"Pink blood: Homophobic violence in Canada"

[flexibeast]

For those who continue to think that legislative change always results in social change - such as the argument that the legalisation of same-sex marriage will lead to greater respect for same-sex relationships - the book "Pink blood: Homophobic violence in Canada" sounds like it might be educational reading. A recent interview with the author, Douglas Victor Janoff, says that:

journalist and author Douglas Victor Janoff wants to remind gays and lesbians across Canada that, despite their many legal advances, anti-gay violence is still a very real threat. In fact, in his new book Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada (University of Toronto Press, pb, $32.95), Janoff argues that little has changed over the past quarter century in terms of frequency of homophobic hate crimes, police attitudes and community responses to the violence. The book is an exhaustive and often disturbing documentation of anti-gay hate crime in the country, an extremely important reminder that homophobia extends far beyond legal statutes.

An important reminder, indeed.
 

Comments

[jomaraubat.livejournal.com]

Well, there have no doubt been some advances over the last thirty years. But my feeling right now is, that the current "war on terror" mindset has tended to give some sort of umbrella coverage for all sorts of discrimination against anyone who in some way questions the orthodoxy, from queers to students not wearing school uniforms. -Anything we don't like is un-Australian (American, Canadian, etc) and therefore is probably capable of fostering terrorism. One can't be too careful-.

I'm just feeling terribly sad, at the mo, at the level of stupidity.

LJ is one of the refuges of subversiveness and it's being monitored. One of my former partner's American LJ friends wrote a post critical of the invasion of Iraq, and was subsequently visited and heavied by the FBI. I've gone a bit off course here, but the point, I think, is that all these intolerences are connected. These are hard times to be any sort of different.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

i certainly agree there have been advances! But i believe that they have primarily ridden on the back of mass social movements (and as a side note, i feel that lobbyists and mass social movements need each other for either to function most effectively). i think that history very much challenges the notion that legislation, by itself, without a mass movement behind it, can be an instigator and sustainer of fundamental social change.

i very much agree with your comments about the "war on terror"; one only needs to look at the recent case involving the West Australian labelling someone an 'urban terrorist' (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1444288.htm) to see how the word 'terror' and its cognates are being used in the same way that the word 'communist' has been used for decades.

[jomaraubat.livejournal.com]

Big agreements to everything you said.

Of course, if you're Pat Robertson (or is it Buchanan?), you can invoke the threat of communism AND Muslim terrorists all from the same source. Woo

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes, you can imagine the right developing a sort of checklist:

1. Communist? [tick]


2. Queer? [tick]


3. Muslim? [tick]


4. Single parent? [tick]


5. UnAustralian? (NOTE: If you ticked 1,2,3 or 4, you have already answered 'yes' to this question)

:-P

[jomaraubat.livejournal.com]

You crack me up