Comment by moate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by moate | Hacker News Reader

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My point is twofold.

1- These are religious traditions that date back to the 1500s. If we can consider chilis a part of Indian national cooking, I think we need to accept that Christianity is a huge part of the national makeup of Ghana, and with it the homophobia present in most denominations.

2- Let's not project on each other. I'm just fine calling colonization a terrible blight and fucked up massive chunks of the world (Antarctica seems fine...), and I can accept that historical/additional context can benefit a discussion but this statement smacked of "blame the West for everything." Of course blame the West, but also blame the people passing this legislation. They don't get a free pass because white people suck. Should the West be trying to fix this, or stay out of it because they should be allowed to run their own government?

Let's rewind a little bit: Who is responsible for this legislation passing in your mind (if multiple parties, please assign what you view as their % of blame). For me it's about 85% to the Parliamentary members sponsoring such legislation, and 15% outside actors with something to gain.

My issue is this: Gay people, my people, are being harmed. Academic discussions about the root causes annoy me when actual blood is being spilled. That's what I'm triggered by, and your comment seemed like one worth responding to instead of the parent (which was gibberish and now flagged)

Appreciate this follow-up response, and I apologize for running with what I perceived as a hostility in your earlier response, it's a struggle for sure.

1) Completely agree, the history is important to understand the threads that continue into the present, but there is no going back.

2) At this point, I think the West should stay out of it in any official capacity, which isn't totally confident statement on my part, but there it is. I also don't think white people suck, and I think focusing on that would be a distraction, the same way it sounds like you do. I intend my criticisms to target abuse of power, which of course happens to fall into the hands of white people fairly often, but it's not the crux in my mind at all. In my original comment I did not mention race for that reason. These kinds of power abuses are ubiquitous wherever people live, and it is absolutely absurd to blame the West or whites as a group for succumbing to the same failures and abusive patterns as people do everywhere.

All of that said... I still think it's important to bring up the lingering influences of colonization, and that an understanding of the forces at play, even going back hundreds of years, is likely crucial to trying to make progress in the present.

> Who is responsible for this legislation passing in your mind

I'm not totally sure, of course from a fundamental view it is the politicians who are enacting the legislation. They are directly responsible for the bill, but I think this is potentially simplistic. Money from outside sources can make a lot of things happen that never would have otherwise, including putting politicians into power and steering their agenda. So if the situation in Ghana can be directly tied to that kind of corruption, I would shift most of the blame to the people who the ultimate driving force behind these bills.

As a fellow gay, I understand your desire to steer the conversation toward more immediate concerns, but I would contest the characterization of the region's history as purely academic. Teasing apart the fractal of influences that create any behavior, including violence toward minorities, can be difficult if not impossible. Spreading more contextual awareness can be a tool to help shift attitudes, at least as far as the limits of a HN comment are concerned.

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