hugo wants to know what I think about Al Gore. The question of the hour, of course, is whether he should run for President of the USA. I suspect he won't, and I hope he doesn't.

If Gore did enter the race, I would probably root for him (I'm registered independent, so I can't actually vote in the primaries). I'm not especially impressed with any of the current candidates. However, I think it would be better for Gore and for the country if he doesn't run.

During his political career, Gore was cautious and calculating, and often disappointed environmentalists. But after giving up politics and moving to the realm of activism, he has blossomed. Many people read this as a personal transformation, such that Gore 2008 would not be the awkward and centrist candidate of 2000. I think it's much better explained as an effect of the context -- as an activist, Gore does not feel the need to please voters or make pragmatic compromises to get policies enacted. So he's free to focus on inspiring people and making a passionate case for what he sees as the best policy. Returning to electoral politics would throw him back into that compromising mode, deflating his persona (and perhaps leading to a dissipation of his support much like fellow drafted Tennessean Fred Thompson). What's more, a presidential candidate must have positions on every issue. But an activist can and should focus on one or two issues that really inspire them -- in Gore's case, primarily the environment and secondarily the war. The shift to a more well-rounded portfolio of concerns would further deflate Gore's aura.

There is a necessary symbiosis between activists pushing for change and politicians carrying out the logistics to make that change happen. While Gore would be superior to any of the other candidates on the political side, he stands nearly alone in terms of environmental activists with his international stature and access to power*. The law of comparative advantage thus says that he would do more good in his current role, standing outside but bestowing advice and endorsements upon the political work of other candidates and officeholders.

I also think that entering the race would retroactively cheapen everything that Gore has done since losing the 2000 election. One of the key storylines about Gore up through 2000 was that he was a congenital politician, hungry for power, who had been running for president since he was born. His activism in recent years can be read (i.e. in my second paragraph) as striking out in a new direction that is more productive for himself and for the country, and which expresses a genuine commitment to addressing the problem of climate change. But it can also be read as an attempt to rebuild his brand in preparation for a third shot at the White House. If Gore gets back into politics now, that second reading will become very powerful. It would cheapen both Gore -- who would be seen as phony and grasping -- and the environmental cause -- which would be seen as a pseudo-problem whipped up to feed a demagogue's ambition.

As for whether Gore will run, I think even Gore himself isn't completely sure. In 2003, he took himself out of consideration early and decisively. This year, he has tried to downplay speculation about a run, but he has refrained from making an unequivocal statement of non-interest, either publicly or in private to the people expending much effort and resources in the Draft Gore movement. My sense is that he leans against running, but he's leaving the door open while he watches the dynamics of the race. One appealing scenario is that if Barack Obama can make up some ground in the polls and Hillary Clinton's environmental proposals prove lackluster (Obama's, from the little I've read so far, are fairly good, though he lacks the easy command of the issue that Gore has), Gore may throw his endorsement behind Obama.

*I'm trying to phrase this carefully so as to make clear that Gore's role within environmentalism is unique and important, without disparaging other environmentalists who are doing excellent work in other roles within the movement.

Stentor Danielson, 14:16, |