{"id":258,"date":"2010-10-25T19:14:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T02:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alexfaye.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2010-10-25T19:29:36","modified_gmt":"2010-10-26T02:29:36","slug":"thats-so-gay-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"“That’s so gay”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A short speech I wrote and presented at today’s faculty meeting<\/em><\/p>\n

I am addressing you this morning on behalf of our students who are members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, and also for those kids who hang on the periphery of the club.<\/p>\n

First of all, a little history:\u00a0 the Gay-Straight Alliance started up here at Mayfair just last year, in the spring \u2014 although GSAs have existed in high schools around the country since the \u201890s.\u00a0 There\u2019s an enormous national network of GSAs.\u00a0 Our little baby GSA will be participating in our 3rd<\/sup> club\u2019s day this week, passing out ribbons and raising awareness.\u00a0 We\u2019re a club that is still finding its identity and its purpose \u2014 well, obviously, a Gay-Straight Alliance has a ready-made identity and a purpose on a philosophical or symbolic level, but on a practical level, the kids have been trying to figure out what they want to do, and how they can contribute productively to life at our school.<\/p>\n

But then, unfortunately, the recent tragic suicide of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi brought national attention to issue of bullying.\u00a0 It also brought attention to three other teen suicides that had not really made national news: Seth Walsh, 13, in California; Asher Brown, 13, in Texas; and Billy Lucas, 15, in Indiana.\u00a0 These teens, bullied by their peers for being different, decided that the best thing to do was to end their lives.<\/p>\n

I have always been impressed by Mayfair\u2019s diversity, and by how well we get along.\u00a0 We don\u2019t, as a rule, experience many of the social tensions that we read about on other campuses.\u00a0 But, all the same, the students of the GSA have asked me to deliver this message.<\/p>\n

As the adults on campus, please hold the line \u2014 in your classrooms and anytime within your earshot \u2014 on the phrase, \u201cThat\u2019s so gay,\u201d or any of the gay, faggoty, or queer quips that kids come up with.\u00a0 These phrases may seem meaningless to some of us, analogous to saying that something is dumb or juvenile.\u00a0 In fact, the phrase \u201cthat\u2019s so gay\u201d travels up with kids from the elementary schools, so in that sense, it is<\/em> juvenile; it is also a phrase that many kids use, and are able to use apparently without being consistently challenged by adults.<\/p>\n

But that phrase \u2014 no matter how benign it may seem to you \u2014 does two things for sure:\u00a0 first, there are kids who hear this as deeply offensive \u2013 comparable to hearing the Lord\u2019s name in vain, or the f-word, or the n-word, or any racist or hate speech.\u00a0\u00a0 But secondly, and more importantly, I think, is that it contributes to an atmosphere that accepts such speech and therefore accepts such thinking.<\/p>\n

There is a young man on our campus who comes to the GSA meetings, and I don\u2019t know his name.\u00a0 (I tend to sit to the side, and let the kids run their meeting.)\u00a0 And although he did not share this story with me himself, his friends have told me that because of his appearance and his demeanor, he is regularly a target of hostile speech that is delivered in the friendliest of tones.\u00a0 Kids walk past him and say, \u201cHey, there\u2019s that faggot,\u201d or \u201cHey!\u00a0 Aren\u2019t you a faggot?\u201d\u00a0 Fortunately, this student has a strong network of support through his family and his friends, so he has developed the confidence and the necessary inner resources to cope with these exchanges, but why on earth should he have to?\u00a0 And what about the kids who don\u2019t have supportive families, or have only a few friends?\u00a0 Or no friends they can really count on?<\/p>\n

Now, kids are crafty, and mostly manage to hold back their worst behavior when adults are present.\u00a0 I am sure that if any of us had heard anyone address this young man as a faggot, we would have stepped in and said something.\u00a0 But we are not going to always witness the things that happen on this campus.\u00a0 There\u2019s the world we know about, and then, there is another world entirely.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to suggest that a campus that tolerates \u201cthat\u2019s so gay,\u201d is to some degree complicit when kids use more aggressive hate speech, like \u201chey, are you a faggot?\u201d<\/p>\n

So just like the frayed jeans rule, let\u2019s not make it up to the kids to decide what degree of hate speech is OK.\u00a0 Say no to all of it.\u00a0 In the classroom, in the walkways, in the gym\u00a0\u2014hold the line on any form of hate speech, including the phrase, \u201cthat\u2019s so gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A short speech I wrote and presented at today’s faculty meeting I am addressing you this morning on behalf of our students who are members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, and also for those kids who hang on the periphery of the club. First of all, a little history:\u00a0 the Gay-Straight Alliance started up here at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexfaye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}