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| Not the same ones we made, but the same design. |
It’s Saturday the 3rd of November (in the US at least!), and this week I finished a major anti-homophobia campaign in my school!
If you missed the memo, here’s a bit of a rundown on what we did.
We started with a discussion on issues we’d like to cover with our Amnesty International Committee. We knew we had little over a month of time to work with, so were determined to find something that would be straightforward enough to pull off. (Our other campaigns this year went with a little fizzle and no pop, so we were all keen to do a million times better this time around). We eventually concluded that we were all sick of hearing other students using homophobic slurs in everyday language, and that the best way to make a group of teenagers listen was to offer them free food.
And somehow, this turned into us speaking on assemblies and to the year level heads, baking 174 cupcakes, decorating all 174 cupcakes on Monday afternoon, and giving them out in return for people’s pledges to stop using homophobic slurs on Tuesday.
You’re probably all trying to work out why an Amnesty International group would try to stop people from using the language they’re all so used to using. Well.
Homophobic slurs make students feel unsafe, insecure and like they need to withdraw. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. This means that we all have the right to feel safe- and when you use language that makes someone feel unsafe, you are breaching one of their basic human rights.
Teenagers at my school use language like this all the time, and even when it’s in a context that has nothing to do with the LGBTQ* community, it is terrifying. (perspective: our school is kind of... rough. At a legal studies conference earlier this year, we sat in the carpark for lunch. The other schools sat on the grass. See my point?)
While most students would be pleased to jump up and down and announce their “ally-ship”, none of them make that apparent in their language. On Tuesday at the teaparty, other students repeatedly told me “but stopping using those words is really hard!!” and “my (friend/brother/sister/parents/dog) is gay and (he/she/they) (doesn’t/don’t) care about that”.
My only response was this:
If you are a member of the LGBTQ* community, and you are able to hear phrases like “faggot”, “homo” and “dyke” without feeling any fear or apprehension at all, I envy you. As someone who’s been subject to only limited homophobia in their lifetime, I still can’t hear those words without the fear that I’ve come across a “gay basher” and I’ll be attacked simply for my sexuality. What’s harder- stopping the use of those words, or being struck by fear multiple times a day because people are still using them?
..it shut them up pretty quickly.
I'm really proud of my group for what we managed to achieve this week. We got 150 signatures on the pledge we wrote up, and for once, managed to even just get an event to happen. And even if we only got 150 people to think about the possible effects of their language, that's better than nothing!
I want to make a proposal. To everyone in high school, college or uni who is reading this- if you are in a position where you won't face overly negative reactions for something like this; give it a go! I would love to see this campaign spread to other schools and institutions, and maybe we could even make a worldwide difference?
If you would like to join this campaign, you can send me an email or a tweet. Send in photos, stories, videos- anything goes! Because let's face it- free food is the best way to make a difference.
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| I don't have photos of the event that I can post here without having to face privacy and legal issues, so here, have an artist's interpretation of it. |
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