It's that time of year again. Next week is Gay Pride Week on campus here at Bloomfield College. Sometimes it is a little earlier, but usually it is a little later. But the second week of April includes Easter Break, so it was now or never.
I'd love it if it were a time of joy. But I often find it to be rather depressing. I've been one of the co-coordinators of the Gay/NonGay Alliance since I got a full-time job here in 2001. I wish I could say it has been rewarding.
The truth is that it has all been an uphill journey. No matter which direction one looks, it is uphill.
Originally at Docudharma
Once upon a time, I don't know how many years before I came, the Alliance fought the good fight...and won. Bloomfield was one of the first institutions in New Jersey to offer domestic partner benefits. Since I have been here, the percentage of the full-time faculty who are GLBT has ranged between 10 and 15 percent...on a mostly minority campus just north of Newark. Both the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Director of Residential Education and Housing are lesbians.
But since I have been here, student engagement on GLBT issues has been close to non-existent. So next week will be Gay Pride Week. Will any students choose to show up?
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We provide some links:
As you might notice up there, I have some writing to do so that I can speechify at the Prop 8 Pep Rally at noon on Friday. Sometime between now and next Friday I will find the words. And I will speak them...but they will almost certainly once again be words preached to the choir...and the choir will mostly be faculty and staff. I've always found the aftermath of that to be rather dismal.
I'd love to help generate the enthusiasm of the following young gentleman, James Neiley, who recently spoke to the Vermont Senate. I'd love, in my latter years, to be able to watch the activism in people with the knowledge that I may have had some small hand in helping to initiate it.
I'd love to know that someone will carry on after I can do this no more.
I understand the sentiment which says that there is less activism because this is not an issue for young people. I could accept that better, probably, if that were true on this campus. But this is still a place where, unless a gay person is a faculty or staff member or plays the class clown, it is not emotionally safe to be openly GLBT. Too many of our students who are willing to tell us that they are queer completely avoid telling their friends.
And that is not the way their world should be.
A few words from Harvey Milk:
And a few words from me:
Rainbow Colors
Attrition Blues
I watch you
as you grow
learn some things
take baby steps
forward
hoping for more
ever willing
to teach you
how to make it so
Meanwhile
waiting for victory
through attrition
has a sour taste
--Robyn Elaine Serven
--March 27, 2009 |
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