Here is what 'straight pride' celebrants need to be liberated from
Desert Sage column
Algernon D'Ammassa
Pride Month is here, and it seems a few men who identify as definitely not gay! want a parade, too.
The group brand themselves “Super Happy Fun America,” and all they seek is “full straight equality,” including a permit to hold a fully fledged, equally valued straight pride march in Boston in August. No smirking, please: this is about freedom from oppression.
“Straight people are an oppressed majority,” the group’s leader, John Hugo, writes on the group’s website. “We will fight for the right of straights everywhere to express pride in themselves without fear of judgement and hate.”
A logo above his quotation presents the upbeat slogan “so much fun,” yet it appears to be sweating.
The phrase, "oppressed majority," had a familiar ring, as it was the title of an 11-minute film made in France that drew attention and debate after it was posted on YouTube in 2014.
“Majorité opprimée” (2010), by filmmaker Éléonore Pourriat, imagined a world in which the power relationship between men and women was reversed, and males were subject to condescension, harassment and violent assault by women on an ordinary basis.
In an interview, the filmmaker said, “Sometimes men — it’s not their fault — they don’t imagine that women are assaulted with words every day, with small, slight words. They can’t imagine that because they are not confronted with that themselves.”
The 'oppressed majority'
The notion of an oppressed majority is closely held and defended without irony whenever a marginalized group of people assert their humanity.
In response to feminism, the dominant culture posits “men’s rights." In response to enhanced awareness of how people of color are criminalized, even executed in our streets, the cry of “all lives matter” emerges. “Straight pride” is the predictable reaction to Pride Month for the LGBTQ community.
By all means, straights, take the street and strut your stuff on a summer’s day. At the front of your parade, I suggest lining up all the heterosexuals you can find who blanched with terror that they would be jumped at school and disowned by their parents if they admitted to being straight; the multitudes of heterosexuals who, as recently as 2003, could be prosecuted in the United States for consensual sex with partners of their preference; the refugees from countries where heterosexuals may be flogged in public or executed.
“Pride festival” has a better ring than “humanization festival,” but the latter is what it’s about: a marginalized and oppressed people proclaiming a right to be accepted as persons and allowed to live. Positing “straight pride” not only mocks that enterprise, it re-alienates those people by negating the affirmation of their personhood.
To locate oneself in an “oppressed majority” is to chafe at having one’s dominance and privilege criticized. Celebrating, or simply learning about, the experience of an oppressed group is seen as threatening to the standing of “real” people, the dominant culture, and their own liberty to speak and behave without considering the impact of our words and gestures.
The toxin this presents is obvious. What is freedom without the right to be thoughtlessly callous, right? Liberal and conservative pundits often find common ground in complaining about “language police,” as if they were being detained rather than being offered education about another person’s experience.
My own vision of a “super happy fun America” is one in which the oppressed are granted civil freedom and equality, and in which oppressors are liberated from their own confinement, trapped in notions of freedom that require the subjugation and dehumanization of others.
Emerging from that historical nightmare would be grounds for the gayest parade of all.
Desert Sage writes on politics and the humanities. Share your thoughts at adammassa@lcsun-news.com.
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