Civil Rights and LGBT Rights/ Questions about Stuck Rubber Baby
Throughout Stuck Rubber Baby, Cruse draws analogies between civil right and the rights of LGBT people. Do you think this analogy is appropriate? How does the connection he draws help to illuminate the connections between race, gender, and sexuality? How does the theme of secrecy about sexual orientation in Stuck Rubber Baby relate/ not relate to the way Johnson and Pleece portray racial passing in Incognegro?
In order to help answer these questions and understand the timeline of what Cruse narrates in his graphic novel, please take a look at these links with the timelines for civil rights and gay rights in the U.S.
There's also an interesting NPR piece about the analogies between civil rights and the gay marriage.
As in any comparison, it is easy enough to find both similarities and differences between two concepts. I think that the LGBT civil rights movement and the African American civil rights movement share the same foundation, with both groups composed of wrongfully marginalized peoples searching for greater acceptance in the country they consider home. This shared oppression makes the two situations highly analogous, and I find Cruse’s parallel, for lack of a better phrase, adequately poignant. One of the differences between the two groups that Cruse seems to place a particular emphasis on is the connection between one’s identity and one’s appearance to society that is more or less absent for members of the gay community. While we may not have a chance to read through Incognegro, I think it is still worth pointing out the differences in challenges that arise from this disconnect, as seen in Toland in Stuck Rubber Baby. Rather than the strength and pride that many of the African American characters seem to draw from their identity, Toland’s homosexuality constantly wears down his psyche, being equal parts liberating and cumbersome. Pretty neat, eh?
ReplyDelete