Before anyone reads this post, please know that I do not, in any way, hate or disrespect any member of the LGBTQ community or its allies. I do respect people regardless of their sexual orientations, and I am not trying to discriminate against them or anything like that. I am not belittling the recent tragic suicides of those who felt life was no longer worth living because of their sexuality and society's discrepancies with that. I am truly sorry for all of those individuals; and for those of you out there who feel that way for whatever reason it may be, know that it will get better. I've been there too, and it does get better (even though it may take a while). Hang in there. I love you. Many people do.
Yesterday was the 'everyone wear a purple shirt to commemorate the recent suicides' day. At least this one makes so much more sense than the really stupid breast cancer awareness trend earlier this month. Purple is symbolic here; obviously it represents support for the LGBTQ community. And it is nice to know that there are a bunch of people who are supportive.
Or are there?
How many people out there ACTUALLY care about what's happening? How many people are just sheep jumping onto the bandwagon of something that's 'cool' or 'hip' or 'trendy'? Can you even tell?
The reason I'm writing about this is because of an argument I witnessed on the internet yesterday. One person had said that he hoped (if his death were tragic) that someone he never knew would make other people wear shirts of a certain color in order to show 'support', and that instead of this people should go do something meaningful like volunteer or educate or something like that.
Now, we all know that I appreciate this man's sentiment about the whole thing. I believe that making a difference requires more effort than taking the extra 2 minutes in the morning to pick out the appropriate colored shirt to wear, or taking the extra 60 seconds to devote your Facebook status to something totally cryptic and stupid and unrelated. That's just effortless. You obviously don't ACTUALLY care about these things, you're just in it for the moment. Or perhaps you don't want people to think badly of you if you don't wear a purple shirt or if you don't change your status, or whatever else.
The other person in this argument called this man an ass for what he had said, and stated that the people who really care are those who start the trends and that what he said makes him insensitive to all of the tragedies, blah blah blah. I will have to disagree. The people who really care aren't those who start the trends; those are the people who want to look cool. The people who actually care are those who have been volunteering or speaking or donating long before anything tragic had to happen to make the rest of the world to wake up (or for them to read on the internet).
Is it that people have to pretend to care to be accepted? Or that people want to care but don't want to put in any real effort in it? Or perhaps people acknowledge the tragedies and show their sentiments, but that's just it?
My condolences to all who have been lost, and all who are lost. Best wishes for those of you out there who are confused or who feel alone, desolate, desperate, whatever it is. Know that you are never alone, and that there is always a glimmer of hope, no matter how small or invisible it may seem.
-sigh-. I should take my own advice.
It gets better. It really will.
[I welcome any and all comments (within respectful boundaries) on any of my posts. I would love to hear from you, whether you want to know my opinion on something else, or whether you want to share your opinion with me.]
Funny that you wrote this post. The day before that event my younger sister in high school asked me what purple shirt I'm wearing and I told her I'm not wearing purple. She was like, "Hira! o: Don't you care about gays?" and I pretty much ignored her so that I wouldn't blow up at her. I guess this comment will suffice in place of the lecture I was going to give her.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you and that is exactly why I did not wear a purple shirt. The whole "wear purple" is really silly because I know for a fact that freshman in high school took part in this event too and I can safely say most of them had no idea what it was for. I bet the event was also for middle school kids and likewise, they most likely know next to nothing about these kind of issues.
It's so ridiculous. I'm guessing the majority of younger kids wearing purple shirts didn't even know that the reason they wore purple is because purple in the LGBT flag represents spirit. How the hell can you say you're "taking action" when you don't even know why you're doing what you're doing. Bleh.
Instead of showing that they successfully learned their colors in kindergarten, people should really learn about the issues at hand and help educate others in order to work to eliminate the prejudice and discrimination before we have to commemorate suicides.
If you actually know something about LGBT issues and keep up with news about current events, there is nothing wrong with wearing purple I suppose. However, I still think one can do more beneficial things so yeah...I pretty much think the wear purple is a silly idea. The end :)
Honestly, I forgot to wear a purple shirt and I suppose I would have? Maybe? But whether I did or not, that doesn't change my feelings about the recent suicides and it definitely does not mean that I have more or less support for everyone out there who his struggling.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, it's basically the same thing as the breast cancer status thing. Just because I don't participate, it doesn't mean that I actively support suicides or breast cancer. It just means that this way of 'raising awareness' or 'showing support' doesn't REALLY do much. Perhaps the purple shirts can show support because if a troubled person sees all the people wearing purple, they'll feel better about things, blah blah blah. But I don't think that this can be considered to be 'taking action', because it's not. Putting on a shirt is not active, neither is typing in a bullshit Facebook post.
The reason I get so annoyed with these things is because people seem to think they're doing SO much to help when, in reality, they are doing hardly anything at all. And now people are getting upset at ME because I feel this way. It's not like I don't support people; it's just that I believe this way is a really stupid, effortless, mostly meaningless way of doing things.
So yes, I agree with you, basically.