International Day

On November 19th, I attended International Day at the Engineering building on Campus. Jenna and I arrived right on time before the actual festivities were beginning so we started talking to some of the people that were running the celebration as well as artists sitting at the tables showing off their creations. The first lady I spoke to was creating cards for all of the different ethnic cultures around campus. She said how she wanted to make something that would appeal to everyone. If we wanted a card that said hello in Ghana she was willing to do it. The next booth was an African American artist by the name of Julian K. Van Dyke. He painted murals and portraits that displayed African American culture. After admiring all the different paintings he had done he talked to us about his inspiration that mainly derived from bible readings he had read and learned about.
After speaking with Julian I immediately I spotted a women across the room wearing a non-traditional type of garment. Jenna and I asked her what type of dress she was wearing and she said her dress was from an African culture and it was called a "bu bu". She said typically one would wear this at a wedding, such as the mother of the bride or a bridesmaid. It turns out this women, Maggie Blair-Ramsey was in charge of the celebration and was so excited we had come to see everything going on. She said International Day was designed to take into account all the different cultures of people that come from all over and end up here, at Michigan State. We were handed an agenda that showed us what was going on throughout the event such as bongo players and dancers. We saw many people walking around in their nations traditional garment and it was a real eye opener. It was nice to see how proud people are of their heritage even if their outfits are not the standard here in America. International Day was a success and I had a great time walking around and talking with people.

Hate Kills - Sylvia Guerrero Seminar

This past Friday I attended a seminar where Sylvia Guerrero spoke about her daughter Gwen's brutal murder in 2002. The lifetime movie, "a girl like me" re-tells the tragic story about Gwen Guerrero's death. Born a boy, Eddie, never felt right in his body, as his mother says. Around high school, with the support of his family, he decided to stop deceiving himself and started dressing like a girl and taking hormones. He named himself Gwen and was overall much happier as a female than a male. When Gwen was 17 she went out to a party and was harassed. 4 boys at the party demanded to know if she was a girl or a boy. They took it upon themselves to undress her and witnessed "she" was indeed a "he". After beating her up, the boys tied her up, strangled her and continued to abuse her. After she was dead, the beatings continued and they dragged her outside where she was buried under dirt and boulders. Police reports and witnesses state the boys went to McDonald's for breakfast after the brutal slaying.
The seminar started off with a short clip of pictures of Gwen and news reports of what happened to her. I never thought I would get so emotional after watching the news reports but simply seeing how people could be so horrible to a transgendered individual was a real eye opener. As soon as Sylvia started talking about her daughter I immediately teared up. She spoke not only about her daughter but about the lives saved by people listening to her story. She encouraged everyone to be brave and live their lives how they want to live, like her daughter wanted too. The one thing that struck me the most about listening to Sylvia speak was how she said she forgave the men that took away her daughter. The fact that she was willing to visit 2 of the 4 men who killed her daughter took so much courage and strength and I truly applaud her for that. The seminar ultimately left me with the powerful saying, "hate kills". Its frightening and sad that we live in a world with so much hatred but if people recognize everyone is human like Sylvia is trying to preach, lives will ultimately be saved and hopefully feelings could be changed.

GLBT Seminar

After watching the Video at the GLBT safe school seminar I was shocked about the information shown and told. When the video talked about all the prejudices and hardships families have gone through dealing with being gay or lesbian it was a huge eye opener. Hearing stories about people committing suicide for fear of coming out was saddening. One of the families mentioned that their daughter was so scared to come out and would rather take her own life than live a life she resented. The statistic in the movie about how gays were 3 to 7 times more likely to commit suicide is scary. It seems so hypocritical and maddening to me that people argue the bible states that homosexuality is a sin and therefore people find the need to write death threats and hate mail to people who are gay. But do these same people not believe everyone should be treated equal and that god loves us all? In today's world, homosexuality seems to be much more openly accepted and mainstreamed. The fact that Gene Robinson, in 2003 became the first openly gay bishop shows how far society has come. Or so it seemed. Hearing the death threats against him was terrifying. It seems the world has progressed so much and realizing just how many people are still so prejudice is discouraging.