A couple of nights ago I called my 91 year old grandmother to check in. I try to call her at least a couple of times a week since my grandfather passed away last April. She was doing just fine.My grandmother has been a staunch conservative for her entire life. She has gone to the same church for over 60 years and is a strict believer in the word of God.
So, it came as a real surprise to me that she told me that she saw the film MILK recently with her friends. The movie, currently nominated for several Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay, tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office.
Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He also was instrumental in defeating Proposition 6, a state wide referendum which would have banned all homosexuals from teaching in public schools. He, along with Mayor George Muscone, was assassinated by another member of the Board named Dan White on November 27, 1978. White's motive was anger over the liberal, multi cultural turn that the board had taken. In addition to electing the first gay man, the Board had also elected its first single mom and first Chinese American, two other people that White had planned on killing but changed his mind after he shot Muscone 4 times (3 in the head) and Milk also 5 times (2 in the head) with hollow point bullets.
I had recently seen the film as well, being a part of my usual Oscar blitz at this time of year, and both of us talked about it. She remarked of the horrible treatment by fellow Americans that gay people have had to endure which is depicted quite vividly in the film. She was angry at how un-Christian supposed followers of Jesus were when the topic of homosexuality comes up. And then she dropped a bomb shell on me.
She told me that homosexuals are born the way God intended them to be and it was not learned behavior like some people thought. Wow! Even 20 years after he was shot, Harvey is still changing people's minds.
Needless to say, I was very happy. We talked some more about the film and how incredibly sad it was that America has so many stories about people who try to stand up and change things to make people happier only to be gunned down by psychotic morons.
If you go see the film, a word of warning: they show everything in the assassination scene. It is very difficult to watch. I have no qualms about saying that I wept like a baby before, during and after it.
5 comments:
how incredibly sad it was that America has so many stories about people who try to stand up and change things to make people happier only to be gunned down by psychotic morons.
M - in your opinion, is this a uniquely US problem? Does it happen more now in our country than it used to? Does it happen more here than it does in other modern civilizations?
I have no idea what the statistics might bear out re: gun violence and the like. I ask those questions only because it strikes me as unfortunate that you would characterize an otherwise perfectly admirable thought only in the context of America. We all want America to be viewed as some sort of shining example, but let's be honest...our history really only looks clean in 9th-grade history books.
Several good points here, pl. Historically, this is not uniquely a US problem. In many ways, I believe it started with Jesus Christ.
I think you will agree, though, that the United States has defined the world in the last 200 years. I don't think that is hubris. It is fact. It has happened more in this country in the last 45 odd years because of the great change we have gone through in this country on a socio-cultural level and it is more apparent because we are a leader in the world. We set ourselves up to be the moral authority in the world, which is true to a certain extent, only to fail miserably at least half of the time.
We do have the highest level of gun violence in our society than any other, statistically speaking. The reason for this is explored quite extensively in Michael Moore's film Bowling For Columbine, sadly mistaken continually as being anti gun. Our culture is geared towards fear which usually leads to violence.
Our history books are too clean and they need to be fixed. Loewen talks about this in depth in Lies My Teacher Told Me which shows, in so many ways, the real history of this country...warts and all.
Well, pop-culture references aside, I don't disagree with the sentiment. To me the failure here isn't that people in this country are fearful, violent, or whatever characterization you might use. The failure is in the expectation that the US would be a place where those qualities don't exist. In other words, to project the US as some sort of moral authority in the world.
People have always and will always behave this way. The truly important thing is to not let that behavior prevail.
Agreed. I have to admit that, from time to time, I look at the people who have been shot in this country...especially in the last 40 odd years...President Kennedy, Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy, Harvey Milk, John Lennon...think of how different our lives would be had they lived...how much more interesting:)
Spoken like a true Christian, Mark, "...I believe it started with Jesus Christ." Like there couldn't possibly have been a human before the year zero C.E. that was killed for saying maybe we should try being nice to each other?
While I can't state specific cases right now, I would think it's safe to say that humans have slaughtered other humans for daring to speak out against the evil of the moment since our earliest days of stalking the grasslands, or at least since we first settled down into agrarian social groups.
My point? Jesus, if he existed at all, is merely the most obvious example to cite in our culture. But, as a student of human behavior, I think it's a safe bet that there are probably countless examples of human savagery committed upon those who dare to point out a better way to think, especially if that better way involves a thought so revolutionary as to suggest that we might try being civil to all humans, not just those who agree with us.
Where the problem becomes American, is with our inherent gun culture. We are steeped in the nonsensical idea that a gun is the best, most efficient way to settle any dispute. "I shoot you, I win."
I don't want to kick off another gun debate with this thread, I do want to point out one item-of-interest. The most recent CDC statistics I could find were from 2005. The single largest percentage of gun deaths in America were in the group of white males, over the age of forty, via suicide. Higher than young black males, higher than every group/age/sex category. Roughly 40 per cent of the gun deaths in 2005 were middle-age white guys blowing their brains out! No other group scored even close, most around 5 to 10 per cent.
All gun deaths sadden me. I don't think it necessary nor wise to try to confiscate guns from law-abiding American citizens. A vast majority of legal gun owners are reasonable people who will never need to use their gun on another person. But we can do a lot more to change this culture of gun violence. We must do more to change the gun culture in this country. I think this is where the NRA continually misses the boat. Instead of using their vast media resources to continually whine about the nebulous enemy who wants to take their guns, they should be speaking out against every high-profile gun killing. It should never be the NRAs stance that shooting up a church, or college is what responsible gun owners do. It is the responsible gun owners who should be the most outraged by these killings, because each one makes all gun owners look like crazed psychopaths. This is where the NRA fails. Not once have they spoken out against any of the recent gun slayings. Not once! But they continue to vomit up the same old fear-mongering propaganda.
"They're coming to take our guns!"
No, we're NOT coming to take your guns. We don't want your guns. We wouldn't know what to do with your guns once we got them, or where we would put them. The mere logistics involved in transporting that many guns somewhere is mind-boggling. Get off the old mantra. Get with the program. Help us end senseless gun deaths in America. And by that I mean ALL gun deaths in America.
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