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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. |