Reply #194: Technically, Aravosis was making a civil rights comparison.

[LooseWilly]

Malcolm X was not a slave... therefore quoting him and a comparison he made is, technically, not a slavery reference.

Aravosis was, I believe, making a comparison to the state of affairs that persisted at the time that Malcolm X made the speech, the state of affairs that Malcolm X chose to compare to slavery. Malcolm X might have been making a comparison with slavery... but he was doing it in order to illuminate the state of affairs in his own day and age... not as a historical assertion for its own academic value. Malcolm X was making a statement about the state of affairs he saw around himself in the mid 60s. Aravosis, in quoting Malcolm X, is now comparing the state of affairs in the LGBT community now to the state of affairs that Malcolm X was actually referring to... which was the state of affairs he saw around himself in the mid 60s.

I'm not sure that the mathematical associative rule actually applies to metaphors.... once you use the associative rule on a metaphor, in my experience, you change the metaphor... and so, to those who say that Aravosis is making a slavery reference... I say that you are "changing" the metaphor that Aravosis made in the act of "stretching it" by means of the "associative rule"... and as a result I would say that those who are criticizing Aravosis for making a slavery reference are, in fact, themselves the ones making a slavery reference out of Aravosis' comments.

And, as long as we're questioning qualifications to speak on a matter, Uzy... I will thank you to speak in terms of literary analysis in response to this... or else your answers will not be deemed worthy of consideration.

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