What Happens Without Acceptance?

Acceptance is something that is needed in order there to be a peaceful environment.  When people don’t accept things, there is often violence and hate, which can cause the unaccepted to feel and insecure and want to hide their true identity or thoughts.  All of these awful things are shown in the short story, Am I Blue? by Bruce Coville.  Many people in the story did not accept the idea of being gay, but all that led to was trouble.

            When there isn’t acceptance, there is often violence and hate.  For example, “It started the day Butch Carrigan decided I was interested in jumping his bones,” the main character Vince had explained before he told us how he ended up “lying facedown un a puddle.”  Vince’s fairy godfather Melvin was even beaten to death!  He had said, “I was walking down the street one day last year, minding my own business, when three bruisers dragged me into an alley, shouting, ‘We’ll teach you faggot!’  They never did explain exactly what it was they were going to teach me.  Last thing I remember from life on earth was coming face to face with a tire iron.  Next thing I knew, I was knocking at the Pearly Gates.”  When others didn’t accept that they might be gay, violence and hate took the place of acceptance and both Vince and his fairy godfather were physically hurt.

            When people don’t accept others, it can also make the unaccepted feel insecure and want to hide their true identity or thoughts.  For example, Vince told his fairy godfather Melvin to turn a bully named Butch blue so that he’d think he was gay.  Vince wanted to get back at Bruce for beating him up because he presumed Vince was “interested in jumping his bones.”  However, Melvin reported, “Butch Carrigan was already as blue as a summer sky when I got there.”  This makes me presume that the reason Butch had beaten up Vince wasn’t because he hated gay people, but more because he was scared he was gay.  I think he feared what others who didn’t accept homosexuals would think of him, and that he wouldn’t maintain his tough appearance.  The only way he knew how to handle this insecurity was by beating up Vince in an effort to mask his true identity.  I think this also goes for the Republican homophobe Vince saw on T.V.  When Vince was blessed with gaydar, he was able to see if people were gay by the fact of if they were blue or not.  The Republican was blue even though he was making a speech about “the great crime of homosexuality” and “the gay threat to American youth.”  Like Butch, the Republican was insecure about being gay, so he tried to feel better about himself and hide his true identity by saying he was against homosexuality.  If I were a friend or family member of these two, I’d want to reassure them that it is okay to be gay and not follow the status quo.  Overall, because so many people didn’t accept gay people, it caused the unaccepted (Butch and the Republican) to feel insecure.  It also influenced them to try to hide their gay identities.  This kind of issue occurs all the time in reality, and not just relating to being gay.

            In conclusion, if there is acceptance towards things, violence, hate, insecurity and the desire to mask one’s true identity can be avoided.  This makes me think that lack of acceptance is the reason or the bud of all of those things.  In my opinion, I also believe that if you give things a chance and try to accept them, you might find something wonderful or different from the assumptions and original thoughts others might have made.  Things might not be as bad as you presume.  You just have to learn to accept.  After all, Melvin had dreamed of everyone having gaydar so that homophobes “would find out that they had been surrounded by gays all the time, and survived the experience just fine, thank you.”