Ricky Martin Issues Statement Against Homophobia
Ricky Martin has issued a statement speaking out against homophobia. I have to say that I agree with Martin’s deconstruction of the term “tolerance.” Often I think it is condescending to say you “tolerate” someone, as if it is a gift you are giving to someone else versus to yourself. Perhaps this is because people do not know what “respect” would look like, feel like, or result in if they were to say they “respect” someone. Does that mean that we have a hard time explaining what respect we have accepted and experienced? How do we differentiate how we practice tolerance versus how we practice respect? Author and activist Larry La Fountain-Stokes, author of Queer Ricans, posted this story in English. Martin writes:
"Well, when we believe in peace, there is simply no room for complacency. The murders of James Byrd, Matthew Shepard, Jorge Steven Lopez, Marcelo Lucero, Luis Ramirez and countless others who were victims of violent “hate crimes” should be completely unacceptable to every human being; because we’re all human beings. It’s up to us to change the paradigm. I hear the world “tolerance” thrown around in the media when it comes to cases like the ones I mentioned above. One of the meanings of tolerance is “the capacity to endure pain or hardship.” Another is “the act of allowing something.” To me, those don’t seem to encompass acceptance, by any definition. So how about this? Instead of saying “we need to tolerate diversity” why not say, “we need to accept diversity.”
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He's right, people should not tolerate anymore, but accept, it's 2009, and practically 2010