Thinking it over ... Parsing 'Faggot!'
By Félix Alfonso Peña Where to begin when a reader yells, “Faggot!” in a curt e-mail? Step one is to thank the accuser for the inspiration. Just as I was wondering what to write about the human condition, a human gave me insight into his condition, and from thence sprang the inspiration. But first, I must share the terse e-mail:
Looking at it, I couldn’t help but smile. You see, it brought back those idyllic days of childhood when a word or an accusation, true or false, was enough to cut a fellow down. It shows, not the power of words, but the power of accusation among those with as yet unformed minds. These days, when I’m feeling old and jaded, it takes a good jolt to get me back into the swing of my playground days, so I must be grateful for the swig of youth potion the e-mail brought. On the other hand, there's the intended swipe at my character. Obviously, nowhere does the writer overtly call me a faggot, or a fag, or a queer, or that term beloved of the overly righteous, a sodomite, but the implication is there, obvious to all but those most unwilling to see. Thankfully, these are pitiful epithets nowadays except among a few holdouts who mistake their resentment for the key to paradise. But the accusation was a little worrisome because it was beyond reason. Rational discourse proceeds from a reasoned argument; here was no argument. Nowhere did the writer say he disagreed with something I said, or why. No, the message merely said that I was a homosexual. The writer obviously hoped that the accusation would be enough to hurt or to put me in my place. Methinks he fancies himself a zero. If he wants to be a zero, who am I to argue? But the accusation brings to mind some of the low points in human interaction: Crowds in Germany standing outside the home of perfectly respectable, God-fearing people, chanting “Jude! Jude! Jude!” Backed up by the might of the state and the critical mass of their own hate, they used the word to brand and condemn without resort to reason, turning a religion into a sin and their hate into a death sentence writ large as the 20th century. Otherwise perfectly reasonable, God-fearing people with their mouths twisted by hate, screaming “Nigger!” at a person whose major sin was wearing another color of skin to a school, in blatant opposition to hundreds of years of carefully cultivated ignorance. I had to wonder who directed the e-mail at me, so I checked. The e-mail address indicated it was from a deacon, which surprised me. I thought that, being one step short of a priest and steeped in a tradition that supposedly teaches tolerance and love, a deacon could hardly write such a message. A bit of research confirmed that the sender is indeed a Roman Catholic deacon. Now, I could have shot off a quick riposte to Mr. Deacon: “If I ever make it to six, I’ll be a shoo-in at the seminary.” But I save my cattiness for the Potshots section of this Web site. And, arguably, it would make me just like the deacon, on steroids. I could have pointed out that, whether I’m a zero, a 6, a 2 or a 3.1416 (that’s a bisexual baker of round pastries, a pi-sexual, so to speak), facts speak for themselves. But Mr. Deacon’s e-mail was not about reason, as I noted above. In truth, when people send us messages about ourselves, we parse their meaning, parse their motives and try to respond to them, because we care about ourselves and about what other people think. An epithet like fag — or nigger, or spic, or Kike or whatever — flung out a car window wrapped around a rock or stashed in an e-mail, doesn’t say much about the recipient. In my case, if I’m a homosexual, then it’s true and doesn’t matter; if I’m not then it’s false and doesn’t matter. In the end, the e-mail and erstwhile application of the Kinsey scale only tell me what matters to somebody thousands of miles away and seemingly unwilling to start a rational conversation. My life, on the other hand, is about what matters to me, and reason is at the center of it. It’s not a bad way to live. They should teach that to deacons. |