Will They Believe Us When We Cry “Wolf”?
The Aesop fable about “The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’,” is wise counsel for anyone in the gay and transgender community tempted to cry “hate crime,” “homophobia,” or “transphobia.” As the villagers admonished the bored shepherd boy who kept fooling them with his false alarms, “Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don’t cry ‘wolf’ when there is NO wolf!”
It is not only social conservatives who reacted angrily to every charge of sexism or racism that has been uttered in the past forty years. Reasonable people committed to human rights also grew weary of the large number of minority people who claimed that injustice lurked behind every word and action directed toward them. A white male friend of mine resigned his post as Human Resources Director at a major university because he got worn down by the numerous daily charges of racism lodged by black employees who were being called on for sloppy work. Liberal male advocates of women’s rights scratched their head in confusion when labeled as sexist by a woman because they used the word “history” rather than “herstory.”
The shepherd boy in the Catholic Church is a 62-year-old white male named William Donohoe who claims defamation against the Vatican anytime anyone questions the behavior of church clerics. As the head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights he has about as much credibility as Pat Robertson as a spokesperson for what God’s will is. His “frightened song” no longer carries much weight.
Recently, a local headline stated, “Attack at condo was hate crime, police say.” When I read the account, it didn’t sound like an anti-gay attack to me, but rather an altercation between tenants during which the word “faggot” was used. If the man in question had been victimized because he was a homosexual, it would be a hate crime. But to call a person a “faggot” because he asks you to turn down your music doesn’t sound like there was as much hate as annoyance that anyone would dare ask for more quiet. Even when the woman tenant pepper sprayed the gay neighbor, accompanied by the word “faggot,” she did so when she saw him writing down the license plate of her brother-in-law. She shouldn’t have sprayed him but did she do so because he was gay or because he was doing something that annoyed her? She may be homophobic, but was her crime motivated by hate?
If everything is a hate crime, nothing is a hate crime. If everything said about blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans is racist, then nothing said about them is racist. Every joke that involves a transsexual is not transphobic. Every gay or lesbian person disciplined at work is not done so because they are homosexual. Sometimes they’re incompetent or are not team players.
None of this is to say that there isn’t systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, heterosexism, and other forms of exaggerated feelings of fear expressed by insecure people with inferiority complexes. Racial profiling is a reality, but some black people are guilty whether or not the glove fits. Sexism is rampant, and it will take a long, long time for women to be as esteemed as men are, but progress requires patience and a sense of humor more than it does a clenched fist and a super-sensitivity to everything that comes out of a man’s mouth. Women are often more victimized by other women, just as gay men are often more victimized by other gay men, and transgender people are more victimized by other transsexuals or cross-dressers. We generally don’t label discrimination among ourselves as an “ism” or a phobia because it’s politically incorrect to further victimize a minority person. But that doesn’t make it right, anymore than the police calling a crime hate motivated when it’s not.
When I say that something is homophobic, heterosexist, or that it constitutes a hate crime, I want to be taken seriously. But if I do so in the wake of others who use the terms as if they were engaged in by everyone other than us at all times, I won’t be taken seriously.
After crying “wolf” twice and making the townspeople angry, the shepherd boy spotted a real wolf that prowled among the sheep. No one took him seriously when he asked for help because they knew he was a liar. When they later found him crying and he complained that no one came to his aid, an elderly man took him under wing and said, “We’ll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning. Nobody believes a liar, even when he is telling the truth!”
