Category Archives: Uncategorized
LGBT Safe Zone Training
The LGBT Center at URI (their website on the uri.edu homepage is linked at the bottom of the post) hosts a safe zone training for any interested parties. This means if your student group or dorm or just little old you wants to learn more about understanding and accepting LGBT people, and how to be an LGBT ally, you can sign up for this training or ask for the trainers to come present to your group through the LGBT Center at URI. I had the benefit of going through this training. Twice.
One might ask why I did this, and I truly wish that I could attribute it to a greater desire to further understand LGBT culture and not miss anything by going through the training a second time around. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
For some background information, the training is right around two hours. The presenters/trainers have been highly trained themselves and are very knowledgeable about what they are talking about, and can offer firsthand experience about the topics they discuss, regardless of their identity or orientation or whichever. The three different presenters I listened to happened to identify themselves as lesbian, bisexual, and gay respectively. The information was enlightening at points, but I already knew a lot about LGBT culture, definitions, and perspectives, so if you are more new to the topics you will probably get more out of it.
So I participated in the training first during diversity week this year, a week-long (obviously) event that is designed to promote diversity on campus. The training took place, I believe, on a Thursday evening, though I cannot be sure because my memory is comparable to that of an old lady—my hypothesis on this problem is that my hippocampus either never fully developed, is an underachiever, or has some sort of aging disease. It would probably be more accurate, however, to assert that my hippocampus has a horrible habit of remembering completely unhelpful and unnecessary information that leads people to believe that I really do have a terrific memory that I deliberately talk down so I can claim I really did forget we were meeting in the library yesterday.
Regardless, the first training I went to was during diversity week, and it was rather informative. I had encountered a lot of what they talked about in my own research on the LGBT community that was prompted by my ridiculous curiosity and also my brothers sexuality, but I was able to clear up a few things (transsexual versus transgender vs transvestite) and reassert a few things (no baby of mine is getting forced surgery for being transsexual). It was, overall, helpful, and I certainly didn’t regret going, especially after the sharing bits with others in the training (I learn by interacting with others better than by absorbing information from a Powerpoint).
The problem is, my original intention for diversity week was to attend a lecture on the stigma of mental illness, which I was very interested in learning about, which occurred on a Tuesday morning earlier that week. I, of course, with my awful hippocampus completely missed the lecture from a combination of sleeping through it and more importantly not realizing the date until I walked down campus from my Tuesday afternoon class and nearly screamed swear words when I saw the Diversity Week! Banner hung in front of the Multicultural center on campus.
What complicates things is that although generally only freshman have to attend a diversity event, I was semi-required to attend one as part of my RA job—my hall director thought the staff could benefit as a whole from shared knowledge of the events occurring that week. So I had to find something else. I looked at the schedule and saw what fit into my schedule, and my options were Peace Meditation that required the sacrifice of my lunch hour (my stomach highly disapproved) or something else I didn’t like at all, and then I looked again and saw Safe Zone training, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I had rejected the idea before. I was very interested in LGBT rights, and definitely wanted to know as much as possible and become involved as an ally. This was a huge asset to my dorm staff. I later realized that I had not chosen this before because my hall director had also thought it was a huge asset to the staff—so much so that he had scheduled us our own training the following Thursday. The same training. The Safe Zone training.
In conclusion, I think I can say that I am somewhat an authority on the training at this point. My hallway is about as safe a safe zone as possible. The other night my friend had to stop me from shrieking across campus at a guy who used the alternate “f” word, shrieking, specifically, “THAT IS NOT DIVERSE.”
Though the training was helpful and I think it is very important to have such training on campus, I do not recommend taking the training twice. Your extra two hours is better spent on the Quad or in front of the MU or in another public place shrieking about LGBT rights and how gay people are awesome. This might make some people uncomfortable though, including said gay people. But why not voice your support? You could always get in a two hour long argument with one of the religious people who are always there handing out bibles telling woman that abortion is murder and gay people are wrong and Muslims are going to hell. I advise that.
Bottom line, if you would like to take part in this training that is very cool when you take it once, you can contact the LGBTQ Center at their phone: 401-874-2894 or email:lgbtq@etal.uri.edu.
Their site! 😀
Okay, so I hope this very long post makes up for Friday’s lack of reading. If not, then check the next post. That is all I got.
<3Annie
UPDATE
Because of Hurricane Sandy, I obviously missed the update Friday and might miss it again Tuesday. My RA duties and other obligations are interfering, and I apologize. I hope to get the posts up soon!
❤ Annie
When you vote, consider…
“Hi, I’m gay, and I’m a second class citizen.” Or so goes the message the LGBT community gets when they are told they can’t marry who they love because we have to vote on it first. DID WE VOTE ON YOUR MARRIAGE, ROMNEY?
One of the buzzing topics in recent government and in pre-election politics is who is going to be allowed to marry when and what our future president is going to do about it. Obama says he supports gay marriage, Romney says he supports traditional marriage.
What does that mean anyway, traditional marriage? Romney seems to think it means “morally right” or “religious” or “normal, proper, etc.”
I think it means bulls***.
You know what else was traditional? Subordination of women. Slavery of black people. The stoning to death of rape victims who “dishonored their family”. Does any of that make any f***ing sense? NO.
Some people cite that “gay” marriage—I like to call it EQUAL MARRIAGE, because that is what it is—is against their religion, against the Bible. Well, it also says that working on Sundays is a carnal sin. You aren’t allowed to wear a shirt or sweater woven from two different materials. Cohabitation and premarital sex are sins. If you can’t have kids, you aren’t considered married.
There are a lot of things the Bible says not to do that people go and do any way. The Bible also says to love thy neighbor. When you call your neighbor a “faggot” or “dyke” or “queer” or tell them “they are going to hell, and God hates them”, you are not loving them. When you protest at a soldiers funeral, a soldier who died protecting our freedom to hold our own religious beliefs, saying that God hates gays and to “pray for more dead soldiers”—because apparently soldiers die because they are protecting those “fags” who are against God, you are not following the commandment to love thy neighbor. You are poisoned with hate. And hate is the devil’s game, my friend.
I’m teetering on the boarder of religious ranting, but I will continue by saying this: I don’t believe in a God who encourages that kind of hate, and hates the kind of love I see in gays, lesbians, transgenders, and all other members of the LGBT community.
Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think you should think this over. Your rights to your religion will not be affected or impinged upon by people who love each other getting married. Joe and Tom getting married does not make the marriage between Amber and John any less legitimate. No one is forcing churches to hold ceremonies. LGBT people merely ask for the same privilege—no, the same RIGHT—to marry the person they love.
The fact that some people think that love is wrong hurts me. It makes me sad. Partially because I worry for those who love and are hated for it, partially because I pity those who are so consumed by an us-against-them, hate filled mentality.
So in this election, my primary concern is equality for all Americans. Equality in education, equality in safety, equality in love. One of my friends said it would take too long to get “gay marriage” passed. He said the economy was more important. Well, the economy needed some work when women were asking to vote, when the underground railroad was in full swing, when those who loved someone of a different race were jailed. The economy will always need work. But in my book, the prevention of love, the active or passive continuance of hate, prejudice, and ignorance, should be our primary concern. This is America. Home of the Free, Land of the Brave—so be brave, and fight so that EVERYONE is free to marry who they love.
****I do not have anything specific against Romney other than disagreeing with his stance on gay marriage. He may very well have some good policies that may effectively work. He also has the right to his own opinions about issues. Thank you.
Announcement!!
Hey guys, I’m going to try to post on a more regular and scheduled basis now. So my goal is to post every Tuesday and Friday. So see you guys then!
Take Us As We Are
So the November presidential election is coming up, and the social networking sites are abuzz with commentary–intelligent and engaging or petty and accusatory in nature notwithstanding, users are posting and utilizing the tools to further their opinion or perhaps merely prompt discussion. Many of these posters are college students here are college students here at URI, who may or may not be just testing their voting shoes now. Our education brought us up to this moment–preparing us and giving us experience that crafts our opinions–informing us of the past and our current problems, educating us so that we may begin to understand and be informed enough to make a very important decision–the decision of who gets to run this shindig.
And that is the function, or at least the intended function, of the existence of a publicly accessible and required education of young people. The purpose of schools is not to teach us opinions or convince us something is right, it is to teach us how to analyze and determine right from wrong ourselves. Idealistically, public education does this.
Putting aside the idea that public school systems, private school systems, colleges, etc. probably aren’t entirely unbiased in that teachers and administrators and funders all have their own opinions and influence students in that way, our schooling and education in elementary, middle, and high school does not necessarily encompass and define all of our education and learning. We learn things at home. We learn things in church, at the park, in the subway station. We are always learning, evolving, creating, supporting, advocating—we are active members of our society and we have opinions that we feel are valuable. When someone stands up and tells us that using the word gay in a derogatory way is unacceptable and that gay people have flaws, but can be good or bad just as diversely as the rest of the human population (whatever their sexual orientation may be), we are learning something, despite the lack of classroom walls. We are learning, at the very least, that other opinions and realities exist other than our own. And that, my friends, is the very basis of becoming a person who is accepting and free of prejudice.
Racism, Ageism, ableism, hetereosexism, sexism, etc are not innate. We are not born with hatred and intolerance in our hearts. In some religions, it is believed that you are born with the sins of the world and when you are baptized, you become new again, and innocent. However, these babies, just the same as every other infant, will more than likely grow up and be influenced by the prejudices, opinions, dislikes, and beliefs of those around them. When a child grows up in an area or home that they hear the words “faggot” or “nigger” and other slurs, they will grow to use them. When they grow up around an adult or with friends who hate others or treat people differently based on their ability to walk or the color of their skin or their belief system, whether those opinions are vocalized or not, the child will model them.
Ridding the population of prejudice is an unrealistic task. In some ways, all of us will always be prejudice in some way. Sometimes, we are more comfortable sharing feelings with friends who are similar to us—our same age, same gender, or same religion. Its fact that sometimes, we are more comfortable with those who are similar to us in some way. The goal is not to hate ourselves for these prejudices, but merely to acknowledge them and work to become as accepting, understanding, and non-judgmental as we can as individuals. This is a process that never ends, something that we must always try to be aware of as we live. We must speak up when we see or hear or feel injustice, we must combat hate with love, intolerance with acceptance, prejudice with understanding. We must refuse to enforce stereotypes or accept them as truth. We must that first impressions may not always be truthful. Everyone must TAKE US AS WE ARE, and WE MUST TAKE THEM AS THEY ARE. Flawed—flawed but beautiful.
You Shouldn’t Hire Someone Based on Their Race Or Gender? Affirmative!!
According to dictionary definition (as in dictionary.com) affirmative action is the encouragement of increased representation of women and minority-group members, especially in employment. This definition is all well and good. However….
As far as I see it, I don’t think these things should be highly prioritized as something to look at when hiring. I mean, I certainly support equality in the workplace, in education (college acceptance) and in the world in general. However, the system of affirmative action is fundamentally flawed. By forcing workplaces—or at least encouraging them—to hire based at least in part by the sheer fact that the applicant is or isn’t a woman, is or isn’t black or Asian or Hispanic or Caucasian, to me, goes against equality in its essence.
I think that people should be hired or not, accepted or not, based on their credentials, their merit as a person, rather than on the basis of filling a quota. Sorry Sam Bernstein, we know you scored better on the SATs, had better grades, and volunteered at a soup kitchen for six years, but the University regrets to inform you that we just needed a female Asian student, and since you are African American, you didn’t make the cut. We are accepting Betsay Mae instead, even though her main accomplishment was blowing up a volcano at the science fair convention last year.
To set a certain disclaimer, I don’t think people who have blown up a science fair volcano shouldn’t get into college or that Asian people only get into college because they are filling a quota.
But come on. If I interviewed for a super-awesome job, got hired, and found out I was hired over someone else because I’m a woman, I would quit. That’s bull****. I don’t want to be hired because of my sex. I want to be hired because I’m qualified!
The aim of affirmative action, of course, is to prevent people from hiring only white people or only black people or only males and being racist, sexist, and the like, but what it is doing is preventing employers from hiring based on merit. No employer wants to be called a racist because their staff has a whatever majority, even if that just happened to be the race of the most qualified candidates.
Race shouldn’t even be an option on a college application.Universities shouldn’t be yelling about how they have more diversity because they sectioned off a certain number of student’s that were black, white, female, male, Asian, etc. They should say, “we have the most qualified students!” Not “we have 6% black and 6% Asian and 6% blah blah blah.
Granted, some minority groups are more likely to grow up in poverty. Thus, they don’t have access to the same education and same preparation for college. People who fall into these categories should be looked at with that in mind—if you lived in a place where it was uncommon for your math teacher to show up more than once a week (and this DOES HAPPEN), you should get a little slack when you’re in a race with the kid with math teachers and tutors and college camps on his or her resume. That’s a different issue altogether.
Basically, what I am saying is that people should be judged on their merit, not on things (like race, gender, and socioeconomic upbringing) that they can’t control. It’s as simple as that. And though that’s what affirmative actions aim is, it’s not what it is doing.
We Don’t See Racism Until It’s Directed At Us.
Why are we so willing to believe the worst when it isn’t about us?
I feel like this post is going to be far less effective than had it been written directly subsequent to the accident (my best friend and I had a good shouting match about it for hours afterwards, in the way only best friends can, shouting agreement and restatements and furthering opinion in an excited frenzy of crazed outrage), but I will do my upmost to convey the amount of OH MY DARCY YOU ARE STUPID that was spewing out of my head and making the air heavy as all ****.
“The Situation” happened in my psychology recitation, which was taught by a non-white graduate student at URI. Mind you, the only reason I cite her race is that it is somewhat relevant to the story.
We were talking about the idea of white privilege, and we eventually got around to racism, which was APPARENTLY defined as when a majority treats a minority as inferior (Specifically white people treating minority groups such as African American or Hispanic people unkindly).
I’m sorry, but I was under the impression that racism is when someone is judged merely based on their race (“good” or “bad”). I didn’t realize that minorities couldn’t be racist.
Maybe I misunderstood. So I asked, to clarify. She explained. “White people are the majority, so they have the power, so they can be racist and inflict…”
WOAH WOAH WOAH. Let’s hit this with some logic. Thank faith in humanity, other people spoke up.
“So, the Hispanic population is higher than whites in Texas. Does that mean only Hispanics can be racist in Texas?”
“Well, uh, no, because they have to be in a position of power.”
“Angel Taveras is the Governor of Rhode Island.”
“Our President is half black.”
The T.A. was getting uncomfortable now. Somehow, because it did not directly relate to her, the idea that only white people could be racist was never questioned or thought to be illogical and WRONG until now.
The class ended. But I was still fuming. It got me thinking about three things:
–>Reverse Racism
–>Scholarship Aid
–>Affirmative Action
So most applicable to this situation, the idea of “Reverse racism.” When used, people generally are talking about non-white individuals judging white people on their race. Others use it when someone is stereotyped to be good at something because of their race (all black people can play basketball, all Asians are smart, all men know technology or auto repair etc)
Reverse: the opposite of
Racism: judging someone not on the content of their character but purely on their race, whether that judgement is “good” or “bad” (i.e. black people are good at basketball, white men can’t jump, etc).
So…reverse racism is just not being racist at all. Reverse racism, by definition, is defining a person by who they are and not their race.
Racism of Asians against black people or white people against Asians or Indians against Mexicans is just that-racism. There is nothing reverse about it. White people can be racist. But so can everyone else.
Next time: Affirmative Action
Six Post Topics
Okay, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to describe six different posts (I ended up coming up with seven) in one sentence, but here we go; The posts will include, separately but with reference to each other: affirmative action, “reverse” racism, the LGBT Community: High School, College, scholarships based on skin color or ethnicity, gender in the classroom, anti-prejudice campaigns in schools, and extracurricular activities and prejudice involved there.
Take Us As We Are 