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Pony: On shrugging off prejudice
11.6.2008
I remember at Matt and Jackie's last visit chatting with Matt in the playground about how I think there is a seamless slide into tolerance that starts with one brave step. How amazing it is that we can go from segregation to integration in an unblinking generation.
I recounted a story I had heard - probably apocryphal - of Bing Crosby asking Louis Armstrong to use the side door to his house when coming to a party. How unthinkable that would be now. I theorized that once people realise how easy it is to shrug off prejudice, it must force them to examine their others.
Matt gently corrected me, saying: I am sure that it was just as long and hard of a battle for a "out" gay person to walk through those front doors, even once the black guests had crossed that threshold.
I am thinking of that conversation today, with the news on prop 8.
I, and everyone I know, wept Tuesday night when Barack Obama was elected president. And I don't want to be a killjoy, because this is one of the defining, most beautful moments in my lifetime. My neighbour and I got both got teary yesterday morning, as I walked Gabriel to daycare. For the first time since he was born I feel optimistic about the political landscape he was born into.
But in that joy, I want to remember that we can't get complacent about what we have. That history shows that if we are not vigilant, rights we have fought to gain can also be taken away (often in the name of our own security). And that we still have far to go.
