| re: Randy Rainbow’s old, racist, and transphobic tweets resurface | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 08:51 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| In reply to: Randy Rainbow’s old, racist, and transphobic tweets resurface - pecansforall 08:26 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| This is getting a bit tiresome, even for an old lefty type like me (albeit white, cisgender, middle-class......). "Tranny" was a term in general use, especially in the LGBT cultures, ten years ago--let us recall that RuPaul used it and it was a common epithet on Project Runway and other queer-positive shows. No, I would not use it today and the reasons for why it is now considered offensive are legitimate and well-articulated by many. But language changes over time--why dig up decade old tweets in which a term had a very different set of connotations? As to the "racist" comments, they strike me as Rainbow making fun of white domination and supremacy of cultural markers as much as anything. Today, they may be a bridge too far, but I read the "Miss Jenkins" one as indicating that, in the period in which he grew up, to be a black woman in the primarily white socioeconomic world in which he grew up, black women would mainly be known as "roles," rather than as individuals (i.e. Randy or Randi). I think some people seem to have a lot of time on their hands, looking to find flaws in Rainbow, a figure who wears his queerness (and his smart feyness--an apologetic lack of any attempt to come across as traditionally "masculine," and I know terms like fey, masculine, and feminine are vexed and contested, but some of us are proud that we do not feel pressured to perform traditional masculinity and that we can perform a slyness that is often more associated with non-heteronormative and non-traditional gender styles, and that we have worked damn hard for that). Between COVID, the Post Office, the upcoming election--aren't there enough CURRENT issues to address? |
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| Next: | i wish i could agree - Chazwaza 11:14 pm EDT 08/18/20 |
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