Topic #10. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender mixed race relationships
(Showing 18-32 of 84)

18. for Bethanie
Fri, Sep 17, 1999 - 6:36 PM/EST
gwendolyn

Thank you for your comments.

I live in Santa Cruz, CA which is on the Monterey Bay, about 40 miles south of San Jose, CA, 75 miles from Oakland and 94 miles from San Francisco. The reason I mention the various miles, because sometimes I feel like I'm back in the "hippie dippie" 60's living in this community and it takes me forever to get out and into the real world.

19. Bible from the Master?
Sat, Sep 18, 1999 - 11:10 AM/EST

I just want to correct what i think is a mis-information. The Bible did not spread from the masters to the slaves. In fact the masters very much fought it - they passed laws against teaching slaves to read, and if slaves were baptised they had to sign( or x) pledges that this didn't change their slave status.

Rather, as i understand it, slaves identified with someone who was surrounded by the "masters" of his day and found his own freedom. He was homeless and yet kind to the poor and not conquered himself.

And it wasn't a push from the Church, or Churches either. The black Churches developed quite apart from the white.

All that taken into account the Message of Christ is not a white man's message. Any who really understood it struck out against the system of oppression and misery because it was the kind of thing Jesus himself suffered. Alas alas they were so rare. And today Christianity is hopelessly divided congregation from congregation. For example the black church is almost entirely ignorant and distant from the the division the persists in Jerusolem itself among the Christian chruches. One of the holy places owned by one church. But there is an agreement for another church to visit regularly. To manage the transition a Moslem (!) family is trusted with the keys!

BTW i am neither Christian or Moslem but respect each Faith, it's Message, and it's Founders.

20. Gwendolyn...
Sat, Sep 18, 1999 - 11:21 AM/EST

This just shows you how 'off' our perceptions of places can be. I always felt that Santa Cruz--in seeing it from the outside, was a sort of bastion for feminist/lesbian ideals, and kind of always had a great respect for it--also love the downtown bookstores. The reason I asked was to hear you talking, it really sounded like an ultra-conservative inland California town. Of course, I never spent much time there, so I guess I really don't have a clue as to what it's really like. It makes the subject we're discussing more interesting to know that you're living in an area where there is supposed to be acceptance, and yet you don't feel it. Did you move there thinking that there would be acceptance?

Bethanie

21. Steven--
Sat, Sep 18, 1999 - 11:25 AM/EST

You have to acknowledge I think that the entire concept of Christianity was passed down from slave-owner to slave. Even if you do make the point that reading was outlawed. And when blacks finally were able to learn to read, what do you think they read?

Let's not quibble over fine points.

Bethanie

22. Steven and Bethanie
Sat, Sep 18, 1999 - 12:17 PM/EST
ethie'sgirl

Steven, your points are well-taken, but I'm agreeing with Bethanie. While it's true that slave owners fought slave literacy, it's also true that Christianity was used by the masters to justify slavery (to themselves and to their slaves) and that religion sometimes created divisions between slaves -- those who converted and those who refused to convert.

23. Gwendolyn
Sat, Sep 18, 1999 - 11:18 PM/EST

I had an interesting conversation the other night with a young man (white) with whom I work. He is 25, totally blind and now coming to terms with his sexuality and the fact that he prefers men. He told me that he has talked to his mother about this but that he is afraid to talk to his father because of the way his father feels about gays. He told me his father is also a racist and is worried that his son will "get involved with a N....". He laughed and said, "Doesn't he realize that to me there is no color??" What an incredible thought....he knows no color issue, only what he has been told. He doesn't know about physical beauty or lack thereof. He only knows how he feels about the person with whom he is dealing. Amazing.

I realize that this is somewhat off the subject, but wanted to share this experience with you all.

Donna Lou

24. Christianity
Sun, Sep 19, 1999 - 10:23 AM/EST

I am not talking about how masters used Christianity for themselves. It was said that Christianity came into and spread through the slaves because of the masters.

To the best of my knowledge this is not the case. It was spread sideways through the slave community much much more than it was from masters. Mistaking the two misjudges authentic religious experience.

Please don't read my presentation as a blind defense of Christianity. As it is the largest and most wide spread religion in the world it holds a decent part of the guilt for the way things are and what people did with it to justify their actions both before and since slavery (cf. Bosnia et. al. for example)

But also understand that very little of what we call Christianity has anything to do with it in it's first several hundred years let alone it's first thousand. From the very idea of seeing a man on a cross bleeding at the front of a church to the fact of denominations which cast eachother into hell nothing we call Christianity has any roots in what Jesus said and did. Well perhaps i speak to universally but you get my point.

For a very long time Christianity was a source of healing for entire civilizations and brought peoples together that had fought eachother before. Now it is hopelessly divided from itself. But in between being a source of healing and hopeless division and strife Islam came on the scene (no i am not a Moslem! keep reading!) came and did the same for many many more people. Buddhism, Hinduism... all the great religions early on brought people together and improved the way things were. And just about the time things fell apart another religion came along to pull things together some more. Funny thing is each religion ussually has prophecies about someone coming to take things to a higher level but by then the religion itself has evolved into the thing which opposes the new message.

things that make you go hmmmmm

25. Steven...
Sun, Sep 19, 1999 - 1:19 PM/EST

Christianity as a source of 'healing' for entire civilizations????????? Think if you will of the Roman Catholic Church..the "Crusades" as they called them, where people were murdered if they did not accept Jesus and the "Church" as their way of life..the Spanish Inquisition? Where people were also murdered. The witch hunts of the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, all done in the name of 'The Lord.' And the conquering of the "New World"--which to the people who lived on it, it wasn't all that new. If you just look at the Mission system in California, and it's appalling history of working the Native American people to death, you perhaps wouldn't say this way of life was a 'healing' experience for all people. What about the Jewish community, which has endured prejudism for years because of their beliefs. "Christians" have justified this prejudism because it was the "Jewish" community that crucified Christ in the Bible.

Having said all this, I was raised in a Strictly Christian environment. I have read and studied the Bible from cover to cover, and I think we could all learn something from the direct teachings of Jesus. But there is so much else in the bible, that seems to have been used not as a loving healer of people and a way toward tolerance and understanding, but as a way to condemn, for one the gay community, which is what we are supposed to be discussing here, and there are also many statements made about slavery (keeping the slave in line with his/her master's wishes) and women, that even now is used as a method of subjugation, and a rational for people to accept prejudice and homophobia. Not to mention it has kept some of the women in my family (their intense beliefs in the Bible the only thing standing sometimes between themselves and happiness), in unhappy and sometimes physically abusive relationships.

cotd

26. cotd.
Sun, Sep 19, 1999 - 1:25 PM/EST

Because they are supposed to 'obey' their husbands, and divorce is one of the listed 'sins' in certain parts of the bible, that is, a man was allowed to divorce his wife, but a woman was not allowed to divorce her husband.

Now I realize you are coming from a "New Age" perspective of trying to embrace and respect all religions, but in doing so without the knowledge and understanding of what "Christianity" has done to those who did not want to follow it's beliefs, or those who were kept in chains because of what the Bible had to say about slavery, and now those who are punished for being Gay, because of what the Bible says about Homosexuality, you disrespect the people it has hurt by dismissing their pain.

Yes, the teachings of Jesus are full of understanding, forgiveness and love, but there is more to the Bible than that. And Christianity is based on a belief in The Bible, which is necessarily taken in full, and not in just the happy segments that portray Jesus' love and forgiveness for others. I myself love the teachings of Jesus, and I too feel we could all glean something useful from them with which to live our lives...but that does not mean I can erase all the bad that the church has done over the years, and all the bad it continues to do in terms of supporting a homophobic culture. Let's not forget the recent boycott of Disney by the church community because the Disney Corp. employed gay people. That JUST happened.

Bethanie

27. Bethanie
Sun, Sep 19, 1999 - 6:59 PM/EST

Everything you pointed out happened over a thousand years after Jesus. It is entirely blameworthy, but it is not part of the original message and would not characterize it over it's first thousand years.

I am not particularly a New Ager. I am a Baha'i and have spent considerable energy studying Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Taosim and looked more than passingly at Shintoism and some Native Faiths.

Race based oppression, the oppression of women by men, these are among the topics Baha'is have spent over a hundred years working on. I am a plain white guy. I wasn't brought up particularly involved about such issues nor is my formal education about such matters nor was anyone close to me particularly troubled by these topics.

But I am now involved.

Please note that the discussion about Christianity began with a comment about Christianity spreading among the slaves because of the masters. It has now spread to trying to understand the Cruscades, conquering the New World, and the pain Christianity has caused. I have repeatedly said i'm not "just" defending Christianity. I have also dwelt on some of Christianity's failings

In truth Bethanie i think we have more in common in our posts than differences. Please re-read my posts and stop hearing every other conversation about Christianty you have ever had.

28. on another thread
Sun, Sep 19, 1999 - 7:09 PM/EST

a post above said something like have you ever seen a gay bigot, suggesting that if you have suffered oppression you are less likely to cause it.

I seriously question this. If this were so then blacks themselves would not cause oppression because they have certainly suffered it. Even Cicily recognized racism among blacks - something i have seen preciously little of in many conversations with blacks.

29. Steven
Tue, Sep 21, 1999 - /EST
ethie'sgirl

While I agree that we should try to avoid generalizations, I would have to agree with the comment about the absence of gay bigots. Of course I accept that gay bigots can exist, and I certainly don't claim to know such an enormous number of gay people that I could make some sort of statistical, analytical guess, but the idea seems pretty on target to me. I agree with your point about blacks and oppression, however. I often wonder about that, and about why blacks and Jews are so often sniping at each other. It's completely crazy and truly frustrating. Then I remind myself that I am trying to make sense of something senseless, that prejudice exists outside of logic.

30. For Bethanie,
Wed, Sep 22, 1999 - 2:51 PM/EST
gwendolyn

I have been off line for a few days, our quarter is just getting underway and all of us in Student Affairs are quit busy. Santa Cruz is the bastion for feminist/lesbian ideals, but at the same time Santa Cruz is an ultra conservative that is still somewhat in the 60's. I move to SC to return to school, and this was the school I was accepted to. I am the first in my family to graduate high school and the first to attend college and graduate, so you could say I was a late re-entry student out to get an education and I did.

gwendolyn

31. For Steven and Bethanie,
Wed, Sep 22, 1999 - 2:56 PM/EST
gwendolyn

Steven you are all wet and have no idea what you are talking about and Bethanie thanks for the point well taken, my grandfather, and great grand father could not read well or read at the 2nd or 3rd grade level, but they could read the Bible.

gwendolyn

32. For donnalou1
Wed, Sep 22, 1999 - 3:05 PM/EST
gwendolyn

Your example just points out how deep racism has entrenched itself in our country. It makes me think there will never be any changes made, but being the optimist that I am I keep hoping that racism will just disappear like the fog. Thank you for sharing your story.

gwendolyn