Indiana's New Law

[Mello Dude]

Actually you make my point for me if you read my posts. Unless they stand up and say, "HEY I'm black!" who would know other than close friends and family right? There are always exceptions to the rule.

[84BDsop]

*snip*

You left out Matt Sheppard (he may have been mentioned prevously).

And such bigotry hits straights as well...how many idiots swore that Ryan White HAD to be gay in order to get AIDS (afetr all, only gays gets AIDS, right),...that his hemophelioa was a fake diagnosis to hide his gayness?

[jjeffeory]

Actually you make my point for me if you read my posts. Unless they stand up and say, "HEY I'm black!" who would know other than close friends and family right? There are always exceptions to the rule.

I guess I'm not sure what your point was then, as I was responding to the following:

I think you have not read the law. But thank you for reaffirming what others have posted regarding race vs behavioral discrimination. Everyone I think agrees it's civil rights; but this silly comparison to the black plight simply doesn't hold water. To point out the obvious, if you are born black there is no way to hide that fact.

I gave you examples where there is a way to "hide that fact ( of their race)". My goal was simply to point out that one cannot just use the eye test for your argument about visual versus behavior or whatever terminology you used. At any rate, I feel that we're in an exercise of splitting hairs to minimize the LGBT and how that class isn't worthy or something. My interest in this topic HERE is based on the fact that there is a very high instance of LGBT people in the Drum corps community and I support all PEOPLE as long as they are not hurting other people.

...and to further elaborate on the race issue and why one really shouldn't use the "eye test excuse" ( Yes, I've listened to NPR and watched PBS), Race is pretty open to interpretation and varies from one country to another, and even one part of the country to another... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/

The race of Sally Hemings's and Thomas Jefferson's son, Eston Hemings, was indisputably "black" while he was a slave at Monticello. Years later, living in Ohio in 1850 as a free man, Eston was described by a census taker as "mulatto." A decade later, Eston and his wife had moved to Wisconsin where a census taker listed them as "white." What was the "truth" of Eston Hemings's race? To answer the question is to take a journey through America's mixed-race past.

"Race, while it has some relationship to biology, is not mainly a biological matter," professor Paul R. Spickard writes. "Race is primarily a sociopolitical construct. . . Not only is race different from what many people have believed it to be, but people of mixed race are not what many have assumed them to be." This may seem self-evident to modern readers, but Americans have been deeply confused about race for much of their history, using terms like "Octoroon," "Mulatto," and "Colored," defining and re-defining "scientific" racial categories, in an attempt to maintain lines that otherwise were too blurry to see. The "Illogic of American Racial Categories" is a definitive summary and analysis of centuries of national confusion about race.

Growing up, FRONTLINE producer June Cross lived two very different lives. During the school year, she lived in Atlantic City with her black family as an adopted child. On summer vacations, she lived in Los Angeles as part of a white show business family with Norma, her biological mother, and stepfather Larry Storch, an actor famous in the 1960s TV series "F Troop." Norma had left June's father-African-American vaudeville performer Jimmy Cross-and had given June away when she became "too dark to pass for white." This site features profiles of famous Americans with bi-racial family pasts, readings on mixed-race identity, and personal stories shared by viewers in the "discussion" area.

[jjeffeory]

You left out Matt Sheppard (he may have been mentioned previously).

And such bigotry hits straights as well...how many idiots swore that Ryan White HAD to be gay in order to get AIDS (after all, only gays gets AIDS, right),...that his hemophelioa was a fake diagnosis to hide his gayness?

Yea, I didn't intend the response to be a dissertation, well written, or complete; I just talk too much once I get started and spew out ideas. I figured I'd try to throw out only bits and pieces of my opinions ( one might say the highlights or the cliff notes); maybe someone would take the time to read the short version. Good find. I'm sure that it will fall on deaf ears though...

[Mello Dude]

You are replying to a single post, taken out of context to make a point that not all blacks are completely black and can pass as white THEREFORE we can now compare the black plight to the gay plight. Is this correct?

Edited April 1, 2015 by Mello Dude

[84BDsop]

You are replying to a single post, taken out of context to make a point that not all blacks are completely black and can pass as white THEREFORE we can now compare the black plight to the gay plight. Is this creect?

Discrimination is discrimination...in the end, if you're hung from a tree because of your skin color or beaten up and left for dead on a fence rail in the middle of nowgere because you're gay, there's no real difference, especially to those directly affected.

[jjeffeory]

You are replying to a single post, taken out of context to make a point that not all blacks are completely black and can pass as white THEREFORE we can now compare the black plight to the gay plight. Is this creect?

Mello Dude,

Isn't that what we always do ( take a single post out of context to make a point)?

Interesting way to phrase things; that's relatively accurate, but more accurate is that I believe that one can not simply "look at someone" to make the assumption that you made and stated was "obvious".

My response was made to add to my "body of responses" where my basic goal is to address all these reasons that many posters have used to try and minimize the LGBT community as a being worthy of having rights.

So, we can spin things however we want with language. By your use of language, I can surmise that you're neither black nor gay, so all of this is surely silly posts to you. It doesn't really affect you... For me, it's all interesting and matters because it's about people, and corps members. It affects their lives and I care about lots of different people, not just people who are like me ( which I hope doesn't come across the wrong way...)

Edited April 1, 2015 by jjeffeory

[JimF-LowBari]

Emphasis added.

I couldn't pass up the irony of noting that this side conversation is about a ship named for the place this thread is about!

Curiously, when you search Youtube for "Indianapolis speech", two main items come up. First that great monologue from Jaws:

"Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

And second a famous (and nearly impromptu) speech delivered seven years earlier in Indianapolis, on the subject of civil rights:

"It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and i's not the end of disorder."

Thanks, thought of the irony too but was juggling too many ideas at once to throw that in without making a real mess. Took me a few hours to remember the details and it came from Jaws. "Two guys opening clothes and saying 'You think that's bad'... where the Hades did I see that?"

Personal irony was I had just read two used paperbacks on the Indianapolis sinking and trial/cover up. One was from Goodwill and the other from a used book story. Yeah I haunt a few places like them to look for offbeat or historic books.

PS - Larry "Corporal Agarn/Phineas J Whoopie" Storch is still with us at 92. :big hug:

Edited April 1, 2015 by JimF-LowBari

[HornTeacher]

The race of Sally Hemings's and Thomas Jefferson's son, Eston Hemings, was indisputably "black" while he was a slave at Monticello. Years later, living in Ohio in 1850 as a free man, Eston was described by a census taker as "mulatto." A decade later, Eston and his wife had moved to Wisconsin where a census taker listed them as "white." What was the "truth" of Eston Hemings's race? To answer the question is to take a journey through America's mixed-race past.

I have not shortened the above response by jjeffeory in order to ignore anything else he had to say. I have merely done so since this section is the section which I find interest (and somewhat legitimacy) in responding.

In my 35 years as a genealogist, I have encountered the information that in times past in our country, anyone possessing as little as 1/16ths African-American bloodline was legally considered to be "black"...even if the remaining 15/16ths of the individual's bloodlines were proven to be Caucasian. What occurred to my mind rather early on in my experience was the question "If a person was proven to be 15/16th's African-American, but possessed 1/16th's Caucasian bloodline, would that then render them as being "Caucasian?" Repeated questioning to several genealogical professionals resulted in the simple answer of "No...if one had as little as 1/16ths African-American blood, then that is what their classification became."

So much for equality...1/16ths marks one as "the OTHER kind" in one case...but not the opposite. Please...don't give me any "well-meaning" bull...this was nothing other than discriminatory to the extreme. Not arguing with you, jj...but in fact, I think I'm supporting the idea which you are opening up.

Edited April 1, 2015 by HornTeacher

[Mello Dude]

Discrimination is discrimination...in the end, if you're hung from a tree because of your skin color or beaten up and left for dead on a fence rail in the middle of nowgere because you're gay, there's no real difference, especially to those directly affected.

Well there you go. I disagree completely with this and have made a pretty much airtight case of why it's not quite the same at all. There is no need to tie the two together yet for some reason people actually want to do this for drama or to add significance? I have stated my opnion on this and why they are not the same even though both are bad. We all discriminate on a daily basis, because that word does not mean what you think it's means 24/7 (but that is another intellectual battle). It would be great to live in a world where there was no such thing. Personally, I think this fight is one that is being won daily and in time it will be nothing but a footnote in history. Look at womens suffrage women have had the right to vote in this country for less than 100 years. This is my last post on this matter. Hopefully saner minds and hearts will prevail. I do NOT think this law will stop DCI nor kill the activity.