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November 27, 2004
Heteronormative traditions
When I was in college in the Day, homecoming traditions were lampooned by the occasional interspecies homecoming queen candidate--sometimes a chicken, more often a pig or cow. Today the issue is not social satire but diversity, and it's a serious issue.
We have to reimagine the traditions that make heterosexuality seem normal and necessary. Especially in the case of homecoming queens, that reimagining has to come from within colleges, from the faculty and students, and it's going to have to be sustained in the face of people like the 500 townspeople of St. Cloud, Minnesota, who feel they need to draw the line somewhere.
Nor is separate proms, separate homecoming events, a respectable answer. I grew up in an apartheid town in the upper South, with separate churches, separate schools (even though the population of the entire town was only 2,000), separate seating in the movie theatre. Until I went to college, the only African American I knew was Josie Brown, who did our laundry. And until I went to college, I had no idea that this meant I was living a starved, stunted life that was disadvantaging all of its participants. Whether the issue is race, gender, sexuality, or whatever, separate is never equal, never acceptable.
Posted by senioritis at November 27, 2004 08:14 AM