Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

“Within normalizing communities and subject positions get priviledged and represented as “normal” while other individuals and subjects positions are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, criminal, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways “abnormal.”” This quote reminds me of almost all of the readings we’ve done so far it seems like a pretty common theme with out the course of the essay. Because in this case members of the LGBTTQ community are not part of the mainstream and are outside of the circle of SCWAAMP, and their culture must still be represented and talked about, and that how our society works we exclude them along with other groups, and we cant do that. “… Normalizing texts systematically exclude and neglect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or legitimating the dominant culture as the only significant culture worth studying.” A prime example of this is William Shakespeare, when I was in middle and high school we all learned about Shakespeare but about his writings and his life. His life as a normal white man, a poet and great thinker but never once did I hear an utterance of him being homosexual. It seems like the people who write the books and teach the subject think that the fact that he was gay will take away from the fact that he was a great literary mind. We should teach acceptance of all peoples and all cultures, because if we don’t we lose the diversity that is so important in this “melting pot” culture we live in. It will also give a better sense of understanding and compassion and give young people a better sense of pride in who they are. “The commonsense perspective on language is that words refer to or stand for things, so that it does not really matter what you call these things. But words do not merely stand in for “things.” They emerge out of and take on meaning within particular discourse and practices. Thus the words “homosexual,” “gay,” “lesbian,” and “queer” have histories we have to consider when we invoke them.” This is a really important quote to me because I find this concept really key to the entire impact on words. We can’t just throw any word we feel is appropriate, because these words mean things. Like when kids say gay to describe things as unpleasant, you can never know who around you is gay. Because unlike issues of race, people who are part of the LGBTTQ community may not outwardly display the fact that they are, so people please use discretion.