Who are We to Judge Love?

One of the hot topics in recent years is the LGBT+ community and the ability of its members to be out in public and be accepted and not be ashamed for who they are as a person. It has become a major controversy for more than the last six decades even though it has been around since the ancient times.

Homosexuality has been around since the Ancient Greeks. Men had a larger range for their sexual expression as they were allowed to walk the cities alone to meet mates. Older men were usually with younger men, and they boys were either bought as slaves or courted with their father's permission. Women still became wives of these men and did bare their children to continue the family name. It was thought of as the social norm that 'women were for business and boys were for pleasure.' Ancient Rome also accepted homosexuality until it was taken over by Christian authority, from then on it was considered a sin as interpreted in the Bible.

Now in the 21st century, there are variations of acceptance (or lack of) for homosexuality. Many developed countries that have generally accepted homosexuality to be as equal as to have legal marriages are in Europe, North America, and South America.

World Map on the levels of legalization for the LGBT+ community.

Some of these do vary such as in the United States where it is state by state regulation, but about 30 states and Washington D.C are in support so far out of the 52 states. Although marriage is not legal in the other states, it is still recognized which is a great achievement for the community. Other countries are not nearly aa progressive in the acceptance of gay marriage or even gays existing.

Russia is a wonderful example of a very strange intolerance for 'gayness,' but has yet to ban it, but Russia has a "Gay Propaganda" ban, which is of course very different from banning homosexuality altogether. Russia's government doesn't mind homosexuality as along as there isn't any meeting places for gays, any PDA, or any public notion that one is gay. Gay people must be 'closeted gays' and none can ever know about or else they may face jail time. The Russian governments goal is to make it as 'safe' as possible for Russian youths to avoid anything that could encourage them to have organizations that support and advocate for gay rights. 

The iPhone monument that once stood in St. Petersburg, Russia

Many supporters of equal rights for the LGBT+ community have made jokes and have poked fun at the Russian government about their ridiculous oppression of the gay community in Russia.

An article that came out last week in The Huffington Post that mocked the Russian government after they took down a statue of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, in St. Petersburg after they discovered that the present CEO, Tim Cook, was gay. One of the most homophobic legislators in the Russian government, Vitaly Milonovo, thought that they should ban the CEO from Russia since 'among other things, 'sodomites' spread Ebola." I can't even read this quote in my head without letting out a small chuckle of how utterly ridiculous this is. First of all they had a monument of a two meter tall (about 6 feet) iPhone in the middle of St. Petersburg to worship their technology god, then they decided that because Cook would bring  "Ebola, AIDS, and Gonorrhea" if he was allowed in the country for being gay, they tore the statue down to detach themselves from the diseased company. I'm sure that Cook was very upset that he couldn't get a selfie with this piece of work (the monument not Milonovo).

Homophobic Russian legislator Vitaly Milonovo (left), out and proud gay CEO of Apple Tim Cook (right)

As laughable and ridiculous Russia's gay propaganda ban is, there are other countries such as Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt, particularly Cairo, around the world that have life imprisonment and the death pentaly in store for those that come out. 

It is illegal to be gay in Uganda, and that is how it is. The Ugandan government refuses to believe that homosexuality is a genetic trait as it cannot be pin pointed to a single gene in human DNA, what they ignore is that one gene also does not determine hair color, a combination does. Since they feel that science can't prove it, they have determined that homosexuality in a social behavior that will not be tolerated as they feel that their people should be able change how they feel. It is vey clear that the Ugandans that feel this way are very ignorant and very much wanting to shuffle around any type of research or data to match their desires as when people use interpretations of the Bible to stake their claim as fact and that it should be used as law.

In Nigeria, life is very much the same. It aims to 'sanitize' itself as gays re an abomination in their eyes. In this Times article, a man was whipped 20 times for being gay, this is considered a kind punishment as the usual is death. Of course, many Nigerians were outraged by the fact that he did not receive the death penalty and threw things at the man as well as the judge that gave the punishment. Anything and everything gay is prohibited in the country and a Pew Research survey found that 98 percent of Nigerians opposed homosexuality and believe that it should not be accepted. This is a nearly unanimous survey, but my hope is that either there are people that lied for their own safety, or simply did not take it for the same fear and it is thought to be 'un-African'.

In Northeastern Africa, the opposition for homosexuality is fairly new, but rapidly growing in Cairo, Egypt. All was happy and peaceful in Cairo and it felt like a friendly community one man stated, but then everything changed when 52 egyptian men were arrested in a police raid on the Queen Boat, a typical gay hangout. About half were convicted for debauchery and sentenced to three years in jail which led to an uproar in Western governments and civil rights groups. The Egyptians have not outlawed homosexuality, but they go around that by condition of debauchery which is the excessive indulgence of sexual pleasure. Since the Egyptian government wasn't too fond of their differences, this was used as their core reason of conviction to reduce the amount of out homosexuals. While in jail one man, Mr. Abyad, said that they did was shaving their heads, the guards harassed them, and they were forced to sleep on the cold concrete floor without any toilet. The Egyptians are beginning to treat their people as slaves because of their genetic sexual orientation.

What these countries do to their people, to humans, is barbaric on many levels, unfortunately, as in the past with other forms of human opposition such as the Holocaust and slavery, people need to continue to fight for the freedom and equality of these human beings. The determination of activists and time are the keys to setting these people free from their hostile environments.

24601: Who am I?

This is the question that John Valjean asks himself once he realizes that an innocent man has been mistaken for himself and is going to trial for his crimes. At this point in his life, Jean Valjean is the mayor and owner of a factory. He has to make the decision of either concealing himself as this character that he has become or reveal his identity to the courts and save an innocent man to likely lose his own. Jean Valjean decides that he cannot hide and that he must reveal his true identity to be at peace with himself.

Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

Not all identities are life or death situations, at least not in this day and age, and should be thought about more deeply in order to figure out one's true self. There are steps to make our way through life that were theorized by psychologist Erik Erikson. Erikson's theory of psychosocial development goes through eight stages from birth to preschool, child, adolescents and the stages of adulthood. The stage in which shows great interest for psychologists is stage five which corresponds to adolescents that are trying to figure out their identity and understand who they are. In this phase, there can be a number of categories in which one tries to determine their identity such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, relationships, religion, politics, and occupation. Within each of these categories are four phases in which one can be in that James Marcia created to extend off of Erikson's theory.

Marcia's phases of his Identity Status Theory

There isn't an order in which these phases go in, but the idea is to try to reach the achievement stage as that is when one should be the most confident with what it is they are about such as a particular ethnicity. Ethnicity is a very interesting topic among the adolescent stage and even into young adulthood for some. Less than 40 years ago, very few people were concerned with their ethnicity shaping their identity if they were mixed, today it is a defining point for some to describe who they really are.

Ethnic identity has become a very interesting topic for many people in the United States. People from just about every background is here, with a little bit from another background, and possibly a third and fourth. The diversity of the country has led many to think more about what makes them who they are. When I think about my identity, I think of myself as everything I am: Italian, Irish, German, Swedish, and Native American. Some of these are very small bits, I believe I am roughly only about 1/32 Native American, but I still count it as what make up who I am. Depending on the situation, I may identify myself as a single ethnicity such as Italian when it come to food and reasons for me speaking loudly; when I have bright rosy cheeks even when it's not cold, I say its because I am Irish and Swedish. 

Although most of what my identity consists of is European, there are others in which they have a wider backgrounds such as Asian-European or Latino-African. An article from Time magazine focuses on a group of college students in a biracial and multiracial club. There meeting starts with an icebreaker of "Who am I?" to figure out somone's ethnic background. What once would have been an insult is now a fun game for everyone to get to know each other. The group began in the early 2000s at the University of Maryland where interest was immediate and has only grown since its founding. The present advisor Dr. Warren Kelly is in awe of how the same campus in which he was educated at (and is now an educator) has changed so dramatically with ethnicity and the diversity of it. Dr. Kelly himself is a mix of Japanese and African American, but during his college years he only identified with apart of himself.

“I was black and proud to be black,” Dr. Kelley said. “There was no notion that I might be multiracial. Or that the public discourse on college campuses recognized the multiracial community.”

 This idea of identifying as a single ethnicity likely comes from how the census once had to be filled out. Originally, you could only pick one Causcasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American to name a few. This limited someone that was African American and Native American for example to decide which one they identified with. Parents of mix children were angry about this and demanded a change. In the 2000 Census, the option went for "choose one" to "choose all that apply."  This caused an increase in the known diversity of the U.S. once the data had been collected and analyzed. 

Since the Census used to only allow on box to be checked for ethnic identity, some have wondered if President Obama is not the first 'black' president, but actually the first 'multiracial' president as both of his parents come from a different background and Obama has alway only been able to check on box and since checking mor than one is very new, he might have continued to check only the African American box for one reason or another. This caused a conflict with the Biracial and Multiracial Club and the school's N.A.A.C.P when they asked them their opinion. They said that they wanted the club to stop trying to take away 'their black president.' The multiracial group wanted clarity to support their cause, but the N.A.A.C.P wanted to have their cause to be shown as well which caused conflict between them.

On the other side, some African Americans actually try to decrease their amount of "blackness" in order to get jobs. In another Time article by Michael Luo, Luo describes the methods and reasonings behind people shifting their resumé around in order to make them seem "whiter." One example of this is a lady named Tahani Tompkins. Tompkins tried to get a job, her resumé was very good for the field that she was applying for, however, she wasn't getting hired. She decided, with a suggestion from a friend, to use her initials instead of her first name and have her resumé say T.S. Tompkins which ended up landing her job interviews. It seems a bit strange that something as simple as a name could increase the chances of a job interview. Sad, but true and Tompkins is not the only one. Other African Americans removing anything that outright says that they are African Americans the best they can in order to get jobs. Some go to lengths such as removing if their college was historically a black college, and any black non-profit organizations/support groups that they have been apart of, some go as far as rearranging their references from "whitest to blackest." All of this changing is done just to be noticed for a job interview to defend themselves in person. The lengths that some go to get a job is ridiculous as it is hiding their identity. With so many in the younger generations trying to display and show of their diversity, there are still many that are trying to hide because they feel that they have to.

Ethnicity is an important asset in one's life that can help to achieve identity status within themselves. Identity in general is something that one should be proud of and embrace. Embrace your differences whether you are African American, Asian-American, Bolivian-Asian, Hispanic-European, or a man hiding from the law behind another man, be who you are and show your true self.

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