Author Sarah Stryker

Entries 3 Total Bio

 

 Contact

LGBT Thoughts

Nov 1, ’10 5:32 PM

Recently, news of Tyler Clementi’s suicide has pervaded most media. The circumstances surrounding his death, as well as his youth and promise, add to the tragedy of his unfortunate choice. We should mourn Tyler fully, use his story as a lesson, and perhaps, in the future, think before we act. It must be understood at the outset that this article is not intended to undermine this heartbreaking incident. However, the omnipresence of Tyler’s story is an opportune catalyst by which I may air a thought that has been on my mind for some time. It is simply this: gay men receive much more attention than gay women. Anyone who has friends or a computer knows about Tyler. But how many readers have heard about Carol and Laura Stutte?

The Stuttes are a lesbian couple from Vonore, TN, and their house burned down in early September 2010. An article detailing the incident appeared on wate.com, and stated that the couple believed the fire was arson – more precisely, a hate crime. This belief seems justified; the word “QUEERS” was spray-painted on their garage, and in August the couple had complained to the police of harassment from their neighbor. The article says the neighbor “threatened to kill them and burn down their house.” It was by sheer luck that no one was home that night; the couple had been too fearful to return to their property. There has been no follow-up story on the police investigation. More details on the story can be found on wate.com, but suffice it to say, this was a serious, intentional, and violent hate crime that went entirely unnoticed.

Photo by Bob Fowler/News Sentinel

To be sure I wasn’t the only person in the dark on the Stutte’s story, I typed their names into Google trends, which uses keywords to produce line graphs showing the history and frequency with which those words were searched on Google (or bar graphs showing which countries searched those terms the most, and in which languages.)  Now, allow me to give some perspective – if you type “cat banana” into the search bar, you get a fair amount of information; the first searches for “cat banana” start in late 2008 (a stressful year, I imagine) and then stop almost immediately. They do not appear again until early 2009, and those terms have been searched with relative frequency ever since – mostly within the Philippines. Type in “Tyler Clementi” to Google trends, and you will see a huge search spike in recent weeks. Type in “Carol Stutte” or “Laura Stutte” or “Carol and Laura Stutte,” and Google trends will tell you it has too little data to form a graph.

I’m happy for the attention that the LGBT community gets, no matter how it is skewed. Social change sometimes takes baby steps. However, I would hope that members within the community would take measures to rectify this obvious inequity. And then, perhaps in the future, no one will have to point out the obvious irony of unequal attention within a movement fighting for equal rights.

BY SARAH STRYKER

Comments (0)

LET JOY BE UNCONFINED

Feb 3, ’10 1:26 AM

Do you yearn to be quipped at cleverly while feeling your self-esteem evaporate? Is your fascination with English Pleasure Gardens undying? Do you long to hear the phrase “things look bleak for you” said with the dulcet tenor of a London accent? If you answered yes to any of these, then you are mad. But you are also a perfect candidate to become a pupil of the enigmatic James Stacey Taylor.

He is ironic, intelligent, and breathtakingly tall. Early American fables claim he carved the Grand Canyon by dragging an axe across the desert – the name was later changed to Paul Bunyan for legal reasons. Now, he enjoys a quiet life of educating young minds in the Philosophy Department of TCNJ.

Dr. Taylor was kind enough to answer several questions for The Perspective – and even suggested a few him­self when he discovered the interviewer was woefully incapable. Now sit back, secure tongue firmly in cheek, and enjoy the musings of a delightfully sardonic Brit.

Where did you grow up?

Mainly in the Bedford Park area of London; this was the first planned Garden Suburb, dating from the C19th Arts and Crafts movement in England, and so was a very pleasant place to grow up. Yeats lived a few houses down from the house I grew up in, and wrote several of his major poems there. Not when I was living there, of course—he was dead by then. Or so his biographers would have us believe.

Where did you go to university?

At St. Andrews University, in Scotland, and UC Berkeley, for my undergraduate work and first postgraduate degree; then Bowling Green State University in Ohio for my further gradu­ate studies. And, no, I don’t play golf; it is a silly game. There are far easier ways to get that little white ball into those small holes.

When did you move to America, and why?

I spent a year at UC Berkeley, as part of my undergraduate degree. I moved more permanently in the mid 1990s, to con­tinue graduate work in philosophy. At the time the chances of securing an academic job in America were much higher than in Britain—there were simply more available—and an American degree was considered advantageous. Plus, I was misled—the man who recruited me to study in Ohio claimed that the Midwest was just like California. It isn’t.

Have you seen much of America?

I’ve lived in the Midwest, the Deep South (Louisiana), the Shallow South (Virginia), and on both West and East Coasts, so I’ve experienced quite a wide variety of American life. In­cluding line dancing and tractor pulling, both of which I ob­served from a safe distance.

What do you like about America?

The general friendliness of people, and gas station hotdogs. These are probably the most important contribution America has made to the culinary arts. (The hot dogs, that is.) They’re absolutely wonderful, and so cheap! Plus, you can load up on vegetable-based condiments, and so they’re healthy, too.

Do you like horror movies?

Why does this question follow questions about America?

Of course! I used to live in a town that was the set of a recent horror film, whose working title was Backwater. (It was re­leased as Venom, and is terrible.) When you’re living in a town that’s being filmed as the backdrop to a horror film called Backwater things look bleak. Especially if the film crew have to spruce the place up so it doesn’t look too creepy. I recom­mend Spoorlos and Anatomie as terrific horror movies—al­though stop watching Anatomie after the first scene. It goes downhill rapidly. And is mean to utilitarians.

How did you get interested in philosophy?

The school I went to (i.e., for the equivalent of high school) had a very good Sixth Form Library, and subscribed to aca­demic journals in philosophy and classics, among others. I was browsing through the philosophy journals, and found the articles in them fascinating, especially those to do with theo­retical ethics. Unfortunately, this happened after I’d been ac­cepted to read for a Law degree at an English university. So, I gave up my place there, took a year off, and applied to read philosophy at St Andrews.

What are your interests in philosophy?

I’m interested in medical ethics, especially the morality of us­ing markets to procure human transplant organs. I’m also in­terested in the related questions of whether death is a harm to the person who dies, whether the dead can be wronged, and whether the dead can be harmed. (The answers are no, no, and no. The dead would be very lucky indeed, were they to exist to instantiate such a property.) I also work on theories of personal autonomy—what it is for an action or a desire to be correctly attributable to one as one’s own. And I have interests in the work of Descrates, Berkeley, and nineteenth century utilitarianism.

Do you have any other academic interests?

Yes—history (especially medieval English history), and clas­sics (especially the Epicurean school). I’m also keenly inter­ested in plagues, especially the Great Mortality of the C14th. That was a real disease—not like the weak-kneed stuff that’s around now.

Do you have any pets?

Three Catahoula hunting dogs, and an embarrassingly large number of cats. An embarrassingly large number of cats is any number above zero.

Comments (1)

HOMECOMING

Nov 3, ’09 4:24 PM

RoscoeROSCOE WOULD BE PROUD

By SCOOTER

Once a year, the inhabitants of suburban New Jersey gather together in celebration of that most joyous of autumnal days: Homecoming. On drizzly fall afternoons, as birds warble and leaves float gently to the grass, in the distance the sound of revving engines and pumping subwoofers disturbs the bucolic atmosphere, announcing the arrival of the Homecomers.

A long caravan of every imaginable sport utility vehicle emerges, each equipped with infinite trunk space and a sturdy tailgate, for it is known that on this day no man shall be without these essentials.

The wagons purr to a stop and their brood spills out, busying themselves with tent poles and hammers. Within moments, a canvas city is erected and the day’s festivities can begin. In play, children scramble through mud while their parents spit-roast the heartiest of Oscar Meyers. It is reminiscent of a renaissance fair.

During this charming harvest festival, the people share all manner of delicacies painfully acquired through a season’s toil. The revelers usher in the colder months, enjoying the last of their summer bounty before winter’s frost makes Cheetos and Miller Lite scarce.

Yes, the onlookers eagerly stuff themselves with meat and mead in anticipation of the day’s sporting events. A pastime whose spectators can gorge themselves while watching others exercise is a great pastime indeed.

The day’s climax manifests in the crowning of the Homecoming king and queen, figureheads of fruitful farming. Both are perfect physical specimens, the best the human race has to offer, and were selected using the same process as prizewinning pumpkins. The attendees feel secure knowing the fate of the human race is saved with the pairing of these two thoroughbreds.

As the day winds down, the steel caravans head back to their homesteads. They leave in their wake muddy lawns, a plethora of refuse, and happy memories of living the American Dream.

Comments (0)