Through Murky Waters: Blacklisting the rainbow
Ugandan newspaper provides latest example of what happens when the majority finds out who the minority is
By Alex Sirney, senior writer
Posted on September 11, 2006

Imagine opening up the morning paper, only to find your name and occupation in a list with 44 other people, all of whom allegedly committed the same sin, crime or vice that you did last night.

The Ugandan Red Pepper printed such a list last month, identifying by first name and profession 45 gay men in a country where homosexuality is illegal.

While editors of the paper deny that they are trying to incite a “witch hunt,” according to the BBC, it’s hard to see how any other result could come about. Every one of the same name and profession could now be suspected of being gay, which hopefully will lead to nothing more than a few awkward conversations, but could just as easily result in discrimination or even violence. A newspaper editor, of course, claims that the country is “very, very tolerant,” and that the police have never contacted them about the names on the list. The paper also publishes a list of people who have cheated on their spouses, in the same format.

It’s surprising the newspaper doesn’t see the difference — while cheating on a spouse is generally seen as common worldwide, in Uganda homosexuality is unusual, deviant and criminal. The newspaper has endangered 45 gay men and every heterosexual man who happens to share the same name and profession without regard for the consequences of its actions.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing the paper can do about it now that it’s been published and distributed, other than never doing anything as irresponsible again. The important issue for Americans to consider now is what effect such a list would have here.

When human rights are threatened anywhere, the inclination is to believe that nothing like that could ever happen in America. The sad reality, however, is that it could easily happen — and happen much worse — here. The potential in America for a list of homosexuals to incite violence or discrimination is hopefully low, but imagine what a list of illegal immigrants would do to a community — a list of 45 common first names with occupations, just like in Uganda. The community would be outraged and would likely respond with anything from protests to violence. The tolerance America is supposed to have would vanish in a second — no doubt the Ugandan situation is actually resolving itself better than such an immigrant situation would be resolved here.

While there has been no reported backlash in Uganda, the potential is always there in any society for the majority to act against the minority, especially when the majority claims moral superiority. Even the hope expressed above that a list of gay men would have little impact here is probably a naïve one, for discrimination against every minority in this country is a daily reality.

The other reality is that lists like the one published in Red Pepper undoubtedly do exist in this country — lists of people who checked out the wrong kind of library book, lists of people who are of Arab descent or Islamic tendency and all the other lists the FBI keeps handy. If the privacy issues involved in the Red Pepper list make one cringe, the same should go for all these lists our country keeps.

Alex Sirney is a senior anthropology/SMAD major who welcomes comments at sirneyac.