The notions of gay and black pride should be ditched because being a minority “should be the badge that people are trying to rip off”, a leading academic has said.
By Hannah Furness
15 Aug 2013
Tony Sewell, a broadcaster and educational consultant who runs summer schools for children from deprived backgrounds which he described as being composed of “predominantly bright black boys”, said gay pride and black pride were both “meaningless” terms.
He argued that individuals should be “deprogrammed” from thinking they were part of an ethnic community and strive instead to be defined by “what they know rather than what they look like”.
“ 'Minority’ should be the badge that people are trying to rip off,” he told the latest issue of Reader’s Digest.
“Instead, in the case of certain musicians, authors and others, it can bring you money and fame. This is a corruption and a deceit.
“We need to ditch gay pride and black pride. Both are meaningless.
“The gay rights movement is surely a human struggle for homosexuals to be treated equally. Who said anything about a community?”Mr Sewell, who runs the summer schools through his charity Generating Genius, also argued that teachers should stop indulging children’s “cultural identities” by allowing them to perform “rap versions of Macbeth” rather than reading standard Shakespeare and Chaucer.
“Too often what poses as cultural identity is, in reality, ignorance or bad education,” he said.
“Black and other children need to be schooled in the lexicon of the mainstream, where 'street talk’ is not seen as another version of Chaucer.
“The standard Shakespearean canon should predominate against the curse of a rap version of Macbeth. I love rap music, by the way, but it shouldn’t be a defining feature of young black men.”
He argued that the “biggest barrier” he had found to achieving his own goals was “letting, as many do, my minority status give me a sense of victimhood”.
He has now argued people must “clear their heads of such ideas”.
He claimed none of the children working with his charity wanted to feel like they belonged to a minority.
“In fact, as part of the course, we deprogramme them from thinking they’re locked into an ethnic community. We want them to be defined by what they know, not what they look like.”
Mr Sewell added: “Of course, racism is also a constraint on certain groups and we need laws to protect us from the excesses and evils of mankind.
“But no young person can really take flight in the open skies of the world when placed under the heavy hand of minority status, policed by their friends, family and foes.”
He claimed the situation was now so extreme that working class white boys had been given a “fictitious” minority label of their own, despite the vast differences between those living at opposite ends of the country.
*****
I have protested for and demanded my rights, but I have no interest in being part of a "Pride Parade." In fact, I've never participated in a gay pride event, including Detroit's black gay pride event called "Hotter than July" which I observed from a distance a couple of weeks ago. I simply don't understand why the Black gay community wants to separate itself from a larger community engaged in many of the same struggles. There is strength in numbers and even beyond the issues of why I don't want to attend any type of pride event, I think self-segregation is unwise at best.
And just to be clear about my position on "Pride", I am not against anyone who wants to express themselves in any safe, friendly and positive way, but the hedonistic behavior that now fully characterizes "Pride" events is simply not something I ascribe to.
I am not in the closet and living in fear... I am as 'out' as one can be. I am out to my family, my friends, my neighbors, my co-workers and supervisors and I am out to myself and the world. I find no need to walk on stilts while clothed in only a feather boa to let the world know that I am here and entitled to be recognized. All I ask is that you see me as fully human and as an equal member of the family of man and the society in which I live. I don't need "Pride" to do that, I do it everyday by the way I live, love, and share my life and my thoughts with the world that I am a part of.
"Fear Eats the Soul"
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