day of silence april 16 2010

GUEST POST FROM THE ACLU:

Two things I’ve learned over the years that I’ve worked with LGBT students at the American Civil Liberties Union are that many school administrators and teachers don’t have the slightest clue about what their students’ legal rights are, and that a lot of the ones who do know go right ahead and violate students’ rights anyway because they think they can get away with it.
The only way to be sure that your school will respect and uphold your legal rights is for YOU to educate yourself about what your rights are and hold your school to its responsibility to protect and enforce them.
That’s never more true than during the Day of Silence, an annual event designed to bring attention to the bullying, harassment, and name-calling LGBT students often experience in school. Here are four things you need to know about your rights as you mark Day of Silence this year on Friday, April 16.

see the rest of this post at the day of silence website

     Four Things You Should Know about Student Rights and Day of Silence (2010)

shhhh

there will be no music posted today. there will only be thoughts. i posted earlier and decided to pull that and repost later. i am honoring the day of silence today. it is, after all, for the youth.

i have personal experience with violence aimed at lgbt youth. and i have recently re-experienced that same violence as an adult but by another community member. it creates havoc and pain and is unnecessary. stop the violence. see "coming out of the dark" posted on March 15.

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This year’s event will be held in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students will come together on April 25 to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.

for more see dayofsilence.org

after today, i hope i can speak up more if i see or hear these things happening around me. it's the world i leave behind me that matters, not the one i came into.