[RANT]
...That if today’s trans people know our history by a reporter and my answer was no.
I have found over the years is that people want to remain ignorant, they usually don’t do it on purpose but rather because of a lack of curiosity, or out of laziness.
When I was going to town hall meetings to hear what our community thinks should be needs to be done for our community I don’t know how many times I heard that we need to pass a non-discrimination legislation and they were surprised to learn that we had that law since 2011! The same with birth certificates. Or take the death of Robert Eads because no doctor would treat him for ovarian cancer. Or how a trans woman was left to die on the streets of Washington DC because the EMTs didn’t want to tough “it.” Or the long standing dislike of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for stabbing us in the back over the ENDA in 2007.
How many comments have you read that didn’t know that there is a law all ready on the books.
The same is true with so many other things like discrimination laws or redlining or the discrimination in farm aid or the GI bill. They don’t want history taught that they might have to answer awkward questions by their children.
For many ignorance is bliss.
It makes their heads swim just thinking about our past.
George Santayana quote is so true, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” and we are repeating our past now.
[/RANT]
“Re-inventing the wheel is in no ones interest. But it does happen when people are ignorant of their own history. But scarier is this quote from George Orwell, “The most effective way to destroy people is to destroy and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” I like to look at hisstory, (I prefer ourstories to that dreadful word) as a compass to use to get us from here to there. An understanding of who we are, where we have come from can be the compass that guides us through there murky times. An understanding of ourstories also provides us with a weapon to use against the attacks by straight society. I really can’t stand folks who have walked in the door, not knowing a damn thing about the struggles that our people have endured and then begin to lecture those of us in the know. A few years ago, I went to a “ pride meeting” and this newbie heard me talking about the three pieces of clothing law. While this babe in the woods, two feet out of the womb, only interested in marriage started to argue with me. She didn’t believe that there was ever anything like that in amerikkka. After a while I threw up my hands and told her to sit in her ignorance a close friend, a drag queen said to her “You really don’t know who you are arguing with, and he is letting you off quite easy. I would suggest you take a look at LGBT stories and find yourself.”
ReplyDeleteAs I have gotten older, I have very little patience for ignorance. There is so much information out there for folks to find. What makes them this way? Perhaps it is the way “history” has been taught. Nothing was more boring than reciting back to the teacher, the names of the presidents from Washington on up. So, it is the job of the keepers and tellers of ourstories to breathe new life, to shake off the dust, and to teach our people as in the new day we are trying to build. That I believe must be done outside of academia.
This is one reason I will not be involved in the Ct. Equality new game in town. What little contact I have had with them I have discovered they just are not aware and will attempt to write hisstory rather than ourstories and in this attempt will reinvent the wheel. Their refusal to answer just a few pressing questions to me shows that they are really not aware of anything outside of the mainstream telling, that they are ignoring the work that has been done and will present to us more of the same.