Anti Gay sign in Gatesville Texas

Shortly after my trip through the prison economic based community of Gatesville Texas I saw this recent picture of this billboard on main street. The article had plenty of commentary regarding how backwards the thinking is in this prison built town and just as many arguments for the message it sends. But what struck me as significant is how that thinking effected us during those impressionable times in our lives while at the reform school. In this age of tolerance towards lifestyles that are different from our own how much closed mindedness did we acquire under that influence.
We shunned homosexuals who were placed in separate dorms just like we shunned other races. Many who have left notes on this blog talk about times when the segregation of races was in place and the slow desegregation. I was there when we all slept, ate, schooled, and worked in the same facility. However dropping a race was a serious offence. You didn’t go to the cloths room and ask for black shoe polish. I’m curious how much of that culture from back then effects how we relate to homosexuals as well as other races today. I sometimes wonder about some of those kids who passionately hated white people if they are still like that. And what about this kid who was on my dorm for a short time who could write his name on the glass using a bar of soap tucked in his butt checks. We thought it great entertainment until he was moved to the punk dorm.
As human beings we’re tribal by nature. Studies have shown that desegregating lock ups have increased organized gangs. But in a country that forces societal swirl in a state like Texas how much influence did the thinking of a backwoods town like Gatesville have on shaping our young impressionable minds.
I don’t think I would want any of my current gay or non white friends to know how I would have treated them while I was in Gatesville. Borrowing a line from Clint Eastwood’s movie Unforgiven “I aint like that no more”. Or am I?