Pride? Okay, but why a parade?
I'm in San Francisco right now. I came up here for a buddy's wedding in Sonoma and learned when I got here that it was the same weekend as the Gay Pride parade. People say about a million homosexuals and lebians from all over the world came to San Francisco to be "gay" in a way that may not be acceptable in their own community. A friend of mine took his kid through the parade unaware of what it was. While a little shocked, he said that he didn't see anything offensive. I found out later that his is the more staid of the "gay" events- something more family friendly that others.
Now I totally get the desire to be yourself, even for a weekend. I also understand the appeal of being around like minded individuals. But on principle, I generally disagree with events like the Pride Parade. I personally believe that homosexuality is a question of nature, not nurture so I put the Pride Parade in the same category as I would any like the Mexican parade, St. Patrick's Day Parade, and other parades celebrating ethnic heritage.
The way I see it, it's just plain stupid to be proud of something you had no control of and didn't work for. Nobody should be proud just because they're gay, straight or a particular ethnicity. It's totally different if you want to be proud of your association as a fireman, a policeman or a University professor. A person has to work to achieve those things. You don't automatically get to become a fireman simply by virtue of being Irish. Imagine if that was the case? Pride in something you did not work for is anathema to meritocracy.
The implications of such thinking are apparent. Pride in some characteristic, the idea that you have worth separate and solely based in something that you did not create out of will is the flip side of prejudice and decrimination without evidence. As Buster Kilrain said in Shaara's Killer Angels, the idea of America is that each man is judged on his own merits, not what his father did. Indeed, our Country was founded on the idea that heritage didn't mean entitlement.
I think people like to be associated with excellence without actually having to work for it and pay the price. You see this in the martial arts world very clearly. "My teacher is so and so..." as if the fact that you're his student gives you of the teacher's ability. I would always say to my students, "Don't ever brag about me because I won't be in the ring with you and I will not ever fight your fights." People also like to say, "So and so of my ethnic group did this or that!" As if it means that person has that ability too.
You can only take credit for what you yourself have done. Nothing else. You do not get to live off the reputation earned by better men. If we can all really take this idea to heart, we will start lessening the intensity of the manufactured identities that clash with each other. Our apparent separation that drives so many people to depression with begin to dissipate and we will chose to fight the battles that merit fighting and not the ones that are easiest to fight.
posted by Kahuna6 at 11:18 PM
2 Comments:
The Gay Pride parade is designed to create an environment of love and acceptance for a community that has been systematically marginalized and denigrated. The word "pride" is used specifically to juxtapose the "shame" that gay people have been made to feel about themselves by the outer community for countless generations, ours included. I would argue that if one can be made to feel shame at something they have no hand in, they should be equally capable of feeling pride at that nature.
But more to the heart of the presupposition for your critique, you wrote that it would be different if you were to feel pride for something you work to achieve. I believe that the reason that most people join the Pride parade is because they had the courage to "come out" and admit their identity withstanding critique, disrespect, disinheritance, and often, physical danger. This courage is not the God given nature of every gay person, as any closeted mid-western fundamentalist could easily tell you (if they had the courage to face their nature, that is). Further, one of the most important aspects of the parade is to encourage other closeted gay people to gain the strength to go home to their rural, conservative neighborhoods and shed the constraints of their masked life for a true and free identity, and to do so with pride.
So, while you see the Parade as something akin to
4:48 PM
Anonymous-
I have considered your thoughts and addressed them before writing this piece. I'll answer them point by point here.
You make my point at the very first. Pride and/or shame should not be determined by an outside force. Part and parcel of growing up is understanding who you are and accepting the difficulties that come with it. No one can make you feel shame unless you allow it. I understand the desire to feel "proud." It's the same that drives every parade. But you can't have it both ways. If you can feel pride at something (in the right way) then the implication is that you earned it. If being gay is a matter of nature then pride for it's condition is as silly as those who are proud of their natural beauty. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm just saying that we should rise above that kind of thinking because the implications are profound.
As far as your second point- I think it is valid for the pioneers of the movement but not for anyone who wasn't part of the priginal movement. The physical dangers of being gay are practically non-existent and statistically irrelevant. You can never account for the random asshole but you are never sure what he's going to do anyway.
"This courage is not the God given nature of every gay person, as any closeted mid-western fundamentalist could easily tell you (if they had the courage to face their nature, that is)."
I don't understand what you mean by this outside of your obvious bias against closeted mid-western fundamentalist. Do they say that gays are naturally courageous? I've never heard of that and I've spent a lot of time in the midwest. Is that it? Maybe I have a different standard for courage but I don't think worrying about disinheiritance qualifies in any context. It may be hard for someone to come out of the closet but how is that different from facing the music in anything. It is the function of human nature that we want things to be easy but the best things in life do not come with such ease. If someone doesn't have the courage to "come out" in this day and age, then that's his problem.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying there shouldn't be a Pride Parade. If a group of people want to celebrate, then who am I to stop them? It doesn't bother me a bit. I merely am calling out the short sighted thinking that powers such a process. I don't care what you believe, only that you retain some intellectual honesty. What I'm talking about is a standard for pride, plain and simple. I think it's ridiculous to be proud of anything you did not work for. And perhaps my standards for pride are higher than most but that doesn't disqualify the principle. Do we not hold in contempt those who exhibit pride for accomplishments unearned? I offer that you missed my point in your rush to defend the subjects whom I was not attacking for their nature, only their reasoning.
Thank you for you comments. I appreciate you taking the time to write them. I hope you continue to do so.
Aloha,
Kahuna6
10:12 PM
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