After reading Frank’s blog I couldn’t help but feel a little offended myself, considering I am part of the LGBT community and I am a bit of an advocate for gay rights and equality, but I have learned that the word “Fag” only gives power if it offends the other person. Words tend to have meaning only when they have effect on someone else. After being called a “Fag” most of my high school years the word has become less and less effective. I don’t tend to think of “Fag” as being a term against gays or lesbians but against someone who is different and a term you use when you can’t think of another insult. I wouldn’t necessarily consider this to be a sign of our countries ignorance but just the ignorance of the sailor and his lack of vocabulary.
Now I’m not going to say that it was a good idea for him to write this on the bomb, in fact it was his own little way to say “FUCK YOU” to all those who would do us harm. However I do agree with the thought that oppressing gays and lesbians would be doing something that the Terrorists would approve of but I think it’s missing the point of the photo, when the sailor wrote this on the bomb as a way to show his anger. He wrote something without thinking clearly and thus showing everyone how clouded with hate he became after the attacks. In fact the whole idea of a bomb should be enough to say, “Hey you pissed off the wrong group of people!” Now whether the bomb had actually been used or not that sailor would have been able to say, “that’s right I said what I wanted to!”
If gays and lesbians are upset by such a word why would they use it within their own community? I have seen two gay men walk up to the other and as a greeting say “Hey Fag” and they have no problem with it. It’s when other people start to use this term as an insult that people become offended. That is a real problem with this country. We are so divided in our own culture that in one group the same word might be taken as offensive if said by another group. Another instance of this is the word Nigga. You can’t be a white man and say this to a black man because it’s racist, but yet I’ve seen two black men go up to each other and say “Hey Nigga what’s up?” or “That’s right Nigga.” As powerful as words can be they are just words and only take offense when used in a certain context or given in a certain tone of voice. I believe if we could just fix the problems in our own society first before trying to fix everyone elses we might not have cared so much about this War on Terror and certain actions like writing this on a bomb wouldn’t cause so much of an up roar.
Lucas Wheeler
The date is October 11, 2001. One month ago to the day, four planes were hijacked by terrorists and attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. A U.S. Navy sailor on the U.S.S. Enterprise is preparing a bomb to be dropped over Afghanistan. The sailor decides to write a message to the recipients of the bomb. He scrawls, “High jack this fags,” onto the head of the bomb to show that no matter what they may try against us, we will fight back. Knowing that the bomb would explode and leave no evidence of his “graffiti”, the sailor did not worry about his message. He figured that his message was merely an additional, symbolic attack against terrorism that only he would know about. However, a photographer for the Associated Press was there as well, and they snapped a photograph of the bomb.
The Associated Press released the photograph to the public, and there was an outrage over the use of the word “fag.” In the sailor’s mind, “fag” was simply an insulting word, and therefore worthy of our enemy. But the word refers to a specific group of people, and that group of people is not our enemy. How can the enemy in the War on Terror be “fags?” The Terrorists are supposed to be religious extremists. Their religious beliefs would never permit homosexuality. If anything, our country’s LGBT population represents a freedom that is allowed in America that the Terrorists want to get rid of. Does that not mean that we should embrace the LGBT community in our war against Terror? If our troops alienate gays and lesbians, then they are oppressing people in a way that the Terrorists would approve of.
This picture demonstrates how imperfect the War on Terror is. Our troops are fighting against an enemy that seeks to destroy our freedom, but at the same time our troops are inadvertently denying the freedom of our own citizens. Homophobia is only one example of how confused we are as a nation. After America began its second war in Iraq, many Americans believed Saddam Hussein and Iraq to be a part of the War on Terror, and that they had been the aggressors in the September 11 attacks. The fact that we are at war against “Terror” is simply a vague concept that is difficult to understand. As this picture was circulated in the news circuit, members of the LGBT community were offended. The word “fag” is enough to strike “terror” in the minds of many Americans who have had to endure ridicule and hatred for having a different sexual or gender identity. As a result of this one sailor’s action, that terror and hatred was spread once again.
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