Jerry Waters...
He appeared on Oprah's show twice. His first appearance was when a gay man with Aids swam in a public pool, and Waters came all the way from another town just to say that he shouldn't be able to swim there. He goes on to say that he is disgusted by the man's lifestyle.
He then appears on Oprah again to talk about what he thinks about his first appearance. He says 'I am sorry for your loss' to the sisters of the gay man who died from Aids and seems to not feel any regret to his doing. Oprah asks him who is he to say that this man didn't belong with his family and he kept avoiding the question.
Jerry Waters is not a respectable man, but someone who cannot own up to his actions. He is a defensive coward.
I am not saying he cannot hold his own views, for I believe everyone is free to hold whatever views they want, but that does not mean he can embarrass others on National TV. He has no right to hurt people with his views, nor try to push his views on others.
Throughout the whole talk show, Waters never looks the sisters in the eye. Waters never answers Oprah's question. Waters never believes he did anything wrong.
I guess you could say he disgusts me.
The main issues I have with what Jerry Waters stated in the documentary are 1) he says "I am sorry for your loss" but does not explicitly apologize for his actions/words and explain why what he did/said was wrong, and 2) tells the late infected person's sisters that they should have moved him to a more accepting place, rather than looking at the situation from a different point of view and maybe proposing to educate more people in his community on how to be accepting in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI was also really frustrated with him. It was evident to me that he was still homophobic, for he refused to take back or even apologize for the homophobic statements he had made like saying he was "repulsed by his lifestyle" (his being the gay man). I understand that he was afraid and that at the time it was not as outrageous to say such things, but he really should know better by now and he should just admit his wrongdoings.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone whose commented so far. Many people want to excuse Jerry Waters attitude and make excuses to protect certain comfort zones in the same way MTV wanted to make the Southern audience comfortable by passively facilitating discrimination in their programing. People who facilitate such harmful actions against others (not opinions, actions) like those who didn't speak up about their opposing views from Jerry Waters that may have balanced out the appearance of the town do a disservice to equality in the same way as those who commit the disrespectful behavior. That sixteen year old girl and others around her may have been afraid, but they owed it to themselves and their communities to express their opinions and stand for what they believed in. It's the whole idea of being a white moderate in the civil rights movements. By not fully standing for the movement or publicly declaring support they harmed the black community, they sustained the racism and hostile behavior because it made them uncomfortable to stand and fully commit to the movement.
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