Yes, I saw that. But what is the article about, hmmm?
I dunno. A little perspective, New York style.....
When I was a kid-like 11 years old-I started taking formal martial arts lessons. There was this dude in my class, Wesley-he was like
awesome-three years older than I was, black, and everything I wanted to be. I went to boarding school. I went to college. I came back, trained at my old dojo again (I was going to say which one, but we'll just leave that alone, okay?) and Wesley was, like
gay!
I mean, not just gay, but drag queen, shaved eyebrows, looks like a totally hot (very tall, very muscular totally hot) woman, '
GAY!!!" As in:stilletos, miniskirt, wig, beat you to death with his Gucci purse, if he didn't pull out the .357 from the purse and just ****ing shoot you, gay.
Totally one of my best buds.
Of course, it's the 80's. Poor bastard (among all us poor bastards) got AIDS, and died a drooling, blind idiot. Same year as my father, grandfather, and uncle-it was almost more than I could take. In the meantime, though, when he was a little more healthy, there was a dojo meeting about letting him continue to train. I took a lot of heat for knowing he was "that way," and not saying anything. Hell, we'd worked security at parties with him posing as my "date," in full on drag (with the .357 in his purse also in full effect) and I'd watched him take on 3 guys while wearing a miniskirt and heels like it was no big deal-seriously, dude did not even break a sweat.. With friends like him, who needed heterosexuals? :lfao: (Of course, I had to give them grief, I mean, the guy shaved his eyebrows off and penciled them back on-
get a clue, willya???)
Anyway.
Said dojo meeting ends with the decision that Wes can't train with us anymore-he took it pretty well. I objected, though, in retrospect, given all the times I wound up face down in a pool of someone else's sweat, it probably wasn't an altogether bad decision. Point is, people can get pretty icked out by other people's "sexual stuff," for a variety of reasons. Even if they think they're pretty cool with it, and it doesn't matter. My senior most non-family student-Barb's been with me for 15 years, now-is a lesbian. I've never really considered her sexuality, though we met because she had a serious thing for one of my ex-girlfriends. The ex is long gone, and Barb remains......funny.I don't really care who she sleeps with-it's none of my business, as long as she's happy.
Someone else really might care, sadly.There are "Christian" martial arts groups (and good that there are, though I find them a little weird) and "white supremacist" martial arts groups, and there's a Black Karate Federation. Why not a gay-or "gay friendly" martial arts class? Sure, at your dojo it's entirely possible that there are gay members, and you don't know, and don't care, and that's really great-but what if you did know? Can you honestly say that no one would care, or that that person would continue to be as welcomed?
Good that this young man is doing what he's doing.:asian:
