Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
THE MAROON TIGER
www. maroontiger. net
Page 10
Comment
The ‘Price’ We Pay for Homophobia.
THE MAROON TIGER
The Organ of Student Expression Since / 925
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
CHRISTIAN NWACHUKWU, JR, ‘04
TIMOTHY J. CUNNINGHAM, '04, Managing Editor
COLIN HOSTEN, '04, Copy Editor
SAIDA GRUNDY
COMMENT EDITOR
November 2002
I am beginning to
understand what Martin Luther
King, Jr. must have felt as he
arranged his thoughts to write his
famous Letter from a Birmingham
Jail. As he watched this nation
thrust itself into the racial civil war
of the mid 1900s, so do I bear
witness in this new millennium as
Morehouse College stands upon
the threshold of what could very
well become the internal crises
facing this institution.
Like Dr. King, I, too feel
compelled to write something es
pecially profound that will bridge
a chasm of pain ripped between a
people who have allowed them
selves to be divided. Dr. King sat
imprisoned by the cold steel bars
of a city jail. In my case, its the
1000 miles separating South West
Atlanta from Hanover, New
Hampshire that hold me captive.
But I am nobody’s Mar
tin Luther King, Jr., nor do I as
pire to be. And my words to you
will fall short of his prophetic
depth. But restlessness has con
sumed my thoughts these past few
weeks, as information regarding
the violent beating of Gregory
Love continues to come to my at
tention. Writing to you today will
perhaps reach the hurt, anger, fear
and confusion within all of us that
only words can touch.
Back and forth, my
thoughts paced inside my head as
the facts around the incident un
folded. Like many of us, I asked
the question “How could this hap
pen?” But like so many others, I
understand that violent incidents
such as this do not simply occur.
The fury that Aaron Price vented
upon Gregory Love was set into
motion long ago when Morehouse
College made the conscious deci
sion to muffle the voices that
screamed for matters of sexuality
to be heard.
The quote that begins
this article appeared in the Atlanta
Journal Constitution in a Novem
ber 12 81 report by staff writer Paul
Donsky. Given by sophomore
Mubarak Guy, this statement is
consistent with many of the senti
ments I have heard echoed by
Morehouse students. To try to state
this non-judgmentally, many of
you, I gather, do not feel as though
Aaron Price’s decision to take up
physical violence against Gregory
Love was unwarranted but that de-
cision to express himself with a
baseball bat was, well... “alittleex-
treme”. It has come to my atten
tion that a great majority of stu
dents feel that “a man has the right
to ‘defend’ himself against ‘threats’
to his masculinity.” (Of course,
ironically, if wotnen went around
assaulting every individual who
tt
A lot of people
believe that he deserved
to get beaten up if he
was looking in the
shower stall... but ev
eryone thinks the bat
was a little extreme.
99
threatened their sexuality then hos
pital ICUs would overflow daily
with men.)
It continues to baffle me
how many rationalizations we
have for acts of horrid violence
when they are committed in the
name of “protecting manhood.”
Drunk with the wine of homopho
bia, far too many of you have
stumbled your way into rational
izing any act that violates the hu
man rights of gays, lesbians, bi
sexuals—or even persons per
ceived as such.
Herein lies the true vi
ciousness of your homophobic in
toxication: that this standard would
never be held if these injustices
were translated into race, class or
even physical disability.
Like all people, students
at Morehouse College do have a
keen sense of social justice. If a
Black student had been mob at
tacked by some white boys for
wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt, the
NAACP would have arrived by
chartered plane to Westview Av
enue. Outraged Morehouse stu
dents would be far past the “fo
rum phase” and onto taking their
protests to the streets. Likewise, if
a student inawheelchair had been
singled out for his disability and
pushed into oncoming traffic, no
discussions claiming that the stu
dent had “provoked his own as
sault” would cross the lips of any
Morehouse student.
And yet when it comes
to matters regarding your broth
ers who love brothers and sisters
who love sisters, you disconnect,
as though these people are not even
entitled to the universal right to not
have their skulls fractured with
bats.
Clearly, you do not un
derstand homophobia the way
those who are victimized by it do.
Homophobia is a superficial insti
tution that attacks not only the ac
tual sexual preference of any given
individual, but that which the
homophobe interprets as conduct
“unbecoming” of a heterosexual.
In this sense, all heterosexuals
have as much potential to become
targets of homophobia as we do
by acting as its propagators.
Just as wearing a
Malcolm X T-shirt and using a
wheelchair are downright stupid
and inexcusable reasons to attack
another human being, so is it
NEWS
JAMES PENDLE TON, '05, Campus News
MARCUS NEWMAN, '05, Work! & Local Editor
SPORTS
AMIN MASSEY, '04, Sports Editor
KYLE YEDELL, ‘05, Associate Sports Editor
EDITORIAL
SAIDA GRUNDY. Can,mem Editor
FEATURES
MARC MUNEAL, ‘04, Features Editor
ARTS
SAM WYCHE, '04. Arts Editor
equally inexcusable to target a girl
who wears basketball jerseys or a
man who swings his hips as he
walks.
A prolonged hug by
same-sex friends can be easily
misinterpreted by a passing group
of inebriated young males as the
perfect opportunity to exert their
machismo prowess. The mention
of a pair of fraternity brothers who
are known to spend “too much”
time together can send character
damaging rumors shooting
throughout the campus commu
nity. And a sexually paranoid
young man such as Aaron Price
can interpret whatever confronta
tion occurred that day in the
shower room as grounds for bash
ing someone’s brains in.
It could have been you
PHOTOGRAPHY
ROBERT GAINES, '06. Photographs Editor
MYRON FRAZER, 07, Associate Photography
Editor
ONLINE
ANTOINF. HESTER, ‘04, Online Editor/Webmaster
DESIGN
ASHTON DUNN, ‘05, Layout Editor
JAMIE SWIFT, Graphic Design Editor
P. JUSTIN FORD. ‘05. Cartoonist
BUSINESS
JEFFREY TATE, ‘04, Business Manager
RAYMOND JONES, ‘04, Office Manager
in that shower room that day. Ho
mophobic perception, like a fickle
roll of dice, could have, one
evening, easily resulted in you
glancing back too many times or
lingering too long around the sink
basin.
It is not Gregory Love
who needs to be openly gay for
this pivotal moment in Morehouse
history to be deemed a violation
of gay rights. It is only Aaron Price,
for his alleged participation in an
excessively brutal act of ho
mophobia, who needs to be held
accountable. But more impor
tantly, our collegial community
needs to hold ourselves account
able for calling this incident just
what it is: a hate crime.
‘Price Paid In Full’: Opinions from the Post Verdict
SAIDA GRUNDY
COMMENT EDITOR
PRESENT
In the aftermath of the
Love-Price incident, its conclusion
sits uneasily. Gregory Love has
returned to school, and yet the
criticisms that follow him would
have any eavesdropper believe
that it was he who swung the bat.
Gregory Love is and forever will
be the victim of a violent crime that
was undeserved, unnecessary and
unprovoked No action merited the
physical, emotional and
irreversible anguish he has
suffered as a result of his injuries.
It took a Fulton County jury only
2 hours and 15 minutes to
unanimously agree upon this truth.
Those of us who see
him about campus note that the
scar running the length of his scalp
is our only reminder that his life
once lay in the balance. It is he who
lives with the shuddering thought
that another human being—his
Morehouse brother—took to
bashing his head, back and arms
with total disregard for whether he
live or die on a cold shower room
floor.
And yet he is punished
for surviving. Defenders of Aaron
Price claim that the ten year
sentence he received was unfitting
because Love suffered “no life
altering damages.” And though I
assure you his life has been greatly
altered, I wonder if it would be
more “poetic” for these parties if
he had died. Disturbingly, it is as
though the resilience of his spirit
and physical body annoys them.
And what of Aaron
Price? News of Price’s conviction
and sentencing (of which the state
of Georgia mandates he serve
90%) made our hearts drop into
our stomachs. I immediately
though of his parents who have not
only been humiliated by those who
claim they raised a demagogue.
but also by Fulton County
Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter
whose short fuse and pre
determined views of Black on
Black violence reduced their son
to a common thug.
I am not. nor is none of
us, in a position to deem whether
Aaron Price “got what he
deserved.” I do concur that
Georgia state law was executed
accurately. But law and justice do
not often coexist in the courtrooms
of this land. Justice did not occur
in this trial.
Another Black man is
going to prison, and though it is of
actions of his own doing, I am
brokenhearted when I think that
the ten most pivotal years of his
life will be spent in a place that is
suspended between earth and hell.
Being a prisoner must be like
walking amongst the dead—only
you are alive enough to see it.
In the years that most of
us will be inheriting our destinies
on this planet. Aaron Price will be
in a maximum security state
prison, where if he wasn’t
previously criminally minded, his
survival now will depend upon it.
There will be no bats readily
available in prison shower stalls,
and the threats to a young, scared
inmate will be much greater than
an unassuming glance over a
curtain.
There is no justice here.
Judge Jerry Baxter did not intend
to make a statement about human
rights nor his intolerance for
bigoted violence. He did not see a
precedent to be made for Georgia's
fledgling hate crime legislation. He
did not see a young man terrified
of the uncertainty of his future and
the cruelty of consequences. He
looked down from his bench and
saw a Black man accused of two
counts of violent crime in the state
of Georgia. Therein lied the
conviction. His voiced impatience
for the duration of the trial must
have been due to his eagerness to
throw down a hefty sentence.
Those of us who walk freely about
this campus simultaneously
embody the three folds of this case.
We have perpetrated the violent
and hate filled attitudes that
fertilized an environment where
one Morehouse man could take a
bat to another for such a minor
offense as “looking at me wrong.”
We were victimized by the
unsettling thoughts that a blood-
drenched crime occurred in our
midst. And like the Superior Court
Judge, we have all concluded with
our own rulings on the lives of
Gregory Love and Aaron Price.
If we do no learn that occurrences
within the walls of this campus are
not immune to the laws of the land,
then this case will never be closed.
If we treat violence and
homophobia with the same
casualncss as we did prior to
November 3 then fateful nights
such as that one will reappear like
deja vu. And if we do not see that
being here is not an entitled
component of our existence—that
actions can turn our lives
drastically with the setting of a
day—than may we be all
sentenced to the hard journey of
figuring it out.
‘7 wonder if it would be more ‘poetic ’
for these parties if he [Love] had died.
Disturbingly, it is as though the
resilience of his spirit and physical
body annoys them ”