"A young woman and man have been found guilty of beating a gay man to death in London's Trafalgar Square - a brutal reminder that despite steps towards equality, homophobic violence remains a very real threat.
The killing of a 62-year-old civil servant has cast another shadow over the gay community as it is again forced to confront the consequences of prejudice."Anyone wishing to read the full report can find it HERE. When this disgusting incident first happened in September last year, however, the prominent gay ex-senior policeman Brian Paddick made what I found to be an extraordinary statement. He said (rightly, as it happens) that many schoolchildren used the term "gay" as a synonym for "bad" He then went on to say that teachers bore a grave responsiblity for this, and should be stopping children from doing it. Like many commentators on education, he did not say how it should be done.
Sickening as all homophobic attacks might be, I find Mr Paddick's comments naive and unrealistic. The perpetrators of the above attack would not have held back from what they did because their teachers had spoken out against homophobia several years before. For a (thankfully small) number of pupils, an anti-homophobic stance in schools would be an incentive to engage in anti-gay violence.
Homophobia is a despicable and evil hate crime that must be eradicated, but while we condemn queer bashing, let's not engage in teacher bashing.
I don't think 'gay' is used for 'bad' - more for 'rubbish' or 'stupid' - but irrespective of that, I think to conclude that such usage indicates homophobia is a leap too far. The terms 'idiot' and 'moron' were originally medical terms appropriated to be insults - it doesn't mean that anyone who used them thus were hostile towards people with learning disabilities. The same applies to the term 'spas', short for 'spastic', or the Americans’ use of the term 'retard' (which I find particularly distasteful). The negative use of 'gay' is similarly rebellious, in that it goes against the received wisdom that the word ‘gay’ and what it stands for is positive.
ReplyDeleteRussell T Davies who relaunched Doctor Who in 2005 wrote a script in which Rose says to the Doctor, "You're so gay." RTD is of course gay himself and he says that gay people can't really complain about this usage: having said for decades that the meaning of the word 'gay' has changed, they can't complain if it changes further. That, he says, is what happens with language.
But all of this has little to do with homophobia and the vile attacks on gay people. If someone is inclined to such behaviour, I can't see how schools can educate that tendency out of them. Children are subject to a host of influences in the media, at home, among their mates, on line, etc. To expect schools to counteract those influences as well as providing an education in a 30-hour school week (when a full week has 168 hours ~ plenty of time for other influences) is naïve thinking in the extreme. Schools certainly have a rôle, but they are only part of the solution.
Changing societal attitudes is a slow process, but it has led to overt racism and homophobia being unacceptable with many people, whereas 30 years ago, racist and homophobic jokes were socially acceptable. The hard core is almost impossible to reach, so for them we have the criminal justice system. Regrettably, that usually only operates when the damage is done, although a proactive approach to prosecutions for incitement to hatred could prevent some of these potentially murderous assaults.
It’s not an easy topic, but dumping the whole problem on schools simply lets the rest of society off the hook.
Another point to be made is that children have "fad" words. In other words, while they may use "gay" as a synonym for "rubbish", they may not always use it - I haven't heard the children in my school use it for about 2 years. As for the offenders in this case, perhaps contact with gay and lesbian prisoners while in jail will prove to be a re-education.
ReplyDeletePerhaps. The strange thing about prejudice is that bigots make exceptions, e.g. they hate all black people but their mate who's black is okay because he's not like the others.
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