The elephant is the room (Pt 2)

By Tripp Johnson, Guest Columnist

On Sunday, I previously discussed the socio-structural underpinnings of homo-phobia/miseó. Now I would like to turn to a less explicitly contentious, yet equally pernicious tool utilised in crafting a framework that oppresses non-heteronormative persons: 'tolerance'.

When we consider the ways in which conflict or difference is mediated in majoritarian-minoritarian discourses, one may notice what I'll refer to as 'implicit' homophobia, or acts/beliefs/proscriptions which, when decontextualised, appear not to lead to the persecution of LGBTQ-identified persons, but which, when taken in context, are evident replications of the aforementioned "architecture of oppression": The Sunday Gleaner published on June 29, 2014 a column written by one of my favourite Gleaner contributors, Gordon Robinson.

While many of us today cherish (or should I say, pay lip service to) values such as freedom, equality, and tolerance for difference, almost an equal number of us seem to be unaware of the sordid histories and oppressive regimes which gave birth to such ideals: the ways in which a collective embrace of the notion of 'tolerance' both constituted and was constituted by those very same regimes. Allow me to explain.

Tolerance Burden

To request members of the LGBTQ community to be tolerant of homophobia and bigotry, just as we ask those homophobes and bigots to be tolerant of LGBTQ-identified people, places an inordinate burden upon an already-oppressed population. The burden of tolerating difference must fall squarely upon the shoulders of the privileged group in question, and not upon the backs of those who are persecuted, brutalised and murdered for who they are or thought to be.

In this case, tolerance is reasonably expected of straight-rights partisans/homophobes, whose position in society allows them to live a comparatively comfortable life. To expect the victims of such hate to be tolerant, a hate that according to Robinson, stretches back millennia, seems patently absurd.

Would we, in our right minds, tell black Americans to be tolerant of anti-miscegenation laws, prohibitions on interracial marriage, lynchings, or other non-institutional but surely just as expansive forms of racial hate? I would hope not. (NB: The foregoing is not meant to equate slavery with homophobia beyond the scope of the present analysis.) Why then does it seem just to expect tolerance from those in Jamaica who, to quote a response I received in support of a column I previously wrote, face "unprovoked assault - those who sit at the rank bowels of Jamaica society: the bybwoy dem"?

Surely, the playing field between LGBTQ-identified persons and those opposing their rights is not equal. Yet, we may expect them to tolerate their continued abuse, and should it prove that they can tolerate it no longer, they are the ones paradoxically labelled as belligerent, hateful. As if reacting to slights on their worth as a human being, slights which, in the best case, are hateful epithets, incitements to violence, and in the worse actual physical harm, expulsion from one's home.

Institutional discrimination

Enjoining LGBTQ-identified persons to tolerate discrimination on a personal level vis-à-vis the homophobia/homomiseo of their peers reinstantiates a basis by which institutional discrimination may manifest - which, in turn, facilitates the eruption of homophobic hate on a personal level - ad infinitum.

As noted by Robinson, homophobia is a tradition passed down by many generations of people, and it will take time to ferret out the myriad ways in which it infects our apprehension of the world around us. That being said, it would be a mistake to treat LGBTQ-identified persons and so-called straights as being on equal footing. A cursory appraisal of the proportion of persons murdered for being straight, compared to those murdered for not 'being straight enough', provides ample evidence of this.

It has been said that dogmatism is the inclination "to identify the goal of our thinking with the point at which we have become tired of thinking". Let us not succumb to the dogma we have inherited from the centuries preceding us.

Our homophobic house is crumbling all around us; rather than denying that the pillars and beams are knocking us on the head, let's pull each other to safety. Let's work on building a new house, with a foundation made of love, rather than hate, ignorance or prejudice.

Tripp Johnson is a researcher at Johnson Survey Research and student of social and political theory. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and wtg.tripp.johnson@gmail.com.