Macklemore shows hip-hop doesn't need to be homophobic, violent in Dallas concert

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/music/headlines/20131201-macklemore-shows-hip-hop-doesn-t-need-to-be-homophobic-violent-in-dallas-concert.ece

Outline:

This past Saturday, Macklemore held a concert at the Verizon Center in Dallas,TX. Throughout the concert he had many things to say with positive messages. Before singing his song titled "Same Love" he said to the crowd "I’m happy with the progress we’ve made in the last year in the forefront of equality.". Macklemore sings about equal rights for same sex couples and speaks against the way music bashes homosexuality. One part of his song "Same Love" goes like this "If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me/Have you read the YouTube comments lately". He also sings about how alcohol and drugs are bad and have a negative affect on you. In his song "Starting Over" he talks about how pot and alcohol hurt his creativity and put him in rehab. He does all of this while still being very entertaining and putting on a great show.

Reflection

I think that Macklemore is just what society needs. We have grown so accustomed to people being put down and with things that aren't good becoming social norms, that Macklemore goes and challenges all these ideas and beliefs. We hear people talk all the time about things that are bad as being "gay", for example when someone was talking in convo the other day about people sagging their pants he said "that's GAY". We use the word so freely without even realizing what it is we're saying. I think that many more artists need to promote the right messages in their songs instead of the wrong ones.

Russian Anti-Gay laws

      Russia's new anti-gay laws bands the distribution of "nontraditional" sexual relations to minors. The law will fine anyone who promotes gay activity. The law also does not say anything about not allowing decriminalization or prohibiting acts of violence to the LGBT community. Many people in the more conservatives parts of Russia have used the law to justify their acts of violence. The region of Zabaikalsk passed a law that allowed public humiliation and torture of gay people. Around the nation homo phobics have tried to lure in the LGBT community to humiliate them, even going as far as pouring urine on to them. Recent research after the law was passed showed the suicide rate in the LGBT youth group was much more higher then any other group. Alot more youth is more scared of "coming" out to their parents then years before.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-homophobic-violence

Homophobia and Self-Hatred http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/homophobic-maybe-youre-gay.html?_r=0

Jendy VanHeyningen

Summary
          In the article I chose, Richard Ryan and William Lewis talk about people being homophobic. They talk Anjou how maybe homophobia is just self-hatred and how people try their hardest to get over it. It also says, "An evangelical leader who preached that homosexuality was a sin, resigned after a scandal involving a former male prostitute." There is also a theory about the suppression of your sexual orientation out of fear, maybe shown as homophobia. In the United States and Germany there are 6 different using college students. One of the studies was called "semantic association." You are given a computer, with either the word "me" or "other" on the screen for 35 milliseconds. So basically when certain images that pertain to you're sexual orientation are flashed on the screen after the word "me", you will shown not faster than if an image is shown not pertaining or associating your sexual orientation. Something that may lead to the concealing of sexual orientation might be if you have parents who may or may not accept your sexual orientation any way. It may not be the case for everybody concealing how they feel or for every that shows homophobia but you have to consider this theory as well.

Reflection
              I think that this theory is a very much valid, especially when you apply the factor of if your parents are accepting or not about not being heterosexual. I honestly think that it is not even a majority of the homophobic people that are in fact homosexual but it is a significant amount of them repressing this. It makes me feel uneasy knowing that prod have to hide who they truly are just because society doesn't accept and even more surprising is their parents. I don't think that society even to this day is exactly "accepting" homosexuality, but they are tolerating it made than they have before. When I say "society" mean the heterosexual community because in order to accept the people of different sexual orientation, it has come from them. This situation we have in the United States is ridiculous. If somebody is homosexual then that's none of your business so you should just let them be and do what they want to do because they aren't worried about your life.