Today, over 8,000 schools and hundreds of thousands of students nationwide took part in the National Day of Silence. 60 plus of these students were from Devils Lake High School. The Day of Silence was a student led demonstration and was not endorsed by the School System. However, in other parts of the country some school systems did endorse and actively participate.
As a participant students painted red X`s over their mouths and took a vow of silence for the day. Throughout the day, the students passed out cards that read:
“Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.
What are you going to do to end the Silence?”
The Day of Silence’s purpose is to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment and effective responses. Hundreds of thousands of students of all beliefs, backgrounds and sexual orientations participate in the Day of Silence. Anti-LGBT bullying and harassment affects all students. Slurs such as "faggot" and "dyke" are commonplace in school. The Day of Silence is an example of students, from middle school to college, working together proactively to bring attention to the anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment experienced by LGBT and straight students alike. (http://www.dayofsilence.org/truth/index.html)
As a participant/organizer of this year’s National Day of Silence, I stand firm on the fact that anti-LGBT name-calling and any form of bullying has no place within our school system, no matter your opinion towards LGBT youth.
This is how I chose to break the silence... How will you?
For more information, please visit: http://www.dayofsilence.org/resources/
This weekend I spent some down time re-watching a movie I watched last year. I watched the movie for my American History class with Dr. Stotts. The movie is called Dances with Wolves. I suggest anyone who has not seen it should. As one student in my class put it, “it makes you feel bad for being white”. I am not saying that we should actively be ashamed of ourselves for being one race or another. However, I do believe that perspective and understanding is always necessary.
The film tells the tale of a Civil War Union Lieutenant who wishes to travel west and become part of the frontier. During the course of his short stay at his new post, he meets a band of Sioux Indians and becomes friends with them. Soon after this friendship is made, he witnesses the destruction of a people and their land by white immigration and the conquest of American Indian lands.
We witness two different bands of American Indians in the film. The Sioux and the Pawnee, the two different tribes held different views and different polices on handling White immigration. The Pawnee at the beginning of the movie are seen killing the guide that was sent to take Costner`s Character, John J. Dunbar, to his new post. Later Dunbar comes to know the Sioux through a careful game of translation and trading. Dunbar soon meets a white woman who was been taken in by the Sioux People. He learns that this came to be after members of the Pawnee tribe murdered her family when she was a small child.
This period of American History is in my opinion one of the darkest ever witnessed. The ability for the American people to justify the killing of an entire culture and group of people is unimaginable. The political polices and ideals of the time did not help either. For example, the policy of manifest destiny and the Trial of Tears. The idea and policy of manifest destiny spurred the westward movement. Born of the second great awakening it was the belief that the United States expansion to the western shore was granted to the American White settlers by God. Debatably one of the darkest actions of this time was the Trail of Tears, which has also been described as an act of genocide. The Trail of Tears was the forced removal of American Indian band of Cherokee Native Americans. On this journey over four thousand Cherokee died. The name itself comes from direct translation of the Cherokee phrase, “The Trail Where They Cried”. This period as seen today is considered one of the ugliest, but to the settlers of the west, driven by the expansion hungry ideals of manifest destiny, this period was one of good feeling and overall progress.
We have all heard the saying, “History is written by the Victors”. The movie displays history from the viewpoint of the American Indians. The movie`s depiction of White People as uneducated, ignorant, and uncaring is probably not that far from reality. The only reason we do not see this behavior in major portrayals of history and fiction today is because of our relationship as White People with history. We saw our actions at the time as justified and good for the nation as a whole, but now it is time to take a step back and see the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of our past.
I am not looking to place blame or justify racism and prejudice; I am hoping that the movie can help to open a dialogue while promoting a difference in perspective and understanding.
Happy Watching!
I am new to blogging. I have been on “the Twitter” and “the Facebook” for some time now, but this blog marks the start of a new experiment.
Here we go! I thought I would use this first session to introduce myself. I am currently a Senior and serving as Senior Class President at Devils Lake High School. This fall I plan to attend Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter Minnesota, majoring in Political Science and Communications. I am active in National Honor Society, Drama, Choir, Student Congress, Art, and Speech. I know, I may have a “fine arts” problem. Today the Devils Lake Speech team hosted our home meet. It went very well. The Team took first by 24 points, but did not take a trophy. It is traditional that the host team not receive an award at their home meet.
I am extremely proud of our team this year! I serve as Co President of the DL Speech team with Ben Bergstorm. I know that he would say the same about our team. Being on the team is a major time commitment. We find ourselves getting on a bus at 4:30am for a day full of speaking to rooms full of competitors. I bet you did not know that the speech team has been EDC Champions 4 years in a row now!
Now that I have that out of my system, I should start wrapping it up. This summer I had a blast studying American Politics at the 2011 Congressional Academy in Washington DC. In my free time if I enjoy reading and watching television. Modern Family and Being Human are among my favorites. This being said, I plan to talk about anything from politics to my favorite television shows!
If you would like to, you can follow me on “the Twitter” @ https://twitter.com/Jacer94 or on “the Facebook” @ http://www.facebook.com/jace.riggin.
Jace is a senior at Devils Lake High School. He is active in many activities. After graduation, he plans to attend Gustavus Adolphus College. He hopes to study Political Science and Communications.
