Speaking through Silence to Stop Hate

Today, classmates at my school participated in the Day of Silence, a nationwide youth effort to bring awareness to the suffering of the LGBT community caused by ignorance, name-calling and harassment. I am a strong supporter of the cause and I participated in previous years, but this year, I did not. I never felt fully invested in the event, and I think that’s because I didn’t know many people who were a part of the LGBT community. However, the 2011 Day of Silence opened my eyes to my connection to the community and made me proud to be a part of the teenagers of today.

When a friend asked me read his statement to our class, I didn’t fully grasp the depth of what I was asked to do. After reading it aloud and joining my classmates in applauding, I realized that I was just trusted with something incredibly important: someone else’s voice.

Our voices, our opinions, our primary outlets of communication are the strongest vehicle for change we possess. Obviously, the students participating hadn’t actually lost the ability to speak, but the symbolism and meaning behind their actions was powerful and demonstrated the injustice of those who are forced into silence because of who they are.

The last line of my friend’s statement was especially poignant. He wrote, “Today, through silence, I speak”. I really believe that this sums up the goal of the day perfectly. I just hope that someday, we won’t have to devote a day to raise awareness because there won’t be anything to be made aware of.

Since my last DoS, I’ve gotten to know a lot more about the LGBT community, thanks to an amazing blog and the friendships of some wonderful people. I’m so proud that this is an event that created by my generation. We may be materialistic, pampered, impudent or a host of other unfortunate adjectives that teenagers are typically labeled, but through events like the Day of Silence, we can proudly say that we are the most tolerant and open generation in history.

Discovering the Essence of Adolescence through Poetry

I recently went to the library to work on a group project for English Class, and when sent to find a book pertaining to our topic (Freudian psychoanalysis), I found myself happily cavorting around the shelves of the nonfiction section. This might be one of my nerdiest admissions, but I absolutely love libraries.

While my group waited, I stumbled upon a book in the psychology section that stood apart from the other technical, scholarly books about Lacanian symbols and Jungian archetypes. I read a few pages, and immediately was hooked. By the time I returned to my group, I had read a quarter of the book and knew I would finish it by the end of the night.

I Am an Emotion Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World is a collection of fictional poems by Eve Ensler. The poems vary greatly; some speakers include a suburban girl dealing with popularity, an anorexic girl documenting her struggle with food through a blog, an Iranian girl forced to get a nose job, a rape victim, and a girl forced into sex trafficking. Even though many of their experiences were foreign to me, the honesty and accuracy with which Ms. Ensler writes is powerful and easily relatable. The words could have easily come from my or a friend’s mouth in casual conversation or a whispered secret.

One of my favorite poems was “You Tell Me How to be a Girl in 2010” (If you want to hear the author perform this poem as a monologue, click here!). It really hit home for me because it was basically an angry rant about the current state of the world and our place as teenage girls within it. Here’s a passage from it that I found particularly poignant:

“What happened to teenagers rebelling

Instead of buying and selling?

What happened to teenagers kissing

Instead of blogging and dissing?

What happened to teenagers marching and refusing

Instead of exploiting and using?

I want to touch you in real time

Not find you on YouTube.

I want to walk next to you in the mountains

Not friend you on Facebook.

Give me one thing I can believe in

That isn’t a brand name.”

Ms. Ensler eloquently points out the materialistic, impersonal nature of modern interaction and teenage life. I believe living in reality, and finding ourselves in nature and human connections are goals that our generation really needs to strive towards. This book was a welcome wake-up call for me, and I highly recommend it for anyone trying to connect to essence of adolescence.