"Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community" Dennis Carlson

Calrson's argues in his text that gay people need to feel that they are welcomed into a community where, up to this time period, they have been shunned. He states that schools need to be more open to discussing "gayness" at a young age and that gay people also need to be comfortable enough within their community to come out without feeling that they are doing something wrong and without being anxious about their decision. One thing that Carlson points out is that "analysis needs to proceed through an account if the specific techniques and apparatuses of power that have been employed in the school to keep gayness 'in its place' as an invisible presence. Three techniques of normalization and (hence) marginalization have been of primay importance in this regard: 1 the erasure of gayness in the cirriculm, 2 the "closeting" and "witch hunting" of gay teachers, and 3 verbal and physical intimidationof gay teachers and students." After reading these 3 points that Carlson brings up I tried to think of myself in the position I would be in if I was gay. I realized that I would probably feel uncomfortable and never really be able to be myself and show the people around me who I really am without be self conscious of what others will say or even do. Carlson goes on to discuss famous writers who were gay and that this "cleansing of gayness from the literary canon is ofen defended as an effort to maintain the reputation or 'good name' of authors by not 'outing' them." This wording actually offended me a lot. I felt that why would the publishers be tarnishing their 'good name' when they were famous for being great writers, so why would anything in their personal lives affect how they are seen today? I almost feel that if this information was more widely known, they would become more famous because it seperates them from other writers. Another thing that really offended me in this work was when Calrson explained Willard Wallers' view that "nothing seems more certain than that homosexuality is contagious" and that "gay teachers were to be fired because they too were understood as contagious." I felt that this statement was appalling and not only that but completely rediculous.
All in all I really enjoyed reading Carlson's work. I liked the way he wrote and it wasn't boring for me at all. I liked how he brought in other's viewpoints and with him doing that it opened my eyes to how, for lack of a better word, insane people are. Its really appalling to me to think that there are people who talk about other human beings like they are carrying around the black plague just because they are different from themselves.