LGBT RIGHTS
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: How binary culture of violence controls sexuality
Melanie Judge’s Blackwashing Homophobia examines homophobic violence alongside other types of violence and discrimination — not in isolation, writes Diane de Beer
The title of the new book by activist, author and adjunct associate professor in the department of public law at the University of Cape Town Melanie Judge is a mouthful, but it captures the essence of what drives the world – power — and how that affects people, especially those known as "the other". She says the title, Blackwashing Homophobia, is an attempt to think about homophobic violence alongside other types of violence and discrimination — not in isolation, but historically situated in an SA context. "I wanted to know what fuels homophobia," she says. "Given our history, it is impossible to unpack issues of race and sexuality in SA separately — hence the title." What emerged from her research is how racial and sexual discrimination work with each other to produce very problematic ideas about gay and lesbian people in SA, and about black gay and lesbian people. As an activist, she wanted to glean and understand the multiple dimensions of the causes and effects of violence and i...
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