"Trump’s Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic." That's by Mathew Rodriguez, and all I can think is that he went to college.
The Trump administration is set to launch a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality in dozens of nations where anti-gay laws are still on the books, NBC News reported Monday. While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story. Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda....
The truth is, this is part of an old colonialist handbook. In her essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak coined the term “White men saving brown women from brown men” to describe the racist, paternalistic process by which colonizing powers would decry the way men in power treated oppressed groups, like women, to justify attacking them. Spivak was referencing the British colonial agenda in India. But Grennell’s attack might be a case of white men trying to save brown gay men from brown straight men, to the same end....
I looked up that Spivak essay and found
this description a book of essays about the essay:
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's original essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" transformed the analysis of colonialism through an eloquent and uncompromising argument that affirmed the contemporary relevance of Marxism while using deconstructionist methods to explore the international division of labor and capitalism's "worlding" of the world.
Worlding.
Posts
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Trump Cures Cancer! Doctors, Nurses Hardest Hit. - NYT
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is best known in the Philosophy world as the translator of Jacques Derrida's seminal work On Grammatology from French to English.
She is, as such, not a marginal (no pun intended) voice in Post-Modern/Colonial Studies.
I'd also like to add in Prof Althouse's original posting on 2/19, I called this out, to wit:
"But, but, Trump isn't being pro-gay! He's being anti-Islamic!"
To be said on MSNBC in 3,2,1.....
Toldja.
These are just disgusting people.
They have to believe we are racist. They will never let go.
They are a disease on our free country.
Sheesh. Do these people have any brains at all?
You know what else is a racist tactic?
Repeatedly Making up lies about people and never apologizing and admitting you are wrong about them.
Nobody is allowed good intentions but us.
This is what 'compassion' gets you from the rabid Left.
Because "colonialism." Don't you know all cultures are morally equivalent? Except Western Civilization, which is oppressive.
This sleight of mind is how our Leftists forgive female genital mutilation and support boycotting the only democracy in the Middle East; while refusing to express an opinion on, or even acknowledge, the debate among some Imams regarding the proper way to kill gays - throw them off tall buildings or collapse a wall on them.
That is a very partial list of the multi-cultural 'diversity' the Left embraces in order to facilitate condemnation of Western culture. (The answer to the Imam's debate is obvious: How many walls can you afford to collapse? You can use the same building many times.)
I'd also mention how the Islamic fundamentalist debate on the treatment of trans people is proceeding, but I'm not aware of it. Perhaps it goes unmentioned in the Quran. If so, that's probably good for trans people in strict Islamic countries.
But. If Trump moves to extend some protection to gays in Islamic countries that makes him a racist.
Maybe for those 'apolitical voters who vote based on feelings' someone could could point out that the charge of "colonialism" is just one more tired talking point for the postmodernist/critical theorist/intersectionalist wing of the party calling themselves Democrats: They aren't to be taken seriously from a moral standpoint.
My favorite example of the bankruptcy of cultural equivalence, AKA deeply held moral intuitions, is related by Mark Steyn: _The Gelded Age_
https://www.steynonline.com/7559/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches
In a culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" – the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
'You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.'
India today is better off without suttee. If you don't agree with that, if you think that's just dead-white-male Eurocentrism, fine. But I don't think you really do believe that. Non-judgmental multiculturalism is an obvious fraud, and was subliminally accepted on that basis. After all, most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don't want to live in anything but an advanced western society. Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched tribal dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society. It's a quintessential piece of progressive humbug.
Progressive humbug has become a quintessential piece of Western culture.
Shucks, I had already penciled in another 'W'
Trump's not that old.
Amazing how some people prove how smart they are by proving how dumb they are.
This is a prime example of why gays should stay in the closet and leave the rest of us alone. The are all just weird disgusting mentally ill pervs.
The normals need to assert our heterosexual privilege that has been the norm for thousands of years and shun these psychopaths.
We don’t want to kill them. We just want to go away and stop trying to destroy our traditional society.
The commenter "fivewheels" referenced this article in yesterday's post about the initiative. I stopped reading after "postcolonial theorist."
Can someone translate that last paragraph into English for me?
For 95% of these people, multiculturalism means an ethnic restaurant in their university town, a splash of ethnic costume, and a virtue signal of an exotic acquaintance on Facebook or Instagram. They don’t have the dust of the world on their shoes.
You mean he wants to do something for gays AND people that might not necessarily be Americans being persecuted in their own countries?
How dare he.
This is the sort of thinking that has paralyzed Europe's reactions to the Islamic horde in their midst.
You guys here -- you're conservatives. You don't read the PoMo stuff. I do. This sort of shit's everywhere on the PoMo Left. It's what's been poured into the brain of every "properly educated" swell in Europe for the past 30 years, and now their reaping the fruits of their learned imbecility.
If at the end of it, if the 2% of the population gays in Europe get sacrificed to the 5% & growing Muslim percentage of the population, well, that's just sad, isn't it? But, really, who's gonna chop off the heads of the swells if they get all pissed off, the Gays or the Muslims? Bad Ideology is so much easier to defend when it overlaps with wanting to staying alive.
Do what's right and who gives a shit what the left thinks about it.
They'd bitch if you hung 'em with a new rope.
When you intergrate homosexuals into the fabric of your society you are only a few short years away from the destruction of your nation. See the fall of the Roman Empire. See the Weimar Republic. See the state of San Fransico today.
Acceptance of homosexuality leads to the destruction of your society.
Those that forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Sure, I can translate.
"If you can't understand this then shut your postcolonialist mouth."
It could be 'parse' instead of 'understand'. I'm kinda rusty.
As Dennis Prager is wont to say, some things are so dumb that only a college graduate would say or believe them.
Glad to see the General Sir Charles Napier quote pulled out. And frankly what would or should a modern Mexican official say if the Mayas and Aztecs were still around practicing human sacrifice and ripping the hearts out of living victims?
All Trump is saying here is stop throwing gays off tall buildings--and this "college graduate" can't accept that that is a good thing?
“This is a prime example of why gays should stay in the closet and leave the rest of us alone. The are all just weird disgusting mentally ill pervs.
The normals need to assert our heterosexual privilege that has been the norm for thousands of years and shun these psychopaths.”
So Langford Peel doesn’t like Trump’s campaign to decriminalize homosexuality?!
I think the gay community is quickly coming up to a fork in the road.
The previous arc was one of mainstreaming: acceptance, equal opportunity, the right to marry -- you know: middle-America shit.
And it has pretty much happened.
But now the gay community has tied itself to other letters of the ever-expanding QWERTY victim group.
So to be the gay tomato in the current LGBLT sandwich you are now standing with:
• gay race warriors that would rather brown gays die in other countries than admit error in the SJW intersection;
• men who identify as women and win races in women's sports, while mansplaining to a lesbian Wimbledon champion that her efforts no longer make the grade;
• successful artists that pay others to attack them so they can be a victim and let others possibly go to prison for the non-existent crime.
Again: fork in the road.
Middle American shit or Agitprop Dysfunction Theater.
Because it seems like the Left wants people to make their choice known.
Interesting times.
I am Laslo.
By this logic, the North were colonialist aggressors.
Stay in the closet.
It’s the best thing for you and our society. This activism is leading to your destruction.
In the same way that feminism leads to childless spinsters living without cats but legions of cats.
I don’t think homosexuality should be criminalized. Just scorned and shamed and kept out of respectable society. Just like the Good Old Days.
Wait a minute. The world was worlded?
langford,
I really think the term "homophobia" is vastly overused and undeserved ...
... except in your case.
There’s a line in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie where Freddie Mercury is acting especially gay when talking about the band’s music/core and one of the other band members makes a reference like “we’re not the village people”
Frickin hilarious.
Don’t know why this comment reminded me of that line, I guess because it’s the ridiculousness and the gay theme.
Thank you San Francisco.
and all I can think is that he went to college.
Well there's your problem, right there.
Postcolonial theorist?
God forbid anyone should try to put an end to suttee.
I don't necessarily agree with Langford Peel here.
But the concept that there might be things that are tolerable in small numbers on the fringe but could be destructive in larger numbers or if incorporated into the official system, is not necessarily a preposterous idea.
Related: a Notre Dame U. pro-abortion faculty member claims that pro-life people are actually white supremacists.
She went to college, too. Got a couple-three degrees.
End diversity or color judgments. End female and male chauvinism. End the warlock hunts and trials. End the social justice adventures without borders, without principles, and without accountability. Separate State and Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic; political congruence; and other PC doctrines that violate civil and human rights. End age discrimination, summary judgments, and cruel and unusual punishments (e.g. "wicked solution"). Stop conflating logical domains for the sake of democratic leverage, financial profit, and social progress.
This is what passes for education. I am more and more coming to believe that ANY non-STEM degree is a sign of dyseducation.
"This is so bad I probably shouldn't give it any attention, but it was published in Out. "Trump’s Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic." That's by Mathew Rodriguez, and all I can think is that he went to college."
I appreciate that you think it's bad. I appreciate your implicit opposition.
But now take the next step: these people are at war with us, including you. These people are trying to control the culture-- and in many places already do. What you think is "so bad" is standard fare in higher ed and on the Dem left. They despise you as much as they despise us regular deplorables.
But these are also the people you empower by joining in the Kavanaugh smear. Etc. Etc.
a Notre Dame U. pro-abortion faculty member
In Stork They Trust
While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story.
Every news article is written as a play in three acts:
1. Trump acts!
2. Racists and homophobes rejoice!
3. Republicans hardest hit!
If this were the Obama Administration the President's views would still be "evolving"...
The Constitution did not, does not tolerate sex chauvinism. The Constitution did not, does not indulge in diversity (e.g. racism). Were transgender attributes ever criminalized? Perhaps in deep blue enclaves as babies have been for nearly a century, color has been since forever, and sex and gender have been with social progress.
Btw, the reason you should give it attention is precisely that it is so bad. It is not an outlier (no pun intended). As YH says, this sort of stuff is endemic in the campus left. Better the rest of us should know.
They didn't get the 'Gaystapo' sobriquet from their logic, reasonableness and charity toward the 'breeders'.
langford peel said...
This is a prime example of why gays should stay in the closet and leave the rest of us alone. The are all just weird disgusting mentally ill pervs.
Go away moby.
You and Inga are made for each other.
Prez Trump is doing the right thing here.
I'm still not a proponent of gay marriage, nor do I think we should try to inflict that on other cultures.
But, nobody should be punished or imprisoned or murdered for being gay.
Whether the U.S. really has the leverage to make a difference remains to be seen.
Blogger Inga...Allie Oop said...
So Langford Peel doesn’t like Trump’s campaign to decriminalize homosexuality?!
He clings to bitter ignorant hatred.
Just like you.
You are more like him than we are.
it recalls Michael Foucault, being a fan of the ayatollah, such myopia should be extraordinary but it's par for the course,
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's original essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" transformed the analysis of colonialism through an eloquent and uncompromising argument that affirmed the contemporary relevance of Marxism while using deconstructionist methods to explore the international division of labor and capitalism's "worlding" of the world.
There are entire segments of society that can find meaning in that statement. A run-on sentence with no commas.
Obama didn't do it. Clinton didn't propose it. None of the neomarxists running for president talked about it. Only Trump. What He Does.
So Langford Peel doesn’t like Trump’s campaign to decriminalize homosexuality?!
@Inga, in fairness to langford, neither do you.
Ultimately I can't see this as a good end, because the goal is destigmatization, and furthermore we have seem traditional social arrangements are then targeted, how ever this crazy person is stupid on space elevators, not merely stilts,
"There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” -- George Orwell
postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak was Derrida's translator in "Of Grammatology." She later became angry at Derrida's "Spurs" for its analysis of women in society. Derrida was not staying on the approved message.
"Trump’s Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic."
What a moronic statement.
Worlding is a bad translation of the French mondialisation.
" and all I can think is that he went to college. "
Ha, your just trolling me now.
But seriously, which side of the political fence do you think supports this more: left or right. It would be universally supported if the guy pushing it wasn't known to eat small children barbecued over the flaming blubber of baby seals with AIDS.
So if Obama proposed this it would be racist? I mean it's the same tactic, right?
There's the german verb welten (to world) too.
Die Welt ist also nicht eine Anhäufung von Dingen, sie ist kein einzelner Gegenstand, sie ist nur als geschichtliches Geschehen („Welt weltet“) und damit Teil der menschlichen Angelegenheiten. Ihr Gegensatz ist die Erde.
What Ann? And not am-life the troller-in-chief’s message?
Here's where the rhetoric comes from
Rather than merely reflecting a francophone bias, Derrida's preference for mondialisation calls attention to a couple of important points. First, Derrida suggests that the global adoption of the Anglo-American word "globalization" not only reveals the de facto status of English as the universal medium of linguistic exchange, but also the more troubling ascendancy of a global Anglo-American hegemony or "homo-hegemonization" in which an apparent homogeneity or unity conceals great imbalances of power (2002, 373). As he notes, "the word globalization is itself becoming global to the point of imposing itself more and more, even in France, in the rhetoric of [End Page 141] politicians and the media" (374). Resisting this "homo-hegemonization" promoted by the global adoption of the word "globalization" will, therefore, require us to think of and with another word that will challenge its seeming universality.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/228232
That's taking the usual academic take on Derrida, who is himself less crazy.
German also has mussen, to must. Sadly missing in English.
But the concept that there might be things that are tolerable in small numbers on the fringe but could be destructive in larger numbers or if incorporated into the official system, is not necessarily a preposterous idea.
See divorce and intentionally single motherhood. I was going to say illegitimacy, but many bastard children were once adopted by two parents.
"...but it was published in Out."
You should have followed your first instinct here, Emerita.
It's not much of an excuse, in my opinion.
This is so bad I probably shouldn't give it any attention, but it was published in Out.
You never know what you'll find when you use deconstructionist methods to turn over a flat rock - you might even find the contemporary relevance of Marxism squirming around next to the grubs.
@langford peel:
You really need to up your trolling game. This was too obvious.
You're right, Ann. You shouldn't have given it any attention.
I was subjected to Spivak in graduate school, unfunny pun intended. It's always, well, unsurprising to be called the man by a bunch of wealthy Brahmin comp lit types who have lower-caste slaves back home and the desired "brown" status here so as to pony up for affirmative action and their turn at the whipping post, intersectional cat o'nine in hand.
She's got one drum to beat: white people bad, my people minority, please.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjK6JLW3MzgAhXrxlQKHXZmCBoQFjALegQICxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ubc.ca%2Fhwlmt%2F2012%2F09%2F12%2Fworlding%2F&usg=AOvVaw1o7fBWIsnFnPe0jSyvBQXT
Worlding happens when German syntax refuses to adapt itself to English grammar.
Achilles said...
These are just disgusting people. They have to believe we are racist. They will never let go.
I'd Say; Yes, they Are disgusting; But! They DON'T believe that we are racist (or sexist), they believe (have seen it to be True,) that CALLING us Racist gives them a HUGE advantage. Don't be bewildered trying to figure out how or why you're racist; it dosn't matter: you just ARE
Because it gives them a tactical advantage. We literally have pro Moslem-Brotherhood congresswomen (wearing Hijabs) talking about how Americans are homo-phobic. It's tactics.
I've made this point elsewhere in comments, but it bears repeating. Many commenters here are looking at Trump through the wrong end of the telescope. They believe that the appropriate discussion concerns the following syllogism: "We observe some behavior by Trump, we assert that this behavior is immoral or irrational; therefore we conclude Trump is immoral or irrational."
The commenters then take up the argument within the context of this syllogism: "You mis characterize the behavior by Trump", or (more usually) "We disagree with your assertion that the behavior is immoral or irrational"; and (always) "we therefore disagree with your conclusion that Trump is immoral or irrational."
But the correct context for engaging with the Trump critics is the following syllogism (or pseudo-syllogism): "Trump is immoral or irrational" "We observe some behavior by Trump"; "Therefore we conclude that this behavior was motivated by immorality or irrationality."
So, in the current blog post: Trump is a racist homophobe; if Trump opposes gay rights, that's because he is a racist homophobe. OR Trump is a racist homophobe; if Trump supports gay rights, that's because he is a racist homophobe.
When you intergrate homosexuals into the fabric of your society you are only a few short years away from the destruction of your nation. See the fall of the Roman Empire. […]
Those that forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of Langford's view of things in general, his attempt to anchor it to history as it actually existed (as opposed to mythological history) is risible.
For instance:
The period depicted in (e.g.) Robert Graves' I, Claudius — probably the best known period of (upper-class) debauchery during Roman times:
1st century AD
The period when the Roman Empire was Christianized — became, if not majority at least plurality Christian, while politically falling under Christian influence (hint: where, among other things, homosexuality was not tolerated):
4th century AD
The period when the Roman Empire in the West “fell” — i.e., got militarily conquered by hordes of migrating barbarian peoples:
5th century AD
The period when the rest of the Roman Empire fell — got conquered by a neighboring, formerly barbarian while culturally alien and antithetical people (the Ottoman Turks):
15th century AD
By comparison, the United States of America (for instance) has now existed for going on 2½ centuries — nearly a quarter of a millennium.
Can you now see the temporal contradiction in what you so blithely asserted, Landford? Almost a half a millennium (twice the present lifetime of the U.S.!) separates the most infamous, debauched Roman times from even just the fall of the empire in the West — much less the additional millennium that the Eastern (medieval) Roman state continued.
Moreover, by the time the former of these (the 5th century fall of the Western Empire) occurred, Roman society had already been more or less Christian for almost a century.
So… sorry, you'll have to support your arguments by other means. History — at least Roman history — doesn't help.
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