In a very thought provoking TED talk (titled “Fifty Shades of Gay”), iO Tillett Wright speaks of boxes. She speaks of how we, human beings, naturally want to put other people into boxes or ‘categories’, if you will, and she implies that by doing so we diminish the humanity of the other. She never does address why boxes are always bad (the underlying assumption in her talk), nor does she explain how self-evident relates to equality (or even diversity!). As much as she works these terms toward the emotional (which isn’t a bad thing), she does offer much food for thought. One such is to ponder how we, particularly Christians, box other people into one-dimensional cartoons, and how that affects the way we engage one another. Recognizing multiplicity isn’t necessarily the panacea for discrimination, but it’s something worth mulling over. (I am also very curious as to peoples reactions to the talk. Comment!)
It’s a very compelling talk and presentation. Thanks for sharing it. It brought to mind some of Wendell Berry’s comments about the wrongness of “condemnation by category.” Her presentation reveals that in the case of sexuality the reality is that we can’t even clearly define the category itself. The reason why the younger generation of Christians supports gay marriage and rejects categorical condemnations of homosexuality is because they’re growing up in an uncloseted world. Knowing gay people personally (“seeing their faces,” to use her concept) makes it difficult for any reasonable person to insist on maintaining institutional discrimination against them, it seems to me.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this.
Interesting observation. Thanks for the comment, Bill!