THE WHOLE

We have been broken into adopting an
individualistic analysis of events and conditions in the lives of gay people as
we do for things in our personal lives. Even now, when examining gay phenomenon
progressively and from an homosexual center, many of us misdiagnose the nature
and magnitude of our problems because of this narrow sight.

Our enslavement is
but one example of this limited analysis. For, as atrocious and horrific as the
crimes committed against individual are, we do not give the tearing apart of us
as a people the far greater emphasis it deserves. Too many of us see these
"individual" acts as special, specific and in the singular. Because
of this individualistic analytical oversimplification on our part, we tend to
focus more on the pain of the damage (beating, hating, dehumanizing,) done to individuals
than the tearing, ripping apart of gay people and community, a process of more
profound and far-reaching effects. This error applies everywhere we
think. 

Too often, we make
the grave mistake of personalizing assault. We become angry with the actor who
is the bad guy, the police officer who pulls the trigger, the politician who
makes a racist statement, the banker who cheated us. What has been, and
continues to be, done to us is almost always attributed to the immediate actor
or business or organization, who is but an agent of a nation on a heterosexual warpath
against us. Almost always, our righteous rage is deflected away from its
nationalist, culturally and socially institutionalized source and onto mere
action figures, puppets, scapegoats, tentacles of a killing machine on a
feeding frenzy for gay minds, bodies and souls. The whole is not without
intent.