Day of Silence

[Skyhilist]

So, for those of you who don't know, Day of Silence is an event that takes places in schools across the U.S. once every year, where people vow to stay silent for a day to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community and to raise awareness about discrimination against that community.


So I, and roughly 65-100other people (there's about 1300 people in my school) participated in this at my school this year. I thought it could only have a good impact, but I'm sort of having my doubts. All day long the people who aren't participating sort of take it as a joke and just attempt to make the people who are participating talk, so they'll "lose", according to them (or something along those lines).

What do you guys think? Is this a productive effort, or is it something that's mainly counterproductive and not a good way to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community? I'm not really sure what to think as of now, because no one failing to participate really seemed to get it in my school, but then again my school might be much different than others.

[Asmo]

It would seem to me that being silent about queerphobia is counterproductive. It would be better to be vocal and call out society's shit. Silence is for reminiscence, not for making radical changes to the way society treats people. It is good to mourn the queer dead, but that does nothing to make the world better. Why not have a day of action?

[Skyhilist]

It would seem to me that being silent about queerphobia is counterproductive. It would be better to be vocal and call out society's shit. Silence is for reminiscence, not for making radical changes to the way society treats people. It is good to mourn the queer dead, but that does nothing to make the world better. Why not have a day of action?

Well here's what the cards say that they give people who participate in during Day of Silence (to explain to others why they aren't talking): "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."

So I think it's more than just not talking and cowering in the corner, although I do agree that a day of action would be more productive. The reason GLSEN (the organization that organizes this every year) probably doesn't pursue that is that they want to have it be widespread in high schools, which unfortunately they need school approval to do (and of course school's wont be as receptive to people interrupting classes to talk about LGBT rights, unfortunately). I mean if they did it that way, sure more courageous and radical students would do it, but it unfortunately wouldn't have as big of an impact in schools I don't think, because the event is usually regulated by public schools already, who would probably try to condemn and therefore lessen such a "disruption".