From: NewLGVoice@aol.com Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 08:12:04 -0400 Subject: 2 Submissions & a teaser The attached two articles by Daniel Curzon have been submitted to New Lesbian and Gay Voice for distribution. They advance positions that are definitely not orthodox or conventional within the Lesbian and Gay Community, and you may find them of interest. Mr. Curzon is a writer of novels and short stories, and has appeared in three anthologies: MAE WEST IS DEAD (Faber), APHRODISIAC (Coward McCann), and ON THE LINE (Crossing Press). He was the cofounder and operator of the International Gay News Agency from 1978-1984, which supplied news and features to anywhere from six to twenty-five gay newspapers around the USA. (We accept opposing viewpoints as well.) Hal Gordon, who wrote the two previous submissions from New Lesbian and Gay Voice on Oscar Wilde and Roger Casement, has another article available. It is a short piece on City Lights Books -- a literary and gay landmark in San Francisco -- which you may find intriguing. Mr. Gordon is also working on an article about Britain's possibly gay Prince Eddie -- No! Not that one, but his great uncle, the grandson of Queen Victoria, who was suspected of being Jack the Ripper. None of these items have been previously published, and the authors would appreciate your customary payment for such works. If you would like to receive the Gordon items, please contact New Lesbian and Gay Voice at the return address for this message. Please identify the publication which will receive the item. We would also appreciate receiving information as to when one or more of these items are published. ***** Vegetable Rights by DANIEL CURZON Oh yes, these days we hear much about the flagrant violation of the rights of many groups, but where do we hear about the rights of the most abused and oppressed of all groups? Nowhere, I'm afraid. Where are the cries on their behalf!? Where are the laws to protect them!? I speak of the rights of the last great category of living creatures that it is still all right to demean and mistreat. I speak of course of our friends, the vegetables. And I use the term in its broadest meaning, for fruits and vegetables are natural allies in their struggle against their oppressors. Since they can't speak for themselves, let me speak for them. I know their feelings. I know their well-founded complaints. Let's begin at the heart of the matter. How many of you at some of your vegetable friends just today, never mind during most of your lives? I'll bet there isn't one among you who can say, "I have not." Many of you today still demand that your children eat them, even when your children protest that they don't want to eat vegetables. You thwart your own children's natural instincts toward good, gurgling to them about "yummy leafy green ones" and "scrumptious yellow ones" without a thought in your empty heads about whom you might be hurting. Oh, you can put cheese on them. You can douse them with sauces. You can blind yourselves anyway you like to what you're doing, but the fact remains that you re chomping and devouring the bodies of fellow living creatures, most of you without so much as a glimmer of guilt! Do you really believe that peas WANT to be eaten? That they want your teeth grinding into their delicate green bodies and mashing them into pulp, only to be covered with your glutinous acids before being separated into bits and turned into more of YOU? Do you really think for one moment that celery WANTS to be dipped into onion dip and nibbled away, bite by bite, while you stand around at some cocktail party and talk about who's going to win the Academy Award for best cinematography? It just goes to show ho you've let your insensitivity to others' pain guide your entire lives. I ask you, have you ever bothered to listen to the screams of a carrot being steamed? ... I think not! . . . Well, THINK about it! Even so-called "vegetarians" like to think they're "sensitive," but here they are bragging in their very name about the crimes they commit. They might as well call themselves what they are--avocado killers, lettuce murderers, broccoli butchers! If eating weren't enough, consider the other violations of vegetables' rights that take place on a daily basis: Take those pants or that shirt you're wearing right this minute. What do you think they're made out of? Cotton, no doubt. Where do you think cotton comes from? From a PLANT, that's where! You people pluck and spin millions of your little brothers into items to wear on your bodies. Do you think cotton wants to be somebody's UNDERWEAR!? And what about the medicines made from vegetables--your eyedrops and your gas remedies and your laxatives! All products made from the unwilling, unasked vegetables of this world. To say nothing of your callous exploitation of these same creatures for cosmetics. Yes, every day vegetables die for eye-liner and lipstick and hair dye! I say to die for a dye is the sign of a sick culture! In laboratories all over this globe doctors in white coats are experimenting on helpless vegetables even as we speak. They rip off their skins, pulverize their insides, crossbreed them, stunt, dehydrate, freeze, and discard their husks--and more--without the slightest regard to any other criterion but your selfish needs, without so much as a by-your-leave to the vegetables involved. Now you may not want to hear what I'm about to tell you, but it's time you listened, and listened good. There are actual places still operating today where vegetables are grown under controlled conditions--yes, watered, fertilized, given light--only then to be snipped off just like that and used in so-called "bouquets" and "arrangements" to celebrate birthdays and holidays. Some are actually worn to proms and thrown at people in parades! To say nothing of Christmas trees slaughtered by the millions so that people can have them in their homes for a few week at most, their needles, once so moist and full of life, robbed of their vitality, turning brown and brittle, falling to their unmourned deaths on your living room carpets. How long can these practices continue if we want to call ourselves a civilized society? And then there's the ugly matter of vegetable discrimination. How many vegetables have you ever seen in the top management of the corporate world? None, I dare to venture. Do you mean to tell me they're aren't QUALIFIED vegetables out there able to do the jobs? Even in companies with more enlightened policies, there's still a subtle, but unmistakable, barrier to the promotion of vegetables. It's very likely another side of the Greenhouse Effect. Whatever you call it, there is definitely a glass ceiling on the rise of vegetables. And how many vegetables do you see in our graduate schools? Far too few. And why? They are WEEDED out, it's obvious. Can't have too many uppity vegetables getting in where they don't belong. Green may not be to everybody's taste, but it's long past the time when we should be judging them by the color of their skins and instead should be judging them by the content of their characters. Vegetation of color can compete if it's given a chance. I say change the compost and you'll change the composition of the low-scoring, underachieving vegetables in our schools. It may even be time for Affirmative Action for vegetables. After all, they have been held down for centuries, and we can't expect them to compete even when the playing field is level. Some vegetables are bound to get squashed in the interchange. If they aren't included in the system, they may very well turn against the system, and, believe you me, an angry vegetable can do a lot of damage. After all, what do most of them have to look forward to in their lives but a lot of standing around or trying to distribute their seeds, or, in far too many case, selling their brothers (in the form of cocaine and marijuana) on street corners, only to wind up dead in a world that doesn't care. When, oh when will we learn to make the most of the vegetables in our midst? A word also needs to be said about Vegetable Access. How long can we go on denying our vegetable brethren the right to ride on public transportation? It is not their fault that many of them are immobile. It is not THEIR fault they need soil in which to thrive. Therefore, buses and subway trains as well as regular trains, airplanes, and all other forms of public and private transportation need to be equipped with ramps and seats covered with DIRT so that vegetables can ride in comfort and safety. Just as non-rooted passengers assume their right to transportation, ROOTED passengers have ever reason to demand that their requirements be met. For it is a foolish society that does not look out for the needs of the neediest among its citizens. I've postponed the most serious issue of vegetable rights till last. But I will put it off no longer. It is nothing less than the matter of . . . the sexual harassment of vegetables. Countless cases of abuse are being documented at last. Chichita Banana has given an extensive interview in PEOPLE MAGAZINE about her childhood memories with an uncle. Mr. Potato Head is finally speaking out as well. Alas, human beings have for far too long felt it their God-given right to squeeze melons in any supermarket they choose, without first obtaining permission from the melons concerned. Indeed, they simply put their filthy hands all over any vegetable they fancy and squeeze and probe and sniff and sometimes even taste (as in the case of grapes) without any regard for the wishes of the poor vegetables themselves. Nor is this abuse confined to males. Some women have purchased cucumbers and other similarly shaped produce and used them for self-gratification in a most shocking and one-sided manner. Well, it's time that this harassment be stopped at once. Vegetables will no longer stand by and let themselves be exploited and demeaned with expressions like "nice and firm" or "tender and succulent."How would you feel if you were called "the pick of the season" and drooled over by people who toss you out as soon as you're old and they're through with you? Vegetables will be victims NO MORE! I know I've brought up some very serious issues here, but it's time to look at certain realities which we can no longer sweep into a bin and say do not exist. The question is what will YOU do about these excesses? I know that I, for one, am starting a campaign to be called Reparations for Vegetables. It's the least we can do for all they and their ancestors have suffered. Monetary compensation can never of course make up for what vegetables have endured, but at least it's a beginning if we are to be a truly just and wise world. ***** THE REAL REASONS FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION by Daniel Curzon As a gay man who certainly knows what discrimination is all about and as a college teacher of over thirty years, most of them during the Age of Affirmative Action, let me give some reasons why everybody, especially gay people, ought to support this wonderful concept. 1. Mainly, if you don't, Jesse Jackson will beat you up. 2. Next, you are white and don't have enough guilt of your own. You must also pay for your ancestors' mistakes. 3. You are "of color" and know in your heart that no person "of color"has ever been racist, discriminatory, or biased in favor of his or her own group (not even in Rwanda) and thus you have no reason for guilt about yourself, your ancestors, or anyone else who belongs to your group. 4. A person of color can't, in fact, be guilty of discrimination because he or she has no power in our society, even if he or she happens to be the Head of Personnel or a member of the Cabinet. 5. People who are black, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American are "ethnic,"while people who are of German, Polish, or Irish descent are not. 6. You believe that every white person, despite any differences in ethnic background, from Greek to Italian to Hungarian, or any differences in socio-economic background, has had more advantages in every situation than any person of color, no matter what economic background that person may come from, even if it's middle- or upper-class. 7. You believe that the original idea of Affirmative Action--that when two completely equal candidates are competing for a position, the advantage then, and only then, should go to the person in the approved group--has now outlived its usefulness and should be replaced, as it has been, by the idea that any person in the pre-approved groups takes priority over anyone not in the pre-approved groups (white males). 8. You think a gay white male is just a white male when it comes to Affirmative Action. (Gay white men can't suffer discrimination from people of color because they're just a bunch of faggots anyway.) 9. In the academic world, you believe that a black woman with a Master's degree (earned during the Age of Affirmative Action at that) and one published article is "equal" to a white male with a Ph.D., two books, and six articles. 10. You believe that people in the pre-approved groups who've come to the United States since the implementation of Affirmative Action and become citizens, even if they personally have never experienced discrimination in the U.S. themselves, should be entitled to preferential treatment over lifelong white citizens. 11. You believe that white males are supposed to be cool, calm, and understated in presenting their arguments against Affirmative Action, but women and people of color must not be held down by Western patterns of thinking. 12. You think it's only fair that white males should stand to the side and say to the pre-approved groups, "Here, take my job." 13. You really believe that minority groups only take jobs that the majority wouldn't want, like office manager and dean of students. 14. Anyone of color who is not hired for a job or fired from one isalways the victim of discrimination. It is never the result of poorwork habits, bad attitude, lack of preparation, or incompetence. 15. If a member of an ethnic minority should ever have a bad habit of any kind, it can be traced back as the fault of somebody else. 16. You believe that white people get anything and everything they want and are never disappointed in job promotions or any other aspect of their lives. 17. You believe that low SAT scores, intelligence tests, college entrance exams and the like are totally unreliable and were probably planted by the Los Angeles Police Department. 18. You believe that merit should not longer play a part in job selection. Redress of grievances for the past is far more important than performance in the present. 19. Anyone who criticizes someone of color or a woman for any reason is not objective and is inherently a racist, a misogynist, or both. On the other hand, if anyone of color or a woman criticizes anything, that person is accurate, trustworthy, and not to be questioned, because to do so would be a sure proof or racism, misogyny, and so on. 20. Whenever there is conflict between people, it isn't because they are individuals with conflicts (as in the O.J. Simpson jury). It's because It's because the white are doing something wrong and must try harder to understand the sensitivities of 'minorities.' 'Minorities' have no obligation to understand anybody else's sensitivities. 21. When these 'minorities' become the majority, they will give Affirmative Action to white males. (And of course gays too) 22. Your idea of fairness would be to replace black basketball players with Asian ones in order to insure ethnic distribution in sports. 23. You think whining is a form of aerobic exercise. 24. The only reason people do not rise to high positions is because of a glass ceiling, residual racism, or some other exterior barricade and not because of any limitation in the individual--despite Affirmative Action quotas, immense legal pressure from both Federal and state government, and the spirit of our enlightened times that says sanity has no place in American life anymore.