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Dealing with discrimination in TL culture | ||
Tags: Discrimination | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4845 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 17 of 24 27 April 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
I went to a large, "top" Catholic high school in the US. One of my religion teachers was gay. He did not prance around proclaiming it, but he did not really try to make a secret out of it. My other religion teacher had us watch Saved! in class, a movie that in part deals with the bigotry and hypocrisy of Christians who do not accept [adolescent] homosexuality. Another religion teacher, also gay, was ordained as a priest during my time there. We did have a few teachers who made homophobic remarks, but we also had teachers who punished the students who made such remarks. So please do not monopolize the Bible. There are Christians out there who truly accept homosexuality. Edited by espejismo on 27 April 2012 at 10:24pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5761 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 24 28 April 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Please keep this thread on topic.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5128 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 24 28 April 2012 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Since I just came back from Spain, where one of my gay friends had to take early retirement because of
nerve problems due to all the hatred he had been exposed to as a young man, I would not deny that there are in many countries discrimination against gays. Sometimes I wonder though, whether religion is just used as an excuse for people who are bigots. It is easier to say "my religion says so" than admit to discrimination. The thing worth noticing though, is that most of the people who are behaving badly towards gays, are not exactly towers of virtue themselves. Besides, for every time the Bible condemns gays, I can find just as many passages that speaks of the importance of love, tolerance and forgiveness. I can also find passages which condemn a lot of other things, so I have never quite understood why the adulterer could sit in the front row in the church, while the gay guy is condemned. Either we come down like a ton of bricks on all "sins" - and then not many of us would go free - or we take note of the fact that societies evolve in 2000 years. But again, my mantra is that this is a question of society norms, and not of religion. The ones that are responsible for hate crimes, rarely go to Sunday mass... 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4627 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French | Message 20 of 24 16 July 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I wanted to learn Arabic I chatted with many Arab guys and girls and no one of
them could really understand how a person could be atheist or agnostic. It was like telling them that people can breathe without oxygen. On the other hand they showed much respect towards all religions, with the exception of a guy from Bahrain that, when I told him that I was Christian, he got a bit surprised and then he replied: <<you should read what's written about Christians in the Quran>> I guess there aren't nice words about Christians in the Quran... Now that I've switched to Hebrew I still have to test the water. I think that Israelis and all Jews in general have a much more western liberal culture (except for the ultra- orthodox), the only thing that sometimes pisses me off is that they claim to be God's chosen people... Edited by Rykketid on 17 July 2012 at 10:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KayJane Newbie United States Joined 4312 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian | Message 21 of 24 24 July 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, being an American has had a profound effect on my outlook on other countries and cultures.
Living in the United States, I have been called many racially derogatory names and dozens of people have commented about and even touched my hair as though I was on display in one of those horrific human zoos. Being a minority in my place of residence has, I believe, really thickened my skin, so I am less deterred by discrimination. A lot of discrimination is driven by preconceived notions about a certain group, so I don't try to dwell on what people might think. I will, however, exercise caution if I know that a large part of the discrimimation involves widespread violence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4433 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 22 of 24 24 July 2012 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I'll try to return to the topic, and must say that for me, the question of discrimination or prejudice in a culture has never put me off studying a language. Now personally (maybe because I am a white male) I have never felt discriminated in any culture, and I might have felt differently if I had been the subject of discrimination or being treated badly in a specific culture. If you want to try and understand a culture, including its negative aspects, the best way to do that is to learn the language.
Somewhat similar to this question is the fact that some will not want to learn a language because of historical or political issues. For instance, in my parents' generation in Norway some people would refuse anything German because of the Nazi occupation of Norway during the Second World War. They would even feel bad if they heard German being spoken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tuco Pentaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4306 days ago 17 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French | Message 23 of 24 25 July 2012 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||
It's a vicious cycle, really. Antique African religions, at least a few Native America religions, old Japan, old China, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome - none of those had any trouble with homosexuality. Bigotry does seem to have been disseminated by the book religions. Yes, religion and bigotry don't always walk hand in hand - however, this pattern is a safe assumption at first glance. At least extremely religious people (who aren't that rare, depending on where you go). That said, my target languages are all from places I admire to some degree - and being a civilized, tolerant place is a huge factor in my book. I live in a liberal city (better said: neighborhood) myself and I can't imagine living anywhere I might be illegal or frowned upon by pretty much everyone. No, thank you. True, Italy is one of the most religious and the one which offers the least legal protection of the LGBT among Western Europe. Nevertheless, my sister is a rather activist atheist over there and she gets along pretty well with her much catholic friends. It's worth mentioning it's a very small town, where zealotry would be the most expected. I don't know my sister's friends' stance on homosexuality, but I don't think it should be any different. On the other hand, Brazil, where same-sex civil partnership has been judicially recognized as of 2011, is the place which displays the most homophobic homicides in the world. I'm not really sure if that's in absolute numbers or proportion to the LGBT population (probably the former). To my knowledge, that data has been mentioned by UN. So - although the enforced laws are a clue, it's not always in tune with reality. Sorry for the overall long post. Edited by Tuco on 25 July 2012 at 12:07am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4305 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 24 of 24 28 August 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
That's partially true, but not accurate. The example which is commonly given is the Greek culture. But Ancient Greeks didn't respect 'passive gay men', and they hardly respect 'active gay men' too, who were tolerated just in some situations. Anyway, and to end up this off-topic before giving my opinion about the real topic here, I think that homosexual discrimination makes simply nonsense. I mean, the reasons of those who don't accept it are based on the 'fact' that homosexuality isn't natural. But it isn't true because of two simple facts. - First, there are evidences of homosexual behaviour in monkeys and other animals. Here I'm not counting the behaviour which 'looks' homosexual but it isn't (dog males, who seem to fornicate while they aren't penetrating each other indeed). - Second, human sexuality is a lot different from all the animals, and there are a huge amount of books which deals with it. Positions, behaviour, circumstances and even reasons to have sex differ from animals. Why on the Earth all that stuff are natural and homosexuality are not? And now my opinion of the topic. Guys, if you really love a language, take it!! Is needed another reason, really? I think there's no real problem if someone want to have a stay in the country, even a sojourn. Certainly, it's different if you actually want to really live for a long time there, but then the language is just one factor of the question among many others to consider. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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