I did not wear purple for homophobia awareness on Oct. 20. I have a couple reasons why:
Awareness doesn’t accomplish anything. By a show of hands, how many of you are aware of homophobia? Lots of you. How many of you are aware that at least six kids, if not more, have recently committed suicide in the United States due to homophobic bullying? That’s right, most of you.
Currently, the Facebook event(s) about wearing purple have about 80,000 “confirmed” attendees. Eighty-thousand people wearing purple are going to accomplish naught but a couple turns of the head, let alone a full dialogue on the issue of homophobia.
Could you imagine 80,000 phone calls to the Secretary of Defense office? Eighty-thousand letters to the White House? Eighty-thousand letters to school boards in the deep South? Eighty-thousand angry protestors marching on the parliament? Eighty-thousand people at a candlelight vigil? It’s fantastic isn’t it? Now picture 80,000 people around the world wearing purple. This might add up to, what, three people in any given school? Not very breathtaking any more.
I do not, and neither do you, deserve a pat on the back for wearing clothing. If you have spoken up, written a letter, or even done something as simple as making an “It Gets Better” video, you deserve a pat on the back.
Rob Nettleton did something fantastic when he organized the video campaign at Carleton. The people who took time out of their day to say something did something fantastic. Those people who think their good deed for the week is picking out a colour to wear that day are not doing something fantastic. They are being apathetic covered by a veil of sympathy. I’m going to be blunt for a second:
Those kids that committed suicide will not be coming back, and a campaign to wear a colour is not going to change that. Memory is an important thing; the Holocaust has taught us that forgetting can be a catastrophic mistake. But equally catastrophic is complacency with lazy campaigns that produce little to no results.
Wearing a colour is NOT going to stop bullying; I am disgusted with the lack of effort by politicians and educators in making a change.
“Something needs to be done” has been uttered thousands of times by thousands of people in response to the suicides. And nothing yet has come to fruition. That small, scared, depressed 14-year-old boy somewhere is not going to feel better because we wore purple. What will cause them to live to see another day is action being taken. Dan Savage’s campaign will cause dialogue and debate. A purple sweater will not.
My anger is not directed towards those who make legitimate efforts for a cause. It is directed towards meaningless, lazy Facebook and Internet campaigns like the campaign to wear purple.
I have come across three groups on Facebook that have requested me to wear purple; one group asked for the purple to remember the suicides, a second group was to show your disapproval of homophobia, and the third was a sort of hybrid of the first two. There isn’t even a consensus on what to do with the colour!
Wearing purple isn’t bad; wearing purple and contributing nothing else to help stop bullying is.
I, like many, have also been a victim of homophobia, and have had dark moments in my life. What has helped me through these moments is not purple, not silence, not the sympathy of strangers, but friends and family, and knowing that it, someday, will change.
If you disagree with my thoughts on meaningless awareness, think about the movie Hotel Rwanda. Remember the line said by the Canadian UN soldier, Jack? It was: “I think if people see this footage they’ll say, ‘Oh my God that’s horrible’ and then go on eating their dinners.”