DAY OF SILENCE - TOMORROW - DO IT
Or at least read this.
I don't know if anyone's seen the news, but recently 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover committed suicide after enduring eight months of constant bullying based on his perceived sexual orientation. He would have turned twelve tomorrow, on the Day of Silence, if he were alive.
Last year, openly gay 15-year-old Lawrence King was shot and killed for asking another boy to be his valentine.
Two of the top three reasons kids are bullied at school are actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression. Almost 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation, half reported being physically harassed, and about a quarter reported being physically assaulted.
Most of the time, harassment goes unreported. 2/3rds of students who were bullied did not report it to their school. The most common reason? They didn't think their school would do anything about it. Of the few people who reported being bullied nearly 1/3rd said that their school staff did nothing about it.
What does this have to do with Day of Silence? Everything.
The Day of Silence is one day in the school year when thousands of students take a pledge to be silent throughout the school day to draw attention to LGBT bullying in schools so that school officials can do something about it. The silence represents the silencing effect of bullying of LGBT students.
It's not like it'll kill you to participate. Just tell your teachers beforehand - send them an email, talk to them after class today; just let them know that you won't be talking. If they don't support the silence, or if they need you to speak, then don't fuss about it and use your voice only when you have to.
For more information about the Day of Silence, go to http://www.dayofsilence.org/, and also register so that the statistics look more impressive.
GET THE WORD OUT. REPOST OR WRITE YOUR OWN NOTE/ JOURNAL/ WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANNA CALL IT.