Tolerance vs. Acceptance

In class this week we discussed the effectiveness of organizing and advocacy versus simply coming out in the struggle for gay rights.  Clearly, both of these things were essential to achieving the progress that GLBTQ people have realized in the past decades. I want to explain what I think the particular effect of each of those strategies is.  First, some charts showing the progress of gay rights both politically and culturally:

It is safe to say that the legal and political victories of the gay rights movement would only have been achievable through skillful organizing and fierce assertion of political power.  However, the political progress of gay people has also been paralleled by cultural progress, and I think that their cultural progress is largely due to people coming out and identifying as gay.

I want to explain why I think coming out is so important for changing cultural attitudes.  Although I dislike arguments based on personal anecdote I am going to use my own experience to illustrate how someone can come not just to tolerate gay people, but to fully accept them.  My public school system in suburban Massachusetts went to great lengths to affirm that being gay was a normal thing, and to create a safe space for everyone.  However, the idea of homosexuality still made me quite uncomfortable.  It seemed weird, abnormal, and even gross.  I think part of my discomfort was due to the fact that although my school was at least superficially tolerant, there were very few students who were out as gay, and none of them were very close to me.

Then I went to college, and I met many people who were proudly out.  I became acquainted with many of them, and became good friends with a few.  I think getting to know these people well really helped me to fully accept gay people.  I am no longer made uncomfortable by the idea of being gay, or by gay sex.  I don’t think being gay is weird or unusual.  It is a normal part of being human.

I think it is incorrect to assume that if someone becomes friends with one gay person, he or she will come to accept all gay people.  However, I hope that my personal anecdote has given you a sense of the power of coming out.  In combination with political organizing, it is a powerful tool for advancing gay rights both legally and culturally.

Texas Textbooks Revisited

Given Audrey’s post on the Texas textbook controversy several weeks ago, I was excited to see the issue pop up again, this time framed in an interesting context and with some connection to this week’s discussion.

“Studies in Crap” is a weekly blog written by Alan Scherstuhl for The Pitch (a Kansas City news/entertainment/events website). This week’s find is a 1932 Texas history textbook entitled The Lone Star State: A School History, by C.R. Wharton. Given this week’s emphasis on issues of Native American and Latino identity, the post’s focus on these two groups was particularly interesting.

In an attitude derived from the philosophy of states’ rights, Wharton decries the reservation system as an example of unnecessary federal spending: “Nor did this handling of the Indians suit the white people. They worked hard to make a living without the assistance of the government and they resented the government’s aid to the Indians.”[1] Nowhere does it mention the forced relocation, broken promises, and crippling poverty that have too often defined relations between the US government and Native Americans. According to Wharton, this “aid” was purely benign and completely undeserved. Looking back a couple weeks to our discussion of feminism, Wharton’s argument is resurrected by the Reagan administration 50 years later in the form of the lazy, conniving welfare queen.

Shifting focus to relations with Mexico (specifically the Mexican-American War), Wharton’s words provide an interesting dimension to the arguments surrounding Hispanic immigration to the United States today. He decries Mexican President Bustamante, who in an effort to halt American migration into Texas (then held by Mexico), passed an 1830 law “prohibiting further immigration from the United States.”[2] Such a measure was cruel, Wharton argues, since “[s]uch an act would have kept relatives and friends of the settlers from joining them in their new homes.”[3]

Dissing Fashion in 1901… culturally.

Unorthodox. Puck, Vol. L, no. 1279. Sept. 4, 1901. Courtesy of the New York State Historical Association.

Caption: Gracie– Poor little Chinese girl!  You’ll never go to heaven if you dress like that!

Blaming immigrants for America’s problems?

"The Cause of it All," Judge, November 6, 1897, Courtesy of the New York State Historical Association

Class, Race, and Gender

This course examines representations of class, race, and gender in American culture from 1900 to the present.  Its primary objective is to introduce students to a range of nonfiction and fiction works that explore one or more of these key concepts.  Engaging with the texts in this course will provide the basis for a rich conversation about the ways in which ideas of class, race, and gender have operated, and continue to operate, in American society.

As museum professionals, you will come into contact with many diverse communities throughout your careers.  In order to be effective museum leaders, it is imperative that you recognize the pluralistic nature of American life and learn how to work with people from many different backgrounds.  An important goal of this course, then, is to facilitate a process whereby you will be able to see American society and culture, both past and present, from a multiplicity of perspectives.