Kenji Yoshino's Demand For Assimilation

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Recommended: the power of conformity

Kenji Yoshino, author of Covering: An Assault on Our Civil Rights argues that the demand for assimilation needs to be weakened through social solutions. Assimilation affects all groups not just the gay and lesbian community or other minority groups. In order for true equality to be realized individual conscience and compassion needs to change to protect behavior outside the realm of the law (Yoshino p.24) . Grievances are often processed through naming and blaming but are not claimed in order to seek a remedy. This is due in part to an individual’s interpretation, perception, and external factors of the injury, such as social status . Yoshino describes his parents demand for American assimilation as pressure to refrain from creating attention such grievances would create to his sexual orientation. The law is designed to protect statues not an individual’s behavior. Therefore the demand for assimilation or covering is not a behavior that individuals are protected against. The principle institutional mechanism of the myth of rights is litigation. Society trust and looks to the Supreme Court for declaration. Law writers use the legal reasoning of judges as a tool …show more content…

Yoshino describes wearing a gold vest as allowing his inner self to come to the surface for society to see. Yoshino describes covering as a painful experience in which the individual experiences two selves. Their inner true sense of self includes their sexual orientation which society demands them to suppress and feel ashamed of. Their outward self is façade of mainstream assimilation that society demands as a ticket to acceptance. Yoshino describes his boyfriend and himself arguing over how to perform their gayness (Yoshino p.76). Yoshino argues that gay men place pressure on other gay men to assimilate a straight man’s body. That is to be masculine (Yoshino p.

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