2-27-2016

Should We Accept Gay Bashing? 

Just last night I was talking to to someone about a rapper who is allegedly gay. Young Thug. I honestly don't know if he is or isn't I was asking because if he was, I would buy his album to show support. Anyway, in this process a man chimed in with "oh yeah, Young Thug, he's a faggot" I cringed, literally. He apparently wasn't phased by my expression so I didn't say anything. Then he repeated himself to be clear "yeah, he's on the faggot stuff" All I could do was walk away. Angry.
I began to think about all the times at work and on the breezeway and in the chow hall and in the day room that I hear people say faggot, I hate that word. It pisses me off. They say it as if it's this horrible thing to be gay. Like that is the worst insult you can give a man...That angers me, but I deal with it from so many people at once, what am I going to do, fight the whole world? Hardly.
But what do I do? That's a legitimate question, seriously, what do I do? Last night, I pulled up that guy privately and said I was gay and didn't like that word. He immediately apologized and I felt better, but that is an isolated incident and it had real potential to turn sour. Which I was fully prepared for. I had even taken out my earrings..."ooh girl, watch me go!" LOL!
Luckily it didn't happen like that, I hate fighting and I will do most anything to avoid it. But there is this other part of me that understands men and their need to chide each other. Almost none of them are wanting to "hurt" my feelings. It's something that they are just simply joking about. I try to lighten up about it intervening only when I feel attacked, like last night. 
Check this out though. Those that are around me know that I am gay and try to me accepting when previously, they didn't have to. Most of them cold-blooded murderers who could just as easily kill me and feel nothing about it. But instead they talk with me, they look past my criminal charge and my sexuality and they try to see me for me. Kind of, there is always talk of my sexuality, it is this ever present concept in their mind that they think of every time they see me.
They are trying to sort out their own feelings of discomfort and wonder. I am an oddity to them, something that is this strange fruit that they are trying to figure out. Something that they are trying to come to terms with. that I understand, that I get. So when they say things that are hurtful, I imagine that black had to endure the same thing back in the 60's and sometimes even today. I know plenty of them that had to carry on and lift their head high, if they can do it, so can I.
A little at a time they discover more about me. That I have feelings and that words hurt me, that I have standards and morals. They figure it out that I am not always checking them out, that I am capable of working with them without trying to have sex with them. (that is a real fear here people...)
My only real problem is, the inmates (the dangerous ones here) accept me and quickly comes to terms with my sexuality, it's the guards that don't. Despite the constant "faggot" word that comes out, it's not meant to hurt me, it's simply meant to chide a friend. 

Should we accept that