Methods Of Erasure
No Me Digas. Op-Ed: Keith Price
I have always considered myself to be a lucky person. I know that preparation and opportunity equal luck, but sometimes there is a moment of good fortune that can only be defined as just unexplained. As a black gay man, I happened to be born at a time where my impending life and any rights that future me hoped to enjoy were being fought for by brave people. My birth was timed between two significant historical moments: The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the Stonewall riots. The results of both of those events ultimately promised me the right to be a Black and gay citizen of this country with full rights and privileges.
It is so weird to see how in the span of my “none of your business” years of living, the pendulum of life swings. For every movement in this country where marginalized groups have made progress in advancing their freedoms, they are met with hostility and constant sabotage by the majority, ok mostly racist, old, heterosexual, white men. If you are a woman in need of an abortion, a person of color in a red state needing to vote, or a card carrying member of the LGBTQIA+ community in a red state, then the country must feel like it is stuck in the door jam of a time machine between 2022 and 1960. Living in New York City does give me the freedom of knowing that I never have to worry about losing at least 2 of those 3 rights, or do I?
In addition to advocating book burning, excuse me, I mean book banning, Republicans are now serving shades of facist realness as they try to purge and erase my people’s history and rights at the same time. What is amazing is how powerless it still feels to keep fighting everyday in one shape or form to just maintain your humanity. Because let’s be real, there is nothing that a good ole-fashioned ass whooping couldn’t cure, but that puts you in the category of those insurrectionists when it comes to dealing with disagreements, and that is not a good look. Not to mention, the law behaves differently when people of color are looked upon as the aggressor to white people.
In the state of Florida, Voter rights, Critical Race Theory, and now even the discussion of anything remotely LGBT related are all being attacked through the state’s legislation, currently with the “DON’T SAY GAY” Bill. You cannot talk about the history of how this homophobic, racist, and often misogynistic country was built because it makes young, white kids feel bad. Imagine how bad it was for actual black kids, gay kids, and some women in those horrid times? Do we now have to pretend that LGBT+ people don’t exist, because it makes evangelical Christians feel bad, too? Of course, this is the same state that is the home to the Pulse Nightclub shooting, one of the worst mass shootings in this country’s history that took place in a gay bar. I guess we can’t talk about that either, huh?
It is impossible to think after our many years as conscious human beings on this planet that we cannot find some sort of harmonious coexistence. So many of the reasons that we are not getting along stem from continued willful ignorance and the refusal to acknowledge reality by SOME people. People of color, especially Black folks, owning their history and recognizing its significant contributions to this country, should not be threatening or instill feelings of inadequacy, but for a certain segment of the population they do. LGBT+ people are not trying to influence your children by owning our existence, but a certain segment of the population feels as if we are. Voting by poor people and people of color is not going to be the end of the world, unless the goal is to pass as much legislation as possible to keep them from exercising any and all of their rights, and for a certain segment of the population that is threatening too. Women having ownership over their bodies is not going to be the end of humanity, but who do you suspect thinks that it will?
White supremacists/ Evangelicals/ Oath Keepers/ Proud Boys. etc., see just those 3 things from their long laundry list manifesto as part of THEIR displeasure with the direction this country is taking. Removing Confederate statues that are a reminder of racial terror perpetrated by a generation of people in plain sight in Southern cities is erasing THEIR history. These same folks are a part of a dwindling majority fearing they will become a minority. Sadly, these guys are a minority of crazy people within that majority who are willing to create chaos in order to preserve their flawed and cruel history, while negating the discussion, celebration, and progress of everyone else’s history.
For some reason, the fear of becoming a minority is scaring them. They are afraid of being treated by the “up and coming” majority in the same manner that THEY treated the minority. What makes that weird? It means that this group has to acknowledge that it has historically treated people poorly. They not only have to acknowledge that shitty history, but apologize for it and move forward from it, instead of trying to erase it and pretend none of it happened.
This is what is really happening.
— Keith Price (@Comedydaddy) January 31, 2022
Critical Race Theory is not nice to white people.
LGBT are letters in the alphabet in need of a vowel.
Slavery was fun.
Insert Other Lies Here: pic.twitter.com/Ve1WkqUnO4
