Here are some politically incorrect questions and observations that I've accumulated over the last 30 years or so.
1. Does it happen that a straight child who doesn't comply with gender norms and gets bullied as a "faggot" or "queer" begins to think he's gay or that she's lesbian?
2. When growing up, the endless conservative/racist white complaint was that African-Americans are too prone to blame racism/prejudice for their problems, thus their progress in society is set back (i.e. high crime, drug use, poverty and neighborhood decay).
The first question is personal for me, having been bullied in such a manner -- but every time I entertain the thought that I'm gay, an instinctual refusal of physical contact with men kicks in. On the other hand, being bullied meant less opportunity to date girls in high school and my few forays into wooing women generally end very badly (thanks, Asperger's-lite!) To me, the many instances of oppressed people agreeing with their oppressor makes the thought of straight people thinking that they're gay reasonable. Or am I simply tempted by the irony of homophobes being the actual "recuiters" of youth into what they call the "homosexual lifestyle"?
Now, time for the second question. Since at least 1984, the loudest voices I hear coming from the black community are not "blame racism for everything", but various forms of bootstrapping, personal responsibility, and respect of self, spouse, elders and others. There are still verified complaints of continued racism and bigotry in this variety of opinion. From outside, this entire spectrum appears sophisticated, nuanced and eminently reasonable -- three of the self-described prejudiced white people I'm thinking about above the fold stepped into the front ranks of people blaming racism for individual incidents on multiple occasions, if not ahead.
Many of the drops in social pathology we experienced as a nation as well as the improvements in literacy seem to be coming from the black community as arguments from African-Americans on all sides continue (and long may they do so!). Meanwhile I travel outside my college town and see certain lily-white areas fall into decline and certain infrared towns with tiny minority populations generate Chicago-class murder rates as the reduction in the life expectancies of white women continues. I see way too many tattoos and rear windshields mourning people who have passed on in their teens and twenties, and they're not military. (Commemorations of those killed in combat inevitably include rank, location and/or branch of service.) The politically mixed areas (by actions if not party) are relatively prosperous; the more bigoted areas generate social dysfunctions like meth addiction, crime and flight to the cities or coasts. People honestly cling to their guns fearing armed intruders, and this fear is apparently more pervasive in terms of gun ownership than it is in inner cities -- does this panic indicate NRA propagandizing or is it a reasonable response to a verifiable decline in personal safety?
Or is it just the disinvestment that plagued mostly African-American areas has now manifested in rural, white areas as Wal-Mart sucks money out of the community, wages plummet in town while profits pile up on Wall Street and people with a choice in the matter choose to live in or near cities or coasts?
Coincident with this decline is the growth of demagogues who do their best to convince white people that the problems they face are due to some Other: GLBT, immigrants, people of color, liberals, gun-banners or the UN. It seems like a confirmation that the conservative claim that people who blame others for their problems tend to end up multiplying their own. The charge that conservatives lay against African-Americans ends up indicting their base.
Finally, a third:
3. Are those of us leaving red areas for blue showing the same charity and forbearance to people we're leaving behind that white-flight suburbanites showed to people of color in the urban core, that is, very little? (And of sinners in this, is Yamaneko2 chief?)