katlyn

Homosexuality. Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Prejudice. All large factors in the way the world works today. Yes, we have come a long way since voices like those of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Martin Luther King Jr., but those great steps are just the beginning to the road against stereotypes and racism ahead.
In Mehta’s article “Society’s Need for a Queer Solution�, she talks about homosexuality in several different lights. The ideas that homosexuality is “curable�, no one is born that way, and it is dependent upon the culture, etc are all brought up. I think these are interesting points to make because they exemplify society’s growing need to define what isn’t necessarily understood. Because the general population does not fall under the category of homosexual, society attempts to decode this “foreign� way of life; Mehta even quotes that being homosexual “was now a species� rather than a personal preference. Stereotyping what “gay� is also plays a large role in society. What a person wears, how they speak, who they talk to, and their body language all register in a person’s mind, falling into certain category’s based on previous pre-conceptions or ideals.
The same can be related to racism, as described in Kim Nelson’s article. She explains that although not many people can verbally or mentally admit it, they too have generalized ideals about certain groups of people. Whether it’s race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, etc., she claims it is normal for a person to have these opinions about different types of people. Since when was it normal for a person to be “ok� with having these pre judgments against others? Isn’t that the wall so many people are trying to breach?