in which the dog invents a new term
2 Oct 2009 02:00 amcontinuation of lambda, literature, voices, and also, I live in the taj mahal.
Pop quiz! Name the moron who made this statement!
If you answered "Jackson Rathbone," you get a cookie! And thus, I hereby propose:
that's some awkward phrasing. any editing suggestions, better example, maybe?
For another real-life example, here's someone encouraging a rathbone in the LLA kerfluffle*, with context being that the LLF would take it at face-value that a nominee is part of the community: "just say you're bisexual, that's easy enough." Or a speaker rathbones, "I kissed a girl once or twice in college, that should be enough to call myself bisexual." Or you can rathbone vicariously! When person A would like to have that award, and admits s/he isn't sure whether the label applies but notes, "it just says that if you say you're LGBT -- whatever that means to you -- then you are." If the audience exhorts, "just say you're bi!" then we've got vicarious rathboning!
*snorts*
( And a collection of other random addendums I was too tired or time-crammed to include in the last past, along with thoughts prompted by comments. )
The books I chose for my bookstore, the default recommendations to my LGBT teenaged customers were always LLF awarded-books -- because I knew these stories would be authentic voices, would be a reliable 'core' of LGBT literature. I wanted my customers -- kids and adults alike -- to know that they were reading a book by someone who had been through the same thing, who got them on a deeper level. To mangle Stephen Vincent Benet, 'no straight that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it'.
Until a queer kid doesn't have to fear for his life in being queer, until a queer kid never faces a life or even a single instance of being treated as invisible, until even as queer adults we have that freedom as well, we all need not just the courage of those stories. We need the courage of the people telling those stories. We need to know that someone else has stood up and been willing to take that risk and come out, to be visible. A non-LGBT person's story may be good, but it just isn't enough, and for that reason, a non-LGBT person's story -- no matter how popular or writerly -- will never suffice.
Thank you for reading, thank you for considering, and thank you for your words and thoughts in return.
Pop quiz! Name the moron who made this statement!
“I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan.”
If you answered "Jackson Rathbone," you get a cookie! And thus, I hereby propose:
rathbone /ˈræθboʊn/ [rath-bohn] v.
1. To appropriate or fake membership in a minority group, based on a belief that such appropriation requires little effort to be sufficiently convincing: She thinks hair dye's all it takes to rathbone it.
2. To hoodwink, or be hoodwinked by, faked membership in a minority group: He totally rathboned the casting director.
that's some awkward phrasing. any editing suggestions, better example, maybe?
For another real-life example, here's someone encouraging a rathbone in the LLA kerfluffle*, with context being that the LLF would take it at face-value that a nominee is part of the community: "just say you're bisexual, that's easy enough." Or a speaker rathbones, "I kissed a girl once or twice in college, that should be enough to call myself bisexual." Or you can rathbone vicariously! When person A would like to have that award, and admits s/he isn't sure whether the label applies but notes, "it just says that if you say you're LGBT -- whatever that means to you -- then you are." If the audience exhorts, "just say you're bi!" then we've got vicarious rathboning!
*snorts*
( And a collection of other random addendums I was too tired or time-crammed to include in the last past, along with thoughts prompted by comments. )
The books I chose for my bookstore, the default recommendations to my LGBT teenaged customers were always LLF awarded-books -- because I knew these stories would be authentic voices, would be a reliable 'core' of LGBT literature. I wanted my customers -- kids and adults alike -- to know that they were reading a book by someone who had been through the same thing, who got them on a deeper level. To mangle Stephen Vincent Benet, 'no straight that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it'.
Until a queer kid doesn't have to fear for his life in being queer, until a queer kid never faces a life or even a single instance of being treated as invisible, until even as queer adults we have that freedom as well, we all need not just the courage of those stories. We need the courage of the people telling those stories. We need to know that someone else has stood up and been willing to take that risk and come out, to be visible. A non-LGBT person's story may be good, but it just isn't enough, and for that reason, a non-LGBT person's story -- no matter how popular or writerly -- will never suffice.
Thank you for reading, thank you for considering, and thank you for your words and thoughts in return.