Yet most politicians have shied away from discussing the social and political attitudes shaping homophobia — the actual motivation for the attack. Several members of Congress conducted a theatrical “sit-in” on the House of Representatives floor to push for a bill banning those on the “no-fly” list from purchasing guns, but those same representatives have had little to say on the climate of hate leading up to the massacre. [...]
Nor is violence and discrimination against LGBT people merely a product of individual acts. While the United States proclaims itself to be a bastion of democracy and liberation, over twenty-two states have legalized hate through anti-LGBT laws. More than a hundred anti-LGBT bills have hit legislative houses from local city councils to the United States Senate in recent years, much of it in response to the federal legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015. [...]
The current effort for gun control is also explicitly racialized. The typical mass shooter is a right-wing white man from a Christian background, yet Democrats’ strongest action for gun control has been based on the no-fly list, a racist Bush-era measure that targets Muslims almost exclusively. [...]
Channeling the conversation toward gun control erases, and thus legitimates, violence perpetuated by the police. The rhetoric asking for the banning of assault rifles seems built on the pretense that the police are surrounding our protests with teddy bears and candy, not barricades and the very same assault rifles.
No comments:
Post a Comment