Happy Day of Silence (he said quietly)

As I think y’all know, I’m a high school guidance counselor at a small charter high school in an economically impacted neighborhood in Los Angeles. I think it’s also become rather evident that I’m a flaming homosexual. Please, no comments about me being self-denigrating, etc. I mean it in the most loving and supportive way possible. I love who I am (mostly, but that’s another blog entry, er, series of blog entries). I’m also a sucker and I’m not afraid to cry in front of a crowd of people. All of this converged today…

I helped some students on my campus organize a Day of Silence. On this day, participants take a vow of silence to protest the silence imposed on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) people. This “silence” refers to the ways in which lgbtq people are intimidated and harrassed and otherwise made to feel unsafe about sharing their stories, their lives, and their perspectives. For example, it wasn’t until this year that I felt comfortable putting a photo of my partner and I on my desk. How many heterosexuals do you know who have pictures of their children and spouses on their desks? It’s this kind of silence that this day was targeted towards.

It was great; we had about 30 students and faculty who participated. Most of them wore t-shirts that looked similar to this:

 

Oh yes, the t-shirts. These t-shirts gave me a heck of a time. I dropped them to the printer earlier this week and told him I’d be there at 4pm on Thursday to pick them up. Because of work I didn’t get there until right before they were supposed to close (6pm). He holds one up and asks me how it is. And I said, “It’s great. Expect that it’s a Day of Silence, not a Day of Slilence.” DOH! Thankfully he worked late, got the t-shirts done, and Mr. V met him at his shop at 6:30am to pick them up. And they look none the worse for the ordeal of having been reprinted over.

Anyway, we’ve got people wearing these shirts and the ones who couldn’t/didn’t order a shirt were wearing stickers with the above words and image on it. We had teachers who participated and worked the day’s theme into their curriculum. A few teachers used their digital projectors and their computers to type or otherwise project their lessons for the day. Others continued to talk but took 5 minutes to do an exercise that required students to in some way reflect on the words “faggot” and “dyke”.

We were supposed to have a silent lunch, but we don’t have a large indoor cafeteria and it rained. So the rainy day lunch schedule prevented us from doing that.

But we did have a Breaking the Silence event. There were about 20 students, teachers, and administrators who sat around and shared their stories, experiences, and reasons for participating.

For me, this day was about making our school a little bit safer for our students. When I was in high school, I was teased quite a bit by the jocks. I was called ‘fag’ or ‘faggot’ at least daily and usually several times a day. I never experienced any physical violence but I definitely experienced the daily fear of violence. There were nights when I went to sleep and wished that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning.

During today’s Breaking the Silence event, one of my colleagues made a comment that helped me to pinpoint and process some unresolved feelings I’ve had since high school.

I never really felt anything but pity for the jerks who used to make fun of me. I figured, man, they’re sad and ignorant if they don’t want to know someone as cool, kind, and fun as I am (well, I prolly figured this out later in life, but you get the gist). But the pain that I have carried to this day is for, what my colleague referred to today as, “the silence of the third party”. I feel so angry and hurt and betrayed that my friends, classmates, teachers, staff, and administration stood by and watched and listened as I was taunted and tormented. How could anyone with an ounce of decency allow a child, or an adult for that matter, be ridiculed by others?  I remember in the 90s when I heard about the Jamie Nabotny case and how it held schools and school personnel personally responsible for allowing students to be harassed while at school.  I remember wishing that case had happened 10 years earlier.

So my hope is that by having people parading around in red shirts with typos (which we didn’t really, they were all fixed), other students who are struggling will be able to identify other students, teachers, and administration that they can trust.

My hope is that I have somehow helped to influence at least one “third party” in a way that makes it intolerable, unforgivable, and unimaginable to stand by and watch another human being be tormented.

My hope is that one day, our world won’t need a Day of Silence. That everyone will feel welcome and supported to share their story, their life, and their perspective.