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deleted
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 Posted - 11/21/2004 : 11:23:43
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4023335.stm
When most of your school is gay
By Paul Henley
Presenter, Radio 4
Are pupils at the world's first "gay" state school victims of segregation or symbols of progressive thinking?
The majority of pupils at Harvey Milk High School in New York are gay and were bullied at their previous school for their sexuality.
Harvey Milk refuses to be classified as a "gay school" even though that is the general perception of it from opponents and supporters alike. But it says its unique brand of segregated education fully deserves its public funding.
It says it provides for a small population of victimised and bullied pupils who are made to feel so freakish in mainstream high schools that they are falling behind in lessons, too scared to go to school and missing out on a proper education.
Not everyone thinks this is a valid cause.
"If we need a special school for homosexuals, maybe we need a special school for little short fat kids, because they get picked on too" is the view of Mike Long, chairman of the Conservative Party in New York.
'Pregnant' school
He feels making Harvey Milk an official, state-funded High School has been done behind tax-payers' backs - "on the sneak", as he puts it.
New York does not yet have a school for undersized people with bad eyesight. But minorities of many kinds are already catered for - children who aspire to be fire-fighters, pregnant teenage girls and pupils interested in "active pedagogy" such as rock-climbing.
There is no school sign on the outside
One year after opening, the atmosphere inside the school is as unorthodox as you might expect. The Harvey Milk pupils I met were no shrinking violets.
They were self-confident, self-aware and vocal teenagers who seemed to be flourishing in the seclusion of this school.
And it is secluded. From the street, you cannot even tell it is a school. An anonymous entrance between shops and cafes in downtown Manhattan leads, via checks by security guards, to a lift which runs only to the third floor and opens up into a corridor of lockers with classrooms and offices off it.
There are about 160 pupils, more than half of them girls, all between the ages of 14 and 18.
Some pupils look like they could be at school anywhere, others don't. Two teenage boys in crop-tops with long, permed hair are having a heated but good-humoured exchange ("Don't go there, girlfriend!") with an older-looking black girl with a shaved head and heavy boots.
Here you can just be yourself and nobody will talk and make stupid comments
Vampira, 16
They're almost all Hispanic or black, from the worst-off areas of The Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn. They had to nominate themselves to come here.
For most of them, arrival seems to have brought a sense of release. Vampira, 16, says Harvey Milk has become "like my second family".
She says how relieved she is she no longer has to hide her sexuality. "Here you can just be yourself and nobody will talk and make stupid comments."
"I had my problems with people at my old school", says 15-year-old Chanelle. "It was the whole straight thing - the jocks, the football players and so on and, personally, I didn't fit in and I was missing out on my credits. I figured - get out of there".
Good grades
Several pupils stress that they would never have made any academic progress without the school. Ninety-five per cent of Harvey Milk pupils graduate, compared to just over half high school pupils across New York generally.
The teenagers are frank about events that brought them here. Tanaja, a recent graduate, talks about her parents' horror the day she came out to them, aged 14. She comes from a family of strict Jehovah's Witnesses.
Her mother and father put locks on the bedroom door. They forbade her to have any physical contact with her younger brother and sister, who was four. She felt her only option was to leave home and Harvey Milk helped find her a place to stay.
Inside, just like any other school...
Jazzy, 16, says he inadvertently "outed" himself to his mother the same day he discovered she was lesbian, but laughs now about the time they bumped into each other with respective boyfriend and girlfriend.
Critics of the school wonder how teenagers can be clear enough about their sexuality at such a young age, to ask for a place at Harvey Milk.
Josh Lamont, from the organisation Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which collects statistics for the US Education Department, says he's used to raised eyebrows when he tells people the average age of coming out is now fifteen. " A generation ago that figure was closer to twenty-one," he says.
'God Hates Fags'
Others who oppose the school, including gay rights activists, say creating a new form of gay ghetto is no way to encourage integration and understanding. In the real world, they say, gay and straight people have to learn to co-exist.
But some disagree. More than once, Harvey Milk's pupils have had to walk through groups of protesters on the pavement outside.
They have had insults hurled at them by angry members of the public brandishing placards saying "God Hates Fags" and "Go to Hell Harvey Milk Students".
At very least, Harvey Milk gives them strength in numbers. They ignore the protests and go to school.
Frank Black ate my hamster |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2004 : 11:28:57
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In recent years, Latino students in California schools have separate (Latino-only) graduation ceremonies.
 I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2004 : 12:21:14
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quote:
Originally posted by kathryn
In recent years, Latino students in California schools have separate (Latino-only) graduation ceremonies.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank
i've never heard that
ist es möglich für ein quesadilla skrotum zu lecken? beim sprechen der quesadillas von LBF, ja. ja in der tatheheheheheheehehee! |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2004 : 14:50:13
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Many Cali. schools do that. If memory serves, they include UC Berkeley, Chico State. There was to-do when UCSB (or was it SBCity College?) started to in the mid-90s. I'm fuzzy on the date.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank |
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Jose Jones
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1758 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2004 : 21:04:02
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i hate people who say shit like "god hates fags." if these religious nutjobs actually read the fucking Bible, they'd be proven wrong. i hope those dicks get seriously injured someday.
-dan
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they were the heroes of old, men of renown. |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2004 : 21:10:17
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i got friends who went to ucsb and berkeley and i've never heard that one. but i'll ask.
i went to UCSC and there wasn't anything like that to speak of. i'm not saying you're wrong. . it just sounds odd. are you talking about a separate, additional ceremony? and is it voluntary or mandatory? i find it hard to believe that something like that would fly at Berkeley (or anywhere).
ist es möglich für ein quesadilla skrotum zu lecken? beim sprechen der quesadillas von LBF, ja. ja in der tatheheheheheheehehee! |
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Newo
~ Abstract Brain ~
Spain
2674 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 04:05:41
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What about gay Latinos? Are they cordoned off as well?
--
Moving from the clown to the jester will mean moving from similar to same, from alike to identical, from comparable to analogous. Though applied differently, the colours used on one can be used on another, and a couple of changes of costume will rapidly transform the jester into a clown and the clown into a jester. Strictly speaking, they almost duplicate each other as regards clothes and function, the only difference between them, from a social point of view, is that clowns do not usually visit the palaces of kings. |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 06:00:58
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http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/000346.html
My sister sent me a link to this interesting post about graduation ceremonies at Berkeley. Is it just me or did I get the 60's civil rights movement all wrong? Weren't we trying to integrate our society? Wasn't 'separate but equal' wrong? With the advent of multiculterism, it looks like the left wants us to become segregated again. No place is this more apparent than in the California University system.
USC's official commencement ceremonies were held on May 16. The night before, more than 180 seniors participated in the school's 25th annual Chicano and Latino graduation. Parts of the ceremony were in Spanish, parts in English. There were traditional dances performed by dancers in ceremonial dress. There was also a Cultural Staff covered with indigenous symbols; it was carried by a member of the Latino Honor Society in order to recognize her leadership and example. USC also held a black graduation last week.
Three separate graduation ceremonies by race. It's a good thing this wasn't done in Georgia. O'Reilly would be screaming bloody murder. But isn't this, well, ummmm, uh, like racist? But wait! Look what went on at Berkeley.
UC Berkeley's African Studies department held its own graduation ceremony on May 17.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 07:35:19
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i still wonder if it's voluntary or not.
as for the African Studies department having a different ceremony, that's not based on race, but academic department; i'm sure not everyone studying African Studies is black..
ist es möglich für ein quesadilla skrotum zu lecken? beim sprechen der quesadillas von LBF, ja. ja in der tatheheheheheheehehee! |
Edited by - floop on 11/22/2004 07:42:51 |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 10:26:35
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so, i asked two separate friends who went to Berkeley and they said there are additional, optional ceremonies organized by specific groups (latinos etc..). so i think the information is kind of misleading. it's not like they separate people by race, as that womans excerpt implies
ist es möglich für ein quesadilla skrotum zu lecken? beim sprechen der quesadillas von LBF, ja. ja in der tatheheheheheheehehee! |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 11:37:47
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It's voluntary and it's been done in high schools, too, as far as I know.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 11:48:21
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i don't think there's anything wrong with that, personally. have an additional ceremony that's organized by a particular group.
if they were forcibly separated that would be a different story
ist es möglich für ein quesadilla skrotum zu lecken? beim sprechen der quesadillas von LBF, ja. ja in der tatheheheheheheehehee! |
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kathryn
~ Selkie Bride ~
Belgium
15320 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 12:50:31
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No, no, that's the point made by those who oppose such voluntary events. That were it an enforced separate graduation, people would freak.
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Frank |
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darwin
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<
USA
5454 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 13:39:36
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I think people do both ceremonies. Latinos/latinas attend their separate ceremony and then many also participate in the campus wide ceremony. So, it's not like there are "Three separate graduation ceremonies by race."
At my alma mater (UCSD) each college had their own graduation ceremony, so there was no one large ceremony. That was actually very nice because you didn't have to sit there for 4 hours, but it also meant you weren't necessarily in the same ceremony as your friends. |
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NimrodsSon
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1938 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 14:14:43
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I see no problem with that kind of segregation (the graduation ceremonies) as long as it is one hundred per cent. voluntary. It just seems to be a way to keep their culture in tact, in a sense. On the other hand, the gay school thing doesn't seem like the right thing to do. But then again, I'm not gay, so I don't have any idea what the discrimination and hatred they have to endure is like. I know that here in GA, gay-bashing is very common, and for the most part, no one seems to have a problem with it, which is a shame. I guess it could certainly get to the point where it becomes unbearable for many homosexuals.
¡Viva los Católicos! |
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n/a
deleted
4894 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2004 : 10:00:46
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My graduation ceremony was in english and in welsh, went on for hours and not having my friends there would have been a bonus because as I went to collect my certificate there was a collective whooping and shouting and whistling from my lads at the back. I look a pretty shade of red on the photo
Frank Black ate my hamster |
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segregation or salvation?
