Straight pride? Oy vey....

[conuly]

I think this is all a result of confusing and conflating two different definitions of the word "pride".

The first has to do with a sense of accomplishment. I am proud to have gotten 3 As and an A- last summer. I am proud to have gone to Stuy (even though I didn't stay there).

The second has to do with simply not being ashamed. That's what people mean they have gay pride, or black pride, or autistic pride. They haven't accomplished any of these things, they simply mean that they aren't ashamed of them and don't wish to change them. They have to say that they're proud because they're all minorities. Mainstream culture would generally prefer that these people change, or pretend to change, or act as though they've changed. Mainstream culture encourages people to be ashamed of things they cannot help, if those things make them different. Mainstream culture kinda sucks, doesn't it?

Anyway, as I was saying, you can't really use "pride" in a sense of "not being ashamed" unless you're a minority. People who identify as straight really aren't a minority, and make all the laws, and therefore don't get a parade. Sorry, duckies.

Comments

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

I think that the link between pride and being a minority is why so many white people don't really realize that they have a distinct race and can be proud of it. I don't mean stupid Neo-Nazis; I mean being able to say that you recognize that you have a racial identity, even though it's the majority of this country.

I'm wording this badly.

It's just that when I was in jr. high and high school in Washington state, it never really occurred to me that my skin color meant anything, not in the way that my Chinese-American or African-American or Native American friends had meaning. I wasn't special. I was just plain old boring white. Logically I knew that it was my race, but it took a while before I decided to be proud of being who I am, racially as well as personally.

Part of that difficulty is definitely due in part to the freaks who say "White Power" and give us all a bad name, but it's also because not being a minority makes it almost embarrassing to say, "This is my race. Yay!"

Geez, I feel uncommonly unintelligent tonight. Maybe I should sleep. I'd delete this and rewrite it later, but it's already typed and everything!

[conuly]

No, I think I understand what you mean, though I doubt I could rephrase it.