Day of Silence

Today, my school celebrated the Day of Silence. While the national Day of Silence is actually tomorrow, our school and the Gay-Straight Alliance Club elected to move our school's Day of Silence to today, due to a large pride assembly tomorrow. Day of Silence is one school day a year where students who choose to participate do not speak for the entire school day in order to bring awareness to LGBT oppression and injustice. LGBT students are forced to remain silent about who they truly are and their identities due to bullying and other injustices, and Day of Silence is one way in which other students can support these LGBT students.

LGBT people are a class of people who have been oppressed and faced injustices, no matter what their age. LGBT students are an especially oppressed class of people because they can face insensitive bullying day after day, including hearing derogatory terms in the hallways or cyberbullying. Day of Silence is just one way fellow classmates can let LGBT students know they support them and would never dream of hurting them due to their identities or who they love. Recently, more and more students are coming forth about bullying in the LGBT student community. Studies are showing a very close relationship between this bullying and failure in school, and all-around unhappiness. Day of Silence asks "What will YOU do to end the Silence?" Students are realizing it is the hands of our generation to speak out and do something. This class of people shouldn't be oppressed just because of who they are, just like another class of people shouldn't be oppressed just for the color of their skin.

It has been inspiring to see our generation take this issue into our own hands. The Day of Silence is only one campaign we have started to help end the injustices and prejudice this class of people faces every day. Another great campaign is the It Gets Better project. Started by Dan Savage, this project takes videos and stories by celebrities and posts them on YouTube, as well as into a book, that lets LGBT teens know, "It Gets Better." This project hopes to reduce the number of suicides due to LGBT bullying/reasons, especially after a wave of teenage suicides just in this past year. This project has posted many videos on YouTube from a multitude of different celebrities and adults offering encouragement and inspiring words. Kyle, from LGBT Etcetera has a great post on this project, which you can read here.

In the end, just as I have commented in my other blogs about other classes of people, LGBT people as well as students are a class that needs to be heard. Their voices need to resonate everywhere from the Superintendent's desk to the super-conservative father who just found out his son is gay. No matter if you agree or disagree with gay rights, bullying, injustice and oppression are not okay for any class of people. School administration needs to be further educated on these students to help end the bullying. Parents need to be further educated on LGBT teenagers to help them get through the teenage years. Maybe you'll participate in Day of Silence next year, maybe you won't. It doesn't matter how you do it, but how will YOU end the silence and the bullying of LGBT people?

Class and the Environment

In English class, we have recently started discussing the environment and its role in our lives. Our discussions on the environment have included how the environment is portrayed in the media and our culture, as well as the relationship between children and the environment. After these discussions, I discovered an interesting relationship between a child's class and their interaction with nature.

Many story books portray children as having the closest connection with nature. However, how children interact with nature is greatly affected by their economic class. Children from upper class homes get to experience "nature" at camp, where nature consists of kayaking, hiking and building campfires. Is this "real" nature? If it's not, what constitutes "real" nature? Parents who pay thousands of dollars for their children to travel away from home into the "wild" would argue that camp provides a "real" nature experience. However, is it real nature if it is controlled?

Meanwhile, many children from lower class homes do not have the opportunity to go to camp. These children experience nature from playing in backyards, alleys, or public parks. These nature experiences do not include canoeing or horseback riding, but rather experiencing nature in an uncontrolled environment, in any way accessible to them (read "Rich Kids Went to Camp, Poor Kids Just Went Outside" for an interesting take on this issue!) Is this "true" nature? Perhaps people could view this nature as dirtier nature, nature that is not pre-approved or controlled.

What are the future repercussions to these differing experiences with nature? Will these children develop different attitudes towards nature? For upper class children, they could develop the attitude that nature is dirty when it's in the house, and people should pay to have their houses cleaned and keep the dirt of nature out. However, nature is positive and connecting with the environment when encountered in these controlled environments such as camp or horseback riding ranches. For lower class families, nature might have much more negative connotations. Nature symbolizes dirtiness and lower class when in the house. Lower class families can't pay to have their homes cleaned or to keep nature "out." The projects, lower class housing, is known for dirtiness. Therefore, will they ever develop positive feelings towards nature, or will their feelings alway be affected by the view of their culture on nature?

In the end, interactions with nature, just like many other issues in our culture, are affected by a person's class. The consequences of these differing interactions are unclear, but they are sure to affect a person's future view on the environment and nature. It is imperative that we ensure we are experiencing nature in a multitude of different ways, including controlled and uncontrolled, to truly experience nature in all of its truest forms.