Friday, April 25, 2008

Everybody Day

At my school some students were protesting the silencing of gays by being silent, no one had their minds change and things stay the same. Why continue doing these protests when they do not work? We should learn from our lack of progress and attempt to reshape the tolerance movement. What is wrong with the movement at the moment is that it targets one group of people at a time, therefor singling every other group out as taboo for the remainder of the protest. For example, if I were to where a shirt that says that I am heterosexual, I would be seen as rude for ruining the Gay Pride Day. In reality I would be doing no harm to the Gay community and would only be showing a part of me to others and showing my pride. Is that not what the Gays do on the day of silence? Can two types of people not be accepted simultaneously and not disrespect each other in doing so?
It is my belief that the next step to creating cultural awareness is to show our own culture and pride as one. Blacks and Whites could celebrate their similarities and differences and grow in knowledge of towards the lie that is racism. We must show that racism and intolerance are just illogical observations made by uneducated people and nothing else. Yet if we are to have certain days to target each group individually we only strengthen the fact that there is a divide between us. We must unify and celebrate the Human race not just the White race or the Black or Latino races.
I say abolish the racist grouping of days to celebrate groups of people and have days to celebrate all the people. No longer should the message be "stop the silencing of gays" it shall be "stop the silencing of people". In this way we can include everyone into each other's problems and put a stake in each other's fortunes. In this way in order to show support to myself, I must show support of all as it is the celebration of Everybody.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would be different if the kids at our school were writing "I am Heterosexual" on their shirts. They were in fact bashing homosexuals by writing "True Love" on their shirts with a boy and girl stick figure holding hands.

Anonymous said...

Oh and gays aren't disrespecting anyone on day of silence. They were stating that they are people and shouldn't be looked down upon like animals.

(Not that animals should be looked down upon, either.)