I think that appropriating the language of your adversaries may seem witty, but ultimately it is confusing and oppressive to your own community's language and expression. Saying that our side is pro-family too, is a true statement. But it is not strong enough to win. To win it will take years to redefine what family means to the American psyche - the word family has already been framed by the right. We can't just say wait, we are pro-family too, because we are not the same kind of pro-family that they are... are we? George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant would not be amused by this. Our community needs to come up with something a little better than this.
3 comments:
BRING BACK THE PINK TRIANGLE
and wear it everyday at all times
We as activists have many different concernes about the LGBT community. The pink triangle needs to be our symbol again--one of unity and one of self-declared difference. And one which has an historical connection to what happened to the LGBT and is continuing to happen.
Mark,
You are once again so right about the use of pro-family terms to describe our lobby groups. MEQ needs to begin to open up its process to the rest of us.
KnowThyNeighbor understands that using the language of the opposition against it works but NOT when we describe ourselves. It was very effective to get the dialogue energized with the bigots but is (I agree) not effective when we use this language to describe ourselves. Example, KTN always would refer to the amendment as "anti-family" and the Mass Family Institute as "anti-family." This really did work in confusing the otherside and getting the bigots riled up. Why can't our lobby get it right?
I think we should bring back the triangles and the rainbows (with the black stripe) most definately.
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