So right, it's been a couple of weeks since homophobic school administrators in Mississippi were dicks to a lesbian student, and I think they were feeling like, you know, worried people might not remember that there are people that live in that state that are assholes? But how, they asked themselves, mystified, can we top those bastions of homophobic light that fucked up the senior prom for Constance McMillen? That's a level of pettiness that can't easily be reached, but by God and every badly misinterpreted Bible quote, they will find a way, and it will be mindbogglingly stupid.

There's the senior yearbook! It's like, genius. Or something.

School Cuts Gay Student From Yearbook. Contact information can be found here.

Okay, just...no, I'm not even going to try on this one.

Dear assholes,

You'll never regret this. You will never see what you did was petty, stupid, and wrong on levels usually reserved for third grade girls and being excluded from a slumberparty. So, stick to those principles! Be loud about it and proudly refuse to back down an inch. You know, in court.

Have fun with that.

Seperis



Change is generational, or so I have read; it sounds logical and very sociological and academic and you know, who am I to argue a principle that was probably expounded on by someone with a PhD about how it's inevitable people are like this and this is how it will always be? Everything's eventual, the mills of the gods grind slowly, be patient because society as a whole is moving forward, slowly, and the individual has to face the potential of being a casualty.

Change is generational is academic for "wait for people to die" because the assumption is there is no other way, and I'm pretty sure there are statistics to back this up and therefore it must be true.

To codify, to embrace, the idea that it's easier to die than change says a lot, and none of it comforting, about how little potential we see in ourselves, how rigid we think we are, trapped in some kind of evolutionary psychology/sociological hell where progress is dependent on those who know perfectly well that all they have to do is be loud enough, rigid enough, difficult enough that they can hold up movement simply by standing still, because the casualties will never be their own.

I'm just saying, instead of waiting for them to drop in their tracks? Let's just move them out of the way. We'll get where we should be going a fuckload faster. Slavery ended because a civil war was preferable to waiting another century for society to catch up; ninety years ago, women got the right to vote after an epic and desperate effort by suffrage advocates to force through a goddamn Constitutional amendment because the slow way had sacrificed most of the women of Seneca Falls who died before they could claim to be owned by no one but themselves; less than sixty years ago, social revolution ripped through our country to bring about civil rights because in the hundred years since the end of slavery, we lost generations of men and women to poverty, inequality, and murder and not one more, not one should have to deal with that; do not tell me change is generational. Change is what happens when we stop waiting. We've had too many generations of casualties already; no one, no one should have it demanded of them to be a sacrifice to the idea the only way is to move slowly and they may be left behind.

The thing is, none of those are done; we're still fighting those battles, too, sacrifices to the altar of patience because things will change, just not yet.

It's just a yearbook, it's just a prom, it's just a word, it's just a job, it's just a school, it's just a difference in salary, it's not important, why are you making such a big deal about this, it's just amazon restricting GLBT books, it's just a con thing where you wear a button if you don't want your tits groped, it's just a novel that erases an entire people, it's just some guys exploiting women's sexuality in a survey, it's just a pronoun he/she/it why is that offensive, why are you upset, it's just a tv show, it's just a movie that's just fantasy, it's ironic, you're a credit to your..., stop whining and wait, things will change be patient, be patient, be patient, it's not a big deal. It's just, you know. Your life. Get used to it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this generational thing? Is this supposed to be like, working? I'm just curious, is all.



So yeah. I'd like the luxury of preaching patience; it's so easy when you don't have anything to lose.
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picture of Majoline, mother of Bon Mucho in Loco Roco 2
2010-04-28 02:00 am (UTC)
Sweet saintly deities. Stop making our state look bad! You can't even tell how much progress the state's made when small out-of-the-way places do this! And because it's not really reported in the media, they are unfairly messing those teenagers up! Most students from MS are going to go to other states' schools and then be confronted with their stupidity face-to-face!

WHY?
Yarn with a Canadian dime for scale
2010-04-28 02:04 am (UTC)
This is why I applaud Dan Choi and the protesters who shout instead of standing down, and the lawyer here in Canada who went forward with her equality suits (when all the gay-rights groups said, "Not yet") and got us gay marriage.

The oppressor doesn't decide to just give stuff to the oppressed. We pretty much have to make giving it to us the only sustainable option for them.
3 Questions by obsessedmuch
2010-04-28 02:31 am (UTC)
Why, no, seriously...WHY? Why can't people just fucking live and let live?

:(
Last Unicorn Reflection
2010-04-28 02:56 am (UTC)
I loved your speech and you're right no one ever got anything by waiting. You have to fight for your freedom and rights every step of the way. These two cases made me feel sick and reminded me we still have a ways to go.
wendy and peter
2010-04-28 02:57 am (UTC)
I agree with this wholeheartedly- change can't wait for our kids and grandkids to do it, especially if we aren't learning to change things from us. The idea of this, of school officials (or any adult) bullying kids for being different, it makes me physically ill.

I'd like to think that this type of crap won't happen in my school or my town, but it can and does pop up anywhere. I fear for what my kids or my neighbor's kids or some kid I might never meet will face from this kind of stupid-crazy-heinously hurtful ridiculousness.

Change won't happen if we don't make it happen by not accepting the way it is now/has been in the past and by telling not just our children, but our peers, and our parents that it has to be different now. We can't do nothing and expect change- we just can't.

cat with arizona flag in the background
2010-04-28 03:14 am (UTC)
Change is generational. It happens in every generation, all the time.

Sometimes, I think, I want to remind people that America wasn't founded on waiting. It was founded on, no more, you will not rule us from afar with no notion of who we are, or what we do, or how we live. We have had enough; we are free and if you will not recognise that then we will have to stand against you.

I fail to see how things being better than they once were has anything to do with determining what I'm going to do about making the future the place I want it to be.
good egg
2010-04-28 03:14 am (UTC)
Well, HELL.
Photograph of bare tree branches against a winter sky.
2010-04-28 03:17 am (UTC)
This is a fucking awesome piece of writing.
Colorized sketch of a girl drawn with only curly lines.
2010-04-28 04:19 am (UTC)
It's just a yearbook, it's just...you know. Your life.

I don't have the right words to tell you just exactly how awesome I think you are. This. This, this, this.
[icarly] freddie: to battle!
2010-04-28 04:53 am (UTC)
+ 1

Reading this just got me really worked up, in the good way. I feel like protesting or just... doing something more.
Chomolunga, Goddess Mother of the World, Qomolangma
2010-04-28 05:20 am (UTC)
Excellently said.

Having grown up in a very small southern town (Arkansas) and being ~different~ I have a tiny bit of understanding of just how loathsome it can all be.

And also why I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.

35+ years later there is a little more tolerance there... but no where near where it should be. =(
JC Chasez's hand with some drawn-in-Photoshop colorful fire beneath it.
2010-04-28 06:51 am (UTC)
Yes.
<user name="fckingfantastic" site=livejournal.com>
2010-04-28 06:53 am (UTC)
wow. thank you.
hearts in nature
2010-04-28 11:19 am (UTC)
...no one, no one should have it demanded of them to be a sacrifice to the idea the only way is to move slowly and they may be left behind.

Thank you for saying this.
rodney heartbroken
2010-04-28 11:33 am (UTC)
I'd like the luxury of preaching patience; it's so easy when you don't have anything to lose

THIS
⌠ ART ⊹ Birds ⊹ LETTING GO ⌡
2010-04-28 12:43 pm (UTC)
here via delicious. this is an amazing post.
Pre-Raphaelite black handmaiden/slave holding flowerpot
2010-04-28 03:13 pm (UTC)
So, that was pretty much the most intensely inspirational thing I've read in weeks...Now I'm all fired up and it's your fault!

Also, I love the way you phrased "Change is generational is academic for 'wait for people to die'".
(Anonymous)
2010-04-28 09:54 pm (UTC)
http://puella-nerdii.livejournal.com/129578.html
ME!
2010-05-04 12:18 am (UTC)
Yes, yes, and thrice yes this.
Image of a medieval crocodile from Herodotus, eating a person, with the caption "om nom nom"
2010-05-15 11:11 pm (UTC)
Here from [personal profile] dhara: 1 million times yes. Thank you for writing this.
buffy quote
2010-04-28 02:05 am (UTC)
Jesus, I am so glad my brother moved his family here--away from that frickin' state.

P.S. If you want a nice bit of the old ultraviolence to clean your palate, go see Kick Ass. :-)
2010-04-28 02:17 am (UTC)
I want to have an eloquent response to this, and all I can come up with is: IAWTP.
2010-04-28 02:18 am (UTC)
Holy shit, I cannot BELIEVE they did that. It's jaw-dropping in its petty maliciousness. WTF people.
2010-04-28 02:27 am (UTC)
I don't believe change is generational at all. My philosophy of teaching begins with Be the change you wish to see in the world.

To everyone that thinks It's just a yearbook, it's just a prom, it's just a word, it's just a job, it's just a school, it's just a difference in salary, it's not important, I want to say: Linda Brown was just a little third grade girl from Topeka, KS, and her father was just a parent who didn't understand why his daughter couldn't go to a school that was just 7 blocks away. And his courage to stand up instead of just getting used to it is the reason why we no longer have (legal) segregation in schools. Nothing is ever just anything- there is possibility in each moment.
edited at 2010-04-28 02:33 am (UTC)
you shan't be mine
2010-04-28 02:49 am (UTC)
and this is why I do what I do.
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