Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie
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Sadly, as I think Ferret has pointed out, for a very long time lesbians and gay men have been vilified in the public discourse such that many of us to feel detached from mainstream society.
Having said that, much has been done to change the discourse recently, which is remarkable and wonderful.
Unfortunately the old painful scars persist and will do so until several generations of lesbians and gay men curently alive have died out. The thing about scar tissue is that although it is often almost invisible it remains uniquely sensitive - touch it inadvertently and you'll risk an extreme reaction.
Other communities, such as European Jews, actively promote the collective memory of the bad times and I can understand why: as the TV series about the Nazis was subtitled, "A Warning from History".
There is a current younger generation of gay men in UK certainly who know very little of the bad times, indeed they know very little about the impact of HIV/AIDS on the gay community.
In the USA there is a generation of younger African-American and other communities who know nothing about their bad times, which is why the films The Butler and The Help were made, we're told.
As the life of Nelson Mandela so recently taught everyone, we must be prepared to forgive, but we must never forget.
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