Don’t Blame Yesterday’s Colonialism for Today’s Homophobia

[bmh4d0k3n]

By Mark Joseph Stern | July 3 2014 8:30 AM

Comments

[maynardsong]

I mean, I don't think it's right to ignore the influence of it. Anti gay laws need to change everywhere, anywhere. But usually I only invoke colonialism if someone's like, "God, Indians are so backwards", you know?

[akashasheiress]

The influence of colonialism doesn't end as soon as the colonised break free. It's very naive to think that all that stuff is firmly in the past and it doesn't continue to affect the self-image of the former colony.

Besides, it's not as if you can't acknowledge where something comes from and still condemn it.

[belleweather]

I'm sort of flames-on-my-face about this whole article -- like, Jamaican homophobia is a really, legitimate, and actual thing and is an enormous, life-threatening problem for actual LGBT people in Jamaica. It's also about to become a very serious problem for Jamaica as a whole, as a country with a struggling economy which makes a huge percentage of it's income and hard foreign currency from tourism, most of which comes in from countries where blatant homophobia is not OK. It's also a hugely divisive political issue in jamaica right fucking now

[ebay313]

Colonialism was not that long ago that we should expect to see no effects in the present from it. Also, while I don't know much about Jamaica, this mentions Uganda as well- where American, fundamentalist missionaries have played a role in fueling that hatred and fear of lgbt people, in the present. The role western countries have played is not all in the past.
And I don't see how pointing out the role western countries have played in helping to foster these ideologies, and holding those who has done so accountable for that, means looking the other way and ignoring or justifying the anti-gay laws in countries like Uganda.

[astragalizo]

That's all nice and sweet, but in Uganda the recent wave of homophobia was basically incubated by US missionaries, like Scott Lively, who put a lot of money where their disgusting homophobic mouths are.
I've been seeing a whole lot of racist anglophone assholes being all "lol Uganda" and "savage homophobes" and "I didn't know they had any laws in Uganda" (actual quotes) which is sort of fucking rich, seeing as it was a buch of ~*civilized*~Americans who spread that bullshit in the first place.