A teacher colleague (and friend) wrote me today about what he called my “courage” for “standing up, being visible, saying the truth, taking risks, being a leader, teaching teachers and policy makers, changing the climate …”
I have to say: This is not what bravery looks like. I appreciate the compliment from the bottom of my heart, but this is not bravery. Robert Anthony once said, “Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway." I have rarely been afraid. Because, unlike teachers, I flit into schools as a guest speaker, and the institution has less power over me. And because I happen to work for a city and county and public health department that have always had my back. The voters in this place and the honorable people they elect passed ordinances prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation decades ago. And my supervisors and their supervisors have always stood up for the need to protect the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender variant and transgender youth and families of King County.
Courage would be working to end homophobia and racism under threat of losing my job or, God forbid, my spouse and children. I have never faced those threats. Teachers all over the country do that every day.
Courage would be working to end homophobia and racism even as people were repeatedly stealing your identity and cyberharassing you … as happened to this teacher friend twice this year. Students set up false web pages purporting to be him and containing lies about him. Twice. Courage is remaining in the profession and continuing to teach social justice, even as the student "contributors" to those fake sites go unpunsihed.
Courage would be working to end homophobia and racism even as graffiti about you continues to shout from the walls of the restrooms, and the school refuses for weeks to paint over it. That’s what my colleague Kyle did this year, his senior year in high school. He, too, was cyberbullied and received death threats to his face and online. Courage is to keep going to school every day and even continuing to insist that the school stand up for your friends in the gay-straight alliance, knowing that you will graduate and be gone.
Courage would be having a teacher keep mocking the way you speak, as has been happening to my grandson this year in high school, and still going to class and trying to pass! He tells me he hears the N-word all the time at school and teachers don’t intervene. Being an African-American kid in a mostly Caucasian school for the first time in his life is taking a toll on him this year. And yet, he goes back every day. That’s courage.
I think that those of us who don’t work in schools sometimes forget just how fragile the safety of teachers and students really is. Or we think it must be better in 2008. Or we imagine that we would have courage like that of Martin Luther King and be willing to die and leave our spouse a widow and single parent for our principles.
It’s easy to be glib when you lose perspective like that. Earlier this year, I spoke at the Northwest premiere of the film It’s STILL Elementary. I said, almost with disdain, that ten years ago, when the filmmakers were scouring the country looking for teachers and principals willing to be filmed addressing gay issues in schools … I said that nobody in Washington State was brave enough, even if they were addressing sexual diversity, to allow the camera into the classroom. We hunted and couldn’t find a single school. I said it as if it were an indictment, a description of cowardice. I’m ashamed of myself. I apologize.
“Cowardice” is not even remotely a description of a teacher who intervenes in anti-gay or anti-racist bullying and who finds ways to dispel students’ stereotypes and replace them with accurate portrayals of sexually and racially diverse people … and who decides not to risk being allowed to continue that life-saving work by going on camera. I apologize for the implied disrespect.
I promise to keep cognizant of just how scary life is – still in 2008 -- for so many school employees and students.
-- by Beth Reis
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Final Thoughts Defending the Day of Silence
A troubling article in this week’s SnoValley Star [http://snovalleystar.com/2008/05/14/hutcherson-vows-another-protest#comment-200] quotes the local pastor who led a demonstration during this year’s Day of Silence, promising more protests during next year’s Day of Silence at this tiny rural Washington State high school.
The Safe Schools Coalition is proud of the brave gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students at Mt. Si and their wonderful straight classmates who stand up for them every year on the Day of Silence. And at almost every other high school in the region. And we will keep turning out in their defense for as long as Rev. Hutcherson continues to turn out crowds to express disapproval of them.
These courageous students have the same right to safe passage to, from and during school, every day of the year, as does Rev. Hutcherson’s daughter. And their liking someone of their own sex or their not being as masculine or as feminine as someone thinks they should be ought to have absolutely no bearing on their access to an education. They shouldn’t have to pretend and they shouldn’t be made invisible. And they have every right to the civil disobedience of being silent one day out of the year! For Pete’s sake, give everybody writing assignments that day; encourage reading, athletics and arts. Teachers can find a bazillion perfectly appropriate teaching methodologies that don’t require verbal discourse for one day!
As for Mr. Potratz’ analogy … the teacher was obviously just trying to say that children’s free speech doesn’t end at the school house door, no matter how odious their beliefs might be.
That said, comparing forms of oppression is dicey. Gay and transgender young people do get murdered on a regular basis — about one every two months in the U.S. (see http:www.50under30.org) — as did middle schooler Larry King this past February. But their numbers pale relative to the generations of African Americans beaten to death during slavery and lynched since abolition. We appreciate people’s sensitivity about analogies to horrific things like slavery.
The point is, nevertheless, that it’s tragic for schools to ignore racism, homophobia, misogyny, classism or xenophobia. When schools abdicate, students learn anyway. They learn from media and older peers. They learn prejudices and misinformation about people different from themsleves.
The Day of Silence is a protest against teachers’ silence in the face of anti-gay bullying and disrespect. Adults in every school need to do a better job of stopping ALL harassment and of teaching about ALL kinds of diversity.
Hear, hear for teachers like Mr. Potratz and Ms. McCormick who stand up for students, even if the particular words Mr. P used may have been too easily misconstrued. He tried. Besides, some folks may intentionally misconstrue others' words for their own reasons. How many other teachers stand by, afraid to say anything, while students like the boy who killed Larry hurl words and fists and, eventually, bullets.
Let's stand by teachers who care.
The Safe Schools Coalition is proud of the brave gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students at Mt. Si and their wonderful straight classmates who stand up for them every year on the Day of Silence. And at almost every other high school in the region. And we will keep turning out in their defense for as long as Rev. Hutcherson continues to turn out crowds to express disapproval of them.
These courageous students have the same right to safe passage to, from and during school, every day of the year, as does Rev. Hutcherson’s daughter. And their liking someone of their own sex or their not being as masculine or as feminine as someone thinks they should be ought to have absolutely no bearing on their access to an education. They shouldn’t have to pretend and they shouldn’t be made invisible. And they have every right to the civil disobedience of being silent one day out of the year! For Pete’s sake, give everybody writing assignments that day; encourage reading, athletics and arts. Teachers can find a bazillion perfectly appropriate teaching methodologies that don’t require verbal discourse for one day!
As for Mr. Potratz’ analogy … the teacher was obviously just trying to say that children’s free speech doesn’t end at the school house door, no matter how odious their beliefs might be.
That said, comparing forms of oppression is dicey. Gay and transgender young people do get murdered on a regular basis — about one every two months in the U.S. (see http:www.50under30.org) — as did middle schooler Larry King this past February. But their numbers pale relative to the generations of African Americans beaten to death during slavery and lynched since abolition. We appreciate people’s sensitivity about analogies to horrific things like slavery.
The point is, nevertheless, that it’s tragic for schools to ignore racism, homophobia, misogyny, classism or xenophobia. When schools abdicate, students learn anyway. They learn from media and older peers. They learn prejudices and misinformation about people different from themsleves.
The Day of Silence is a protest against teachers’ silence in the face of anti-gay bullying and disrespect. Adults in every school need to do a better job of stopping ALL harassment and of teaching about ALL kinds of diversity.
Hear, hear for teachers like Mr. Potratz and Ms. McCormick who stand up for students, even if the particular words Mr. P used may have been too easily misconstrued. He tried. Besides, some folks may intentionally misconstrue others' words for their own reasons. How many other teachers stand by, afraid to say anything, while students like the boy who killed Larry hurl words and fists and, eventually, bullets.
Let's stand by teachers who care.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Today, in the News (Or Not?)
Word of California’s decision to lift the ban on gay marriage implemented in 2000 has spread like wildfire today. Though it is true that this decision could set a valuable precedent in terms of legal policy, I can’t help but be incredibly frustrated by the nearsightedness and narrow-mindedness of the gays who tend to dominate these political pushes.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the perfect example of an assimilationist, visible gay rights organization. The HRC focuses on the legalization of gay marriage to the exclusion of numerous issues that are pressing to many LGBTQ people throughout the nation. This past year the HRC abandoned transgender people in their push to get an ENDA bill passed that would ban discrimination against LGBT individuals in the United States. Apparently, the HRC felt it would be easier to get the bill passed to protect the rights of gays and lesbians if they dropped the “T” and forgot about trans folks’ rights. So they did. Simple as that.
It is what is not so visible in the mainstream news today that betrays the fact that upper- and middle-class gays, as exemplified by organizations like the HRC, could not care less about more disadvantaged LGBT people.
Yesterday, a man named Willie Campbell was sentenced to 35 years in prison for spitting at a police officer in Dallas, Texas. The reason for such a severe sentence, for what could be passed off as an intoxicated slip-up? Campbell is HIV-positive and was therefore charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The arresting officer, Dan Waller, has been quoted as saying “I know it sounds cliché, but this is why you lock someone up, so our streets are safer… Without him out there, our streets are a safer place.”
Wait a second. I thought HIV couldn’t be contracted through saliva? Campbell’s sentence is obviously grounded in a stigmatization of people who are positive, rather than in any rational – or legal, or scientific!– concern that Waller had contracted HIV from Campbell’s spit. Are we going to begin quarantining people with HIV/AIDS now, because the world would be “safer”? The sentencing of Willie Campbell is a classic instance of fear tactic employment by the government, which uses idiotic law enforcement officers like Dan Waller as its pawns. Regimes, like George W. Bush’s, that operate by fear always designate certain bodies as “monstrous” or “scary.” They promise mainstream members of society that they will all be “safe” if those deviants are put behind bars and isolated from society. Trouble is, the only groups of people not categorically classified as “dangerous” seem to be white and upper- or middle-class.
What does all of this have to do with education and LGBT issues in schools? Everything, particularly because many of my students are young, low-income children of color deemed “unsafe” and closely monitored by law enforcement because of their demographic. The NYPD is already just waiting to pounce on if they make one misstep – and most of my students are acutely aware of this. Students in many under-resourced, urban public schools end up becoming less than human, becoming known and tracked by their scores on standardized tests. As I discussed in my first post, public schools often serve as funnels to channel society’s “unwanteds” into prisons. From the moment they are born, or from their second grade year when they missed thirty days of school, or from their fifth grade year when they failed their math class, many students in these schools are branded as “dangerous” or as soon-to-be criminals.
Where were organizations like Lambda Legal and the HRC while Willie Campbell was being sentenced? While Campbell's sexual orientation and sexual practices are unknown, and HIV cannot be considered an exclusively “gay” disease, HIV/AIDS activism has been a cornerstone of LGBT culture and recent history. After wealthy white gays initiated HIV/AIDS activism when the pandemic broke out in the United States in the 1980’s, all of a sudden they can’t seem to find the time, money, or energy to help communites grappling with HIV access resources. In more ways than one, the refusal of HRC and other LGBT organizations to lift a finger to combat HIV stigmatization and improve access to care in impoverished communities – where many severely underresourced schools are located - hurts students like mine.
Gay marriage is a pressing issue for only an elite subset of LGBT individuals. For mainstream gay groups to fail to address the dehumanization of people with HIV/AIDS by the criminal justice system is an utter tragedy. Many of the individuals - some LGBT-identified, some HIV-positive - whose lives are in the crosshairs of this issue attend public schools in the United States, right now.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the perfect example of an assimilationist, visible gay rights organization. The HRC focuses on the legalization of gay marriage to the exclusion of numerous issues that are pressing to many LGBTQ people throughout the nation. This past year the HRC abandoned transgender people in their push to get an ENDA bill passed that would ban discrimination against LGBT individuals in the United States. Apparently, the HRC felt it would be easier to get the bill passed to protect the rights of gays and lesbians if they dropped the “T” and forgot about trans folks’ rights. So they did. Simple as that.
It is what is not so visible in the mainstream news today that betrays the fact that upper- and middle-class gays, as exemplified by organizations like the HRC, could not care less about more disadvantaged LGBT people.
Yesterday, a man named Willie Campbell was sentenced to 35 years in prison for spitting at a police officer in Dallas, Texas. The reason for such a severe sentence, for what could be passed off as an intoxicated slip-up? Campbell is HIV-positive and was therefore charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The arresting officer, Dan Waller, has been quoted as saying “I know it sounds cliché, but this is why you lock someone up, so our streets are safer… Without him out there, our streets are a safer place.”
Wait a second. I thought HIV couldn’t be contracted through saliva? Campbell’s sentence is obviously grounded in a stigmatization of people who are positive, rather than in any rational – or legal, or scientific!– concern that Waller had contracted HIV from Campbell’s spit. Are we going to begin quarantining people with HIV/AIDS now, because the world would be “safer”? The sentencing of Willie Campbell is a classic instance of fear tactic employment by the government, which uses idiotic law enforcement officers like Dan Waller as its pawns. Regimes, like George W. Bush’s, that operate by fear always designate certain bodies as “monstrous” or “scary.” They promise mainstream members of society that they will all be “safe” if those deviants are put behind bars and isolated from society. Trouble is, the only groups of people not categorically classified as “dangerous” seem to be white and upper- or middle-class.
What does all of this have to do with education and LGBT issues in schools? Everything, particularly because many of my students are young, low-income children of color deemed “unsafe” and closely monitored by law enforcement because of their demographic. The NYPD is already just waiting to pounce on if they make one misstep – and most of my students are acutely aware of this. Students in many under-resourced, urban public schools end up becoming less than human, becoming known and tracked by their scores on standardized tests. As I discussed in my first post, public schools often serve as funnels to channel society’s “unwanteds” into prisons. From the moment they are born, or from their second grade year when they missed thirty days of school, or from their fifth grade year when they failed their math class, many students in these schools are branded as “dangerous” or as soon-to-be criminals.
Where were organizations like Lambda Legal and the HRC while Willie Campbell was being sentenced? While Campbell's sexual orientation and sexual practices are unknown, and HIV cannot be considered an exclusively “gay” disease, HIV/AIDS activism has been a cornerstone of LGBT culture and recent history. After wealthy white gays initiated HIV/AIDS activism when the pandemic broke out in the United States in the 1980’s, all of a sudden they can’t seem to find the time, money, or energy to help communites grappling with HIV access resources. In more ways than one, the refusal of HRC and other LGBT organizations to lift a finger to combat HIV stigmatization and improve access to care in impoverished communities – where many severely underresourced schools are located - hurts students like mine.
Gay marriage is a pressing issue for only an elite subset of LGBT individuals. For mainstream gay groups to fail to address the dehumanization of people with HIV/AIDS by the criminal justice system is an utter tragedy. Many of the individuals - some LGBT-identified, some HIV-positive - whose lives are in the crosshairs of this issue attend public schools in the United States, right now.
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