roachboy

bows with sweeping gesture of the hat in the direction of mojo.



on another topic: i have kind of a problem with the migration of invective from field to field---example: the phrase "x...is gay" to mean weak or bizarre or stupid--last week, some nimrod student in one of my seminars signed an attendance sheet (which i hate having to keep, but that is another story) with his name on one line, and below it "x_______________is gay"

i found it juvenile on the one hand (as a thing to do) and offensive in itself on the other. really irritating to have to deal with at the university level.

i dont pretend to know how this trend got started, but i see it as something of an attempt (conscious at some moment or not) to normalize the abuse of a particular group of people based entirely on who members of that group choose to love.

that this abuse has currency amongst a segment of the american right is distressing...but it is also curious, in that it seems to waft up from protestant fundamentalist groups who in the main believe in the "literal interpretation" of the bible--what it shows is the arbitrariness of the readings that these groups construct based on the assumptions of "literalness"---for example, what i have seen/read is based on a mixing of the priority between old and new testaments--which seems an odd thing for christians to do--i would have thought that the new testament would have a relation to the old as christ said it did: it supercedes it. and the central message of christ is one of not passing judgement on others, of extending love to your neighbor, etc. i dont understand this.
anyone care to explain how this reading works?
how it is justified internally, among fundamentalists?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite