Silence = Silence

Some former basketball player came out as a homo and another current basketball player got banned from an all-star game for reacting to it by saying "I hate gay people" and other fun comments. The homo then said it was a good thing that the hater hated out loud because it opens the discussion and shows that yes, mary, homophobia in sports is a big problem.

I'm generally all-for speaking your mind about your prejudices, because it's best to know who you're dealing with when dealing with a prejudiced asshole. But this incident made me reflect on my upbringing:

Growing up in upstate New York, we never went to the city but I watched its TV stations all the time. (WPIX, yo!) And in doing so, I learned a ton about Jewish culture (and knew more Yiddish than any goy I've ever met) and because this was New York television, I never saw anything negative about Jewish people. I knew about the holocaust, of course, but I had no idea that people in America and other countries were prejudiced against Jews. (If you remember that commercial "Why is Jimmy your Jewish friend, and not just your friend?" I thought they were picking a fake example, like how when talking about race people will say "I don't care if you're black or brown or green!") It helped that my parents never mentioned Jews nor did I even know that we had any in our school system to be prejudiced against.

It wasn't until college that I first heard reference to people not liking Jews, and at first I thought they were making it up. Turns out not!

So anyway, when this basketball player hater started talking, I thought that was fine because then at least it was out in the open. But now maybe I think that homophobia is best kept in the closet. If you don't talk about it, maybe no one will know it's there.

On the other hand, you can't escape negative portrayals of gays so easily. All you have to do is study politics or go to church.