Friday, July 27, 2007
not in my sac!
Sacramento just made the international news on NPR, but in a really terrible way. At least they point out that Sacramento has had no real problem with homophobia in the past, but it sounds like we need to wake up now to this new viper in our midst. If you can't listen to the report, at one point they have audio tape of protestors chanting "shame on you" to people at the Pride parade this year. That's fucked. The News and Review also wrote about this same issue this week. It's important to not paint all Ukrainians with this same brush, of course. Now I am wondering if the anti-sodomy protestors I saw at the Crest last sunday were Ukrainian Baptists. They had the same pro anti-sodomy signs that the report on NPR mentioned. I told them that all my favorite movies contain sodomy.
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Hi everyone! The Ancient Sons are playing a short 25 minute set at Fox & Goose on Saturday. Probably around 10pm. Check out this weeks N&R for a great live review of our javalounge show last Saturday. Thanks to Jackson for that. Not only is David Paul our new guitar player, but Matt Maxwell has been playing some keys for us also. Stop by the F&G for a sample of our new sound and it is FREE to get in!!!!!!!!!
One of my first 'real' jobs was working in the Adult ESL program for Sac City Unified, which totally opened my eyes to the Slavic Evangelical Immigrant population in Sac & Yolo County. At that time, there wasn't the rabid homophobia, but they were pretty conservative & insular IMO. Also not terribly progressive in their attitudes towards woman. Just imagine being an educated, unmarried woman being put in a position of authority with these folks. I got harassed by the men from that group once they learned enough English to try and put me in my place. It always burns me up when I hear people bitching about immigrants and you know that's a euphemism for Mexican. There was such a difference in the attitude between that student group and the Slavic students I had to deal with. But guess conservatives aren't going to complain about immigrants who are white and anti-gay.
~ Mary
Nah, the group that hit The Crest this weekend was ANOTHER group of people overly concerned about what we do with our naughty bits.
I'm seriously interested in putting together a "Being a judgemental, hateful prick is a sin" group to counter protest.
Anyone interested?
I like the idea of just showing up with some obscure mixed-up messages... toss in a couple of protesters with 'Stalin Hates Gays', 'Evolution is a sin' and 'Hitler Banned Abortion' signs... the potential list is endless.
We're talking about the guy who was beaten to death by some Russians out at Folsom Lake, right? Didn't that happen almost a month ago? Why did it take so long for people to take up arms on this issue? I don't mean Heckasac, I mean the press in general. I was surprised at how brushed under the carpet it was at the time. Now it seems like the slavic church stance on the gays is bigger news than the fact that a dude was beaten to death. I repeat, beaten to death, for "acting gay". Folks were so upset and offended that he was singing and dancing and enjoying the sun and his friends and his life that he was beaten to death.
A few years back Jay Howell & some other folks held a mock protest at the Capitol, with vague signs saying things like, "Think Of The Children." My favorite was, "Quit Horsing Around!"
Along the lines of omf's idea, it would be good to toss in a couple of religious references to "sins" the protesters seem to have no problem with, like eating meat & dairy together or eating shellfish. It's in Leviticus. How come no one's protesting at McCormick & Schmick?
omf, that's a fabulous idea! i'd totally stand in that crowd with a sign reading "stalin hates gays." it would be too amazing. or how about "ex-soviets for free speech."
but seriously, this is a really big issue and i don't know what i should do about it. it's really pretty worrisome. i'm super glad that the school over in citrus heights which dealt with those ukrainians who wore the anti-gay shirts held their ground. there was this crazy interview on the nightly news where the principal from that school was in a live debate with the head of the ukrainian group that was protesting the day of silence activities at that school. the ukrainian dude called the gay students "sodomites" and dave walker completely jumped on the dude for saying that. i was glad to see the nightly news didn't treat the issue with their usual "we won't take sides" kind of attitude.
just a semantics comment on repeating the phrase "beaten to death" so much: the guy got punched once, and he fell & hit his head. not the image most see when hearing the phrase "beaten to death". still a horrible tragedy, absolutely, completely.
we all know people who have punched other people in the head, and people who have been punched in the head. it's just luck that no one died in those incidents. just like we all know people who have driven drunk and luckily not killed anyone.
people are focusing on the larger issue of homophobia because that is the larger issue, and obviously is the root cause of that poor man's death. the other issue that is maybe too big to focus on is using violence to prove a point.
This topic in general makes me nervous because I keep vacillating my reluctance to make any racial/ethnic generalizations and my opinion that homophobia is never OK. But please, just in case this thread continues, could people please not post anonymously? Just initials or something at least.
Dobryy Den--
Right on!!!Beckler..Not every Ukrianian is Bad.Some of us schmucks are just ok. Stereotyping any ethnic group is bad. I hear enough of kim chee is stinky from folks over her. Gay Rights in Japan are really bad too..Kinda like the american military don`t ask/don`t tell policy but for everything that details life in nippon. I make my mistakes too..But I try to keep my head open about anyone/everything..Nam Myo Lenge Kyo --See ya
J. Onyskin or in japanese oki nishi kin(big western gold)
I'm surprised that anything in this thread could make me laugh, but thinking of a fake protest in which people had signs that say "think of the children" is fucking funny. and I forgot for a minute that I'm half Russian so I guess I get a license to stereotype away. Also, after I posted this I got started reading that Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion". The book is not so good, just a jumble of crap but it does bring up the point that we're indoctrinated to be respectful of religions even when they don't deserve it. I guess atheism is supposedly trendy now. Once again, I'm ahead of the curve. J.K.
yowza--
if ya think religion has been so indoctrined..maybe ya should check out shusaku endo`s "life of jesus"..he`s the mark twain of nippon and a christian.The book puts the life in jesus in less evangical bogus ways...Tooo much sho chu---jay
It drives me bonkers that the only Ukrainians most people have contact with are the ridiculously uptight ones who settled here after the cold war. Those folks DO NOT represent the vast majority of young post-cold-war Ukrainians and their families.
Everyone else I know and work with from Ukraine is awesome, fairly open minded, educated (really well educated, actually) and super goofy after a few vodkas (although maybe not as goofy as Jay.) Ukraine is still a developing post-war country, but the students and young professionals I work with definitely enjoy the time spent in the US.
Here's a little info on the Ukrainian fundamentalists who moved to Sacto and why they came:
http://everybodyiloveyou.blogspot.com/2006/11/political-coming-out-of-sacramentos.html
wingut a.
I'm a bit late to this post, but...
Alice referenced the Citrus Heights Day of Silence "protest" - funny thing is, they hit Mira Loma last year, and it didn't get much coverage. And as I understand it, there was a bit of a tussle at one point. Stew teaches over there and was kind of in the heat of it, in part, because he also was the faculty advisor of the "stop the hate" student group. They'll probably target a different school next year (that's what they've been doing the last few years, apparently).
Anyway, all through this as he was talking about it, I did keep bringing up what Wingnut said - "Those folks DO NOT represent the vast majority of young post-cold-war Ukrainians and their families." I wasn't getting too far with that, though, because he was in the middle of dealing with the problems caused by it. Plus, there is a whole group of Ukrainian students at Mira Loma tied to this fundamentalist faction, so he was already dealing with some problems with them far too often.
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