A welcome breath of fresh air for victims of hate crimes came from the most unlikely collaboration last week. Local police, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered community representatives and high schools joined together to mount an aggressive fight against hate crimes based on sexual orientation. Finally, the well-intentioned but mostly ineffective anti-hate crimes unit appears to have seen the light and involved the people most affected by these crimes.
While there are no guarantees that this campaign will be any more successful than the multitude of others in the past, at least the odds are in its favour. Having high school kids as designers and producers of the major publicity vehicle of the campaign, they are getting to the source of the problem rather than trying — after the fact and usually in vain — to bandage gaping wounds.
And the wounds from homophobia are deep, often fatal. A 1997 study concluded that 67 per cent of young males who attempt suicide are gay or bisexual. Alienation and depression are the norm for many queer youth who are taunted, abused and rejected by their peers.
Not only does this campaign target violence against queer youth, but it gives them a sense of visibility and reassurance.
This campaign helps queer youth understand there are other people like them and there is nothing wrong with them or their sexuality.
All kids struggle with their identities during high school but forming a healthy identity or sense of your sexuality can be nearly impossible when your classmates call you a “faggot” or declare that anything they don’t like is “gay.”
High school kids are among the meanest and the most vulnerable people in society but they are also our greatest hope for the future. They are stubborn, rebellious, and bound by nothing except their own lack of knowledge and experience.
If there is one thing everyone who was once an unruly teenager, whether it was a few years ago or in now-distant decades, knows for sure, it’s that education by force and coercion from heavy handed parents and self-righteous teachers doesn’t teach you anything.
Peer tolerance can only be taught through peer education.
Only by getting kids involved in their own education will they learn the value of tolerance, the horrors of prejudice and the lasting effects of hatred.
Kudos to the police for finally learning a thing or two about crime and kids.
—Rachelle Diprose and Brandy Zimmerman