I'va attached the file - Essay Example

?Insert of the Field Trip Experience It is not in doubt that many have at one time succumbed to preconceived conceptions about homosexuality and the LGBT community which consists of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and the transsexual when developing a worldview on sexuality. This stubborn nature of mankind necessitates the need for research and educational expeditions on the same. Personally, I came to change my perception towards the role neighbourhood tours play in education. This is because, through the neighbourhood bus tour which I participated in, I got acquainted with the world and facts of the LGBT in a deeper sense. The reality above is underscored by the fact that although more mainstream academic avenues such as books, journals, class lectures and group discussions are rich in information, yet, the neighbourhood bus tour remains of immense importance since it allowed me to interact directly with material culture which are relevant to the LGBT community. This material culture helped me gain a deeper understanding on LGBT community. The destination of the neighbourhood bus trip was the GLBT History Museum, which is located in Castro District, San Francisco. The trip to the GLBT History Museum, San Francisco was graced with aspects of uniqueness, given that it is the first full-scale independent museum in the US. From the trip to the GLBT History Museum, I came to learn that as opposed to widely held misconception that homosexual lifestyle is not a recent phenomenon. This is because, the GLBT History Museum celebrates over 100 years of San Francisco's wide queer past through the hosting of dynamic and unprecedented exhibitions and programming. This [to me], underscored the fact that America's aspect of aspect of diversity has a long history. In like manner, I came to realise that America's history is widely varied and resistant to being limited in a way. This is because, the exhibition in the GLBT History Museum does not correspond with a single narrative of heterosexual lifestyle, but on the contrary, multiple stories that are isolated, interlinked and sometimes, conflicting, appear therein. For instance, in the Migrating Archives: LGBT Delegates from Collections around the World by E. G. Crichton, one learns of the American LGBT community as having roots that go back to Belgium, England, Italy, Scotland, Hungary, the Philippines, South Africa and the United States itself. The import of this is that because of America's commitment to democracy, equality and human rights and freedoms, the LGBT community in the countries previously mentioned sought asylum in the US. The bus trip to the GLBT History Museum also inculcated in me, a sense of the untold catalogue of sufferings that the LGBT has undergone. The crux of the matter herein is that if the LGBT underwent great suffering in America which is the paragon of human rights, freedom and tolerance, then graver had been their plight in countries of origin. This is especially the case since in the GLBT History Museum, there are photographs and other artifacts [presented by participating organisations] which portray the hard experiences of queer individuals down the US history. These photographs are complemented by graphic videos and banners that coalesce together to reveal graphic stories of the lives of members of the LGBT community and the reality behind the archival collections that honour them. This makes the GLBT experience and history parallel that of other minority groups in the US, by the virtue of sharing in the same chalice of suffering and hardship. Connections to readings and explain how the neighbourhood bus trip explains and/or provides insights (or not) for understanding the place you visited, or things seen Indeed, the neighbourhood bus trip to the GLBT History Museum has helped provide insights to the things seen, the museum itself and life in the US as a whole. One of the ways in which the bus trip to the GLBT History Museum gives understanding to the things seen therein is by supporting the artifacts that are presented in museum's Jiro Onuma: Undocumented/ Documented. Jiro Onuma: Undocumented/ Documented present documents which relay the plight of the LGBT community in the history of the United States, with some of these documents being documented in the American history, while some are not. The documents indicate that the LGBT equally participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and the vagaries that accosted it. This corroborates with part of documented history in books such as Marcus Eric's Making Gay History, Denis Altman's, The Homosexualisation of America and Trystan Cotten's, New Directions in American History. Marcus' documented source of history maintains that although the Civil Rights Movement was graced primarily by minority groups in America which included the African American clamouring for the annulling of racial segregation and racial discrimination, yet the large group that the movement had amassed comprised other communities, movements and caucuses that felt downtrodden such as LGBT community and the feminine movement. Marcus contends that the reason why the LGBT community is not properly regarded for its participation in the Civil Rights Movement is because of the stigma and alienation that was being leveled towards it. By stigma and alienation, Marcus intends to mean, the institutional bias which tended towards mainstream cultural practices. According to Marcus, since the society did not largely acknowledge the reality of the LGBT's existence, the American media preferred to extend coverage to the principal part of the Civil Rights Movement to avoid losing viewership. Marcus points out that the fear of losing viewership upon dissemination of information on GLBT movement and reality of existence has its underpinnings in the capitalist nature of the media, or America having an overly capitalist media. Because of the capitalist nature of the media at the time, it was expedient that the media concentrates on items that would favour profit maximisation and the rough and tumble that accompanied the LGBT community together with its input to the society were not part of these capitalist exploits. The media at the time surmised that covering the LGBT movement would elicit public backlash and wane viewership. To this effect, there was no recourse to secluding coverage to race relations and equality in the Civil Rights Movement (Marcus, 84 and Cotten, 139). Another reason that Altman presents as the reason behind the conspiracy of silence against the LGBT community, in spite of heavy participation in the Civil Rights Movement was the collective discrimination which publishing organisations and the printing press leveled towards the LGBT community. In this regard, scholarly materials such as books, journal articles, and magazines that voiced the opinions of the LGBT were given a wide berth. Thus, Jiro Onuma: Undocumented/ Documented. Jiro Onuma: Undocumented/ Documented section of the GLBT History Museum helps one understand the reason why history is littered with undocumented truths about the LGBT community being an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement. Another way that the neighbourhood bus trip to the GLBT History Museum illumines understanding on the things seen therein is by hosting the artifacts in the Bearing the Scars: Violence and Trauma section. This section contains an array of physical aggression that was being meted out on the LGBT community, particularly in the period between 1970 and 1980. This section of the museum helps any visitor appreciate the standpoint being taken by Tucson that violence, threats and other forms of physical aggression were being used to dissuade the LGBT organisers and community from demanding for acceptance and legal acceptance (Tucson, 45 and Sabine, 88). Conversely, the HIV/AIDS: Grief, Solidarity, Determination section of the GLBT History Museum helps underscore the pivotal role that the neighbourhood bus tour plays in understanding the plight of the GLBT community, in regard to the group's susceptibility to HIV/AIDS infection. The data that is hosted inn this section of the museum point out that since the 1980s, HIV/AIDS has impacted directly the LGBT community, particularly, the gay part of the community. This data shows that in the US and Canada, 80% of gay men accounted for over 46.4% of the cases that have been reported. In the UK, the US, and Canada, it is pointed in the same data that over 15% of gay men who reside in urban centres are HIV positive. By this virtue, one can conclude safely that the data provided in the HIV/AIDS: Grief, Solidarity, Determination section confirms the fact that HIV/AIDS stands as the most formidable threat to the LGBT community. The most interesting twist to the data provided for in the HIV/AIDS: Grief, Solidarity, Determination section is that this state of affair remains the same since the 1950s. Usually [and logically], it is expected that as socioeconomic gains are made in the society and with the American and western societies having become more equal and tolerant to the minority groups, endogamic spread of HIV/AIDS within a given group including the LGBT community should have been checked and arrested. Nevertheless, this state of affair helps in appreciating this section of the GLBT History Museum. Particularly, the disparity between the gains that are being realised in quelling the spread of HIV/AIDS in the rest of the developed world and the failure to allay the same among gay people in the LGBT community can be attributed to stigma. Particularly, Robinson points out that the stigma that the society places on the LGBT is responsible for entrenching fear among this community, so that this fear dissuades the same community from seeking medical attention and medical services (Robinson, 25). In almost the same wavelength, the fear is seen by Robinson as being underpinned by the relative absence of institutions that accord the LGBT community medical services or those that are friendly to the same community. This makes the community experience difficulty in seeking medical attention and services (Robinson, 26). The development above and the susceptibility of the LBGT community to the spread of HIV/AIDS while the rest of the world is curtailing the spread of this syndrome is further underscored by the section of the GLBT History Museum, known as, On the Margin: Queers & Poverty. This development or section helps in shedding the light on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the LGBT community by analysing and discussing the economic aspect and relations of the community and the rest of the American society. This is because, this section illustrates details in text and picture form, to show the manner in which institutional undercurrents was biased against the LGBT community, and thereby compelling the community to live in the economic fringes of the larger society. The standpoint above easily corroborates with that of Levin who pointed out that economic marginalisation of the LGBT community had been responsible for the dwindling fortunes within this same community. According to Levin, the marginalisation of the LGBT has its strength in institutional arrangements, given that owners of enterprises and companies in the United States were left to exercise their will during recruitment drives. At the time, there were no legal restrictions [such as shattering the glass ceiling] that had been placed to ensure the observation of gender balance and social equity in recruitment exercises (Levin, 75). The situation was not any better for the GLBT community which was discriminated against, with this discrimination being based on misconceptions towards the LGBT community and alternative lifestyle. Brown recounts that for this reason, there has been improvement on the financial or economic welfare of the LGBT community in the period, especially when one considers the pre-1950s America and the post-1950s America. As the American society has become less strict on LGBT, it became significant that the rights of the same were reiterated as being important in social and economic areas of intercourse (Brown, 36). In regard to the above, recounts that in the pre-1950s America, the LGBT community accounted only for 6.5% of America’s labour force in employment. Currently, the situation can be lucidly said to have improved, given that the presence of the LGBT in America’s employment sector accounts for 20%, according to Brown. In this regard, the concept of marginalisation against the LGBT community helps in inspiring understanding on the under-empowerment of the LGBT community as is recounted by the On the Margin: Queers & Poverty section of the museum (Brown, 37). Conclusion In a nutshell, the neighbourhood road trip to the GLBT History Museum remains crucial part of the learning experience because of the immense knowledge it has dispensed upon students including myself. The paradox of LGBT’s presence being alive in the pre-1950 America and yet being wrongly presumed to have been inexistent, the economic suppression of the LGBT community and the physical aggression that has been meted out against the LGBT community are all matters that the trip has made to come alive, practically. Works Cited Brown, Angela. “Relooking the LGBT Movement in America.” Journal of American Sociology, 6.3 (2007): 35-9. Print Cotten, Trystan. New Directions in American History. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print GLBT History Museum. About The GLBT History Museum. Retrieved on 29 April; from: http://www.glbthistory.org/museum/ Electronic Levin, Jones. A History of the LGBT Community in the United States. Chicago: Buttersworth, 2010. Print Marcus, Eric. Making Gay History: The Half Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Print Robinson, Mark. “A History of the LGBT Movement in the UK and US.” Journal of American Sociology, 5.7 (2003): 23-6. Print Sabine, Allan. Working Towards Social Inclusion in America. Cambridge: CUP, 2009. Print Tucson, Mark. “Rethinking the Concept of Equality in America.” Journal of American Psychology, 11.3 (2005): 45. Print Read More