Edit
2/10/2009
India's Gay Prince
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1127537
I got a comment saying we should get married to suppress our desires, and that is an understandable idea to have but this man did that and it ruined a girls life, and who knows how many others lives are ruined because people are trying to suppress their desires. View the article :-) It's quite intriguing.
Again thank you for reading!
End Edit
In my last post I asked everyone what their view of homosexuality was and I got the response I expected to get.
Most people have just embraced homosexuality in context of the American culture, and might not accept it but they tend to tolerate it
Well tolerance and acceptance are not the same things, and I cannot make anyone accept any principle/ideology/cause they do not support. I do understand that homosexuality is a very touchy topic, especially for those of us who are religious. Almost all religions I know of do not approve of homosexuality and therefore we grew up thinking it was wrong and so today we tolerate it but cannot wholeheartedly accept it.
I really will not even dip my hands into the religious aspect of homosexuality because it will just be a cyclical argument and no one will have the answer.
So in order to avoid arguments I will just say that we are NOT born gay, because if God condones it he won't make his people gay. But how can we control a persons desire? Just like God did not make war, aids, crime humans have socially constructed many different things and perhaps homosexuality and the desires that go along with were socially (most likely) constructed.
South Asians have a much harder time accepting homosexuality because often we think this is an "American problem" and people in our culture seldom experience it. Well there are two flaws with that thinking
One is that it is in fact NOT an American problem but homosexuality is experience in the world over, and second of all even labelling it as a problem shows our attitudes towards it.
Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, you can name it and do your research and you will find a gay community. Now why do I even care if people accept or understand homosexuality? Well because the lens I see it through is as such, homosexual desires do not always translate to a person BEING a homosexual (doing is not same as being) and even if a person did identify their urges and claim to be gay, why should I have a problem with that?
Does anyone tell me my heterosexual urges are not right, that I should suppress my thoughts and desires. Most often people do not have problem with people being homosexual but they have problem accepting the homosexual desires people experience. We see them as perverse experiences and attitudes.
If we allow ourselves to weed out and segregate people based on desires we think are perverse then slowly the government, and society will start segregating people based on other criteria as well, for example if you wear a turban or hijab you cannot work in any government jobs. The connection might seem bizarre but with rational think it really is not very bizarre
I encourage you all to do more research and find out more and see why it is that you can only tolerate the homosexual community but not accept it
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
oh my god you're so gay!
The term "gay" has officially turned into a substitute for stupid/funny/girly/sissy/dumb/and whatever else a person wants to use it for. It is slowly become an everyday word in the American lexicon and most of the time we say the word gay and don't ever stop to think what it really means.
Perhaps it is easier to give that word a different meaning and turn it into something funny and people can see the humor in it, for example like the word "whore" as many of us may refer to our friends as regardless of how promiscuous they may or may not be.
So this week the focus will the gay/lesbian/queer community in the South Asian community and in order to start off the week addressing this issue I think it's really important to know what that word "gay" means to you, and the word "lesbian" and queer. Does it provoke certain images? Certain thoughts? What context do you use it? Do you think those words can be important to the South Asian community?
Before I start writing about this issue I would like you to explore within yourself and try and help me so that I can understand what some of you may think and better be able to understand it in a different context and give you facts and statistics that might challenge or reinforce your thoughts. So please comment :-)
Perhaps it is easier to give that word a different meaning and turn it into something funny and people can see the humor in it, for example like the word "whore" as many of us may refer to our friends as regardless of how promiscuous they may or may not be.
So this week the focus will the gay/lesbian/queer community in the South Asian community and in order to start off the week addressing this issue I think it's really important to know what that word "gay" means to you, and the word "lesbian" and queer. Does it provoke certain images? Certain thoughts? What context do you use it? Do you think those words can be important to the South Asian community?
Before I start writing about this issue I would like you to explore within yourself and try and help me so that I can understand what some of you may think and better be able to understand it in a different context and give you facts and statistics that might challenge or reinforce your thoughts. So please comment :-)
Mission Statement
Hello everyone
My name is Farzana Rahman and I am currently a sophomore at the University of Michigan. I am a psychology and sociology major and have a profound interest in social justice issue and social justice reform. Before I go on and talk about why I am starting this blog I would like to take a moment to give a background on myself
I am 19 years old, born in Bangladesh and moved to the US with my family at the tender age of 11 months. I lived in NY for about 11 years (Queens :]) and then moved to Michigan and attended high school here. I have always been very involved in my school academically and socially, I have been vice president of my class student council, homecoming committe. All those things are great and I am proud of because it has given me a sense of leadership early on and the importance of organization. I am also a certified peer mediator an that training and that activity has helped me in solving conflicts within groups I have worked with
But now as I am getting older I want to do more, I want to be involved in things that involve change and this year I have taken steps forward to do that. I will be introducing my upcoming projects through this blog but not quite yet
I want this blog to address vast amounts of social issues and human rights violation that we face in our world today. It will not geared towards any one specific community but it will introduce many of the adversities our South Asian communities face because I think that is a community that has problem but very few to address it. I also want this blog to provide inspiration and resources to help those who want to help others. Every two weeks I will be focusing on an issue and taking suggestions on what issues to address. I will also be providing information as to how people coud contact organizations that are helping in those issues as well.
I hope this project and blog will be useful to those who visit it and will also help me bring change to my community and help me better my enviroment and myself
With great love
Farzana
My name is Farzana Rahman and I am currently a sophomore at the University of Michigan. I am a psychology and sociology major and have a profound interest in social justice issue and social justice reform. Before I go on and talk about why I am starting this blog I would like to take a moment to give a background on myself
I am 19 years old, born in Bangladesh and moved to the US with my family at the tender age of 11 months. I lived in NY for about 11 years (Queens :]) and then moved to Michigan and attended high school here. I have always been very involved in my school academically and socially, I have been vice president of my class student council, homecoming committe. All those things are great and I am proud of because it has given me a sense of leadership early on and the importance of organization. I am also a certified peer mediator an that training and that activity has helped me in solving conflicts within groups I have worked with
But now as I am getting older I want to do more, I want to be involved in things that involve change and this year I have taken steps forward to do that. I will be introducing my upcoming projects through this blog but not quite yet
I want this blog to address vast amounts of social issues and human rights violation that we face in our world today. It will not geared towards any one specific community but it will introduce many of the adversities our South Asian communities face because I think that is a community that has problem but very few to address it. I also want this blog to provide inspiration and resources to help those who want to help others. Every two weeks I will be focusing on an issue and taking suggestions on what issues to address. I will also be providing information as to how people coud contact organizations that are helping in those issues as well.
I hope this project and blog will be useful to those who visit it and will also help me bring change to my community and help me better my enviroment and myself
With great love
Farzana
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