Stand up. Respect ✊
(Update: 中文繹版連結：https://www.facebook.com/329728177143445/posts/1800273350088913/)
“An open letter to Eric Kwok, and for everyone re homophobia, discrimination and bullying”
Dear Eric,
Imagine this. You are one of the contestants on a TV talent show. You are sitting in a room with other hopefuls and one of the judges walks into the room and demanded this: “Raise your hand if you are not homophobic.”
I’m very sure you will raise your hand.
You don’t have to answer me whether or not you really are homophobic. But stay with the feeling inside your mind. How do you feel?
Your feelings are most likely the same as the feelings of your contestants when you walked into a room and asked them to raise their hands to declare their sexual orientation publicly. Because in this day and age, homophobia is just as “controversial” as homosexuality, if not more.
The reason why I’m writing this open letter to you is because after reading your apology, I want to take the opportunity to address to you, and everyone out there, the need for proper etiquette regarding LGBT issues, and to address the forms of micro-aggression, bullying and discrimination the LGBT community faces everyday especially in the workplace.
I’m taking this incident seriously because from my personal experience, this is not just a one-time slip-up for you.
I remember long time ago I was so looking forward to meeting and working with you because you are, after all, Eric Kwok the great songwriter.
You were very friendly when we talked privately. Then I started to notice how once there were audiences, media or other people around and when the cameras were turned on, you would start making insinuating and demeaning gay jokes about me and in front of me. Jokes and comments even my closest friends wouldn’t dare to make in public.
At first, I didn’t really pay too much attention. I just brushed it off as juvenile and trivial. In fact, I had been so used to these jokes since growing up that I learned not to react much.
However, as time progressed and we worked on more occasions, the same thing would happen repeatedly. The teasing and the stereotypical gay jokes continued and you would make sure that the spotlight would fall on me afterwards. The jokes no longer felt light. They felt hostile, even vindictive.
In fact, it felt like bullying.
One of these incidents was well documented in tabloids back then and you can still look it up yourself on the internet.
I came to the realization that it was not just a one-time thing. I don’t know if it’s intentional or unintentional but it’s definitely a habit and a pattern.
So many questions would be in my mind every time after working with you. Why does Eric do that every time? Is he picking on me? Does he hate me? Is he homophobic? Does he think homosexuality is something funny? Does he do this to other people too? Did I do something that pissed him off? I remember I was nothing but courteous. So why do I deserve this?
I had no answers for all of these questions. All I knew was I became fearful of working with you, dreading what words would fall out of your mouth to put me in an awkwardly embarassing position. But still I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re from California you shouldn’t be homophobic. I even defended you in my head by telling myself to loosen up.
But it’s not just you. Throughout my years in the entertainment industry, I have encountered and endured so many chauvinistic “tough guys” who like to use homosexuality as a laughing stock or source of bad comedy which were all discriminating and demeaning, yet not funny.
It’s not only me. I’m sure many people of the LGBT community face this everyday in their workplace. People around them would claim their intentions were harmless but we all knew deep down that these “jokes” have the power to put people someone in an embarrassing, inferior and even threatening positions.
We kept quiet and tolerated. Sometimes we even felt obligated to laugh along just so we couldn’t afford to look “petty” or “stiff”, especially in front of people of higher authority and stature.
So Eric I want to ask you.
Why have you been so obsessed with my sexuality all these years?
Why are you so fascinated by other people’s sexuality?
Why is being gay such a huge issue to you even to this day that you had to make it the first thing you asked your contestants?
Why you also had to specifically make a post on social media about that fact you questioned people about their sexuality?
Why do you take so much pride publicly in your ability to guess who are the gay contestants even when they weren’t ready to share that information?
And most of all why do you find all this to be so funny?
To begin with one’s sexual orientation is a very personal thing which others have no right to intrude, even in the entertainment industry where you are supposed to be fine with “controversy”.
This is for you and everyone out there: using your power and authority to demand someone to declare his or her sexual orientation, especially in a work environment, is ancient, barbaric and unacceptable.
Kicking someone out of the closet is just pure evil.
The fact you did what you did, especially with your stature and on broadcast TV, is not only wrong, but also you are telling the Hong Kong audience that it’s alright to continue this form of intrusion and micro aggression that the LGBT community wants to see gone.
You’re leading a very poor example by giving Hong Kong audience the impression that being gay is still a taboo.
How are your contestants, who are boys of young age, going to offer new perspectives to the Hong Kong audience under your guidance if you perpetuate stereotyping and demonstrate to them that being gay is still an issue?
I feel sorry for any contestants who are in fact gay sitting in that room that day too. They must have been traumatized seeing the way you forced your inquisition. The impression you left them with is that the entertainment industry is still a very unfriendly place for gays. Is that what you want them to think?
But most of all, it’s the attitude, tone and manner with which you shared about this incident on social media, giving people the impression that any matter regarding sexual orientation is still something shameful and laughable, which is on top of list the thing that the LGBT community fights hard everyday to change.
When you said in your apology you “have great respect for gay people, especially their hard fight for equality” I became baffled as what you did, in the past to me or in that room to the boys, is the exact thing that makes the LGBT community’s ongoing fight for equality so difficult.
Putting people down, perpetuate stereotypes, heckling and ridiculing yet making it look OK is anything but liberal and respectful, or Californian. I don’t see any “entertainment values” that are of good taste if they are made up at the expense of other people’s struggle.
If this incident happened in America, where you grew up, you would’ve gotten yourself in such hot waters that you probably can’t get out of.
I just want you and everyone out there to know that it’s not okay. And it never was. Never will be.
Being “as liberal as it gets” is great. Having gay friends is great too. Having dinner with your gay friends is absolutely fabulous! Playing all these cards to avoid being labelled as “homophobic” is very convenient. But having class, empathy, kindness and authentic respect is a completely different territory. These don’t come automatically with backgrounds.
At this point you don’t owe me an apology. I just hope that after this incident you can really start working and living with the essences of a truly liberal and creative individual. Inspire changes and end stereotypes. Start new trends and break old patterns. Embrace and not segregate. Do the work.
I had been away from Hong Kong and the industry for a few years now. It breaks me heart that I have to write this sort of open letter when it’s already 2018. I want to make this industry a safer, nicer and more accepting place to work in when I return. I want members of the LGBT community in Hong Kong, who have been so supportive of me and my music, to also have safer and nicer working environment in their respective lives.
I don’t mind coming off as an over-reacting petty bitch with no sense of humour if my message finally comes through and everyone, including you, “gets it”. I rather have no sense of humour than a bad one.
To all the contestants of the show. If anyone ever asks you if you are gay and you are not ready to discuss, it’s OK to stand up for yourself and say this: “It’s a rude question to begin with. You have no right to get an answer from me to begin with. And it doesn’t matter. It SHOULDN’T matter. It’s 2018. I hope one day I can use my craft to inspire the world and to make this become a non-issue.”
But if you are ready to be open, you have my complete support and love.
Let’s hope that through acceptance, learning and effort, one day there will no longer be any “controversial questions”. Wouldn’t we like that Eric?
Yours truly,
Pong
#LGBT
#homophobia
#safeworkplace
#中文版稍後會有
Eric Kwok 郭偉亮
