Fight Out Loud video highlights rise in hate crimes

Fight Out Loud  have produced a video calling attention to hate crimes against the LGBTQ community.  The fact is that while progress is being made in promoting acceptance, that very progress can become threatening to some.  A tolerance-toxic atmosphere created in the past seven years of Bush / Ashcroft / Gonzales  seems to be having its effect.

Larry King, Sanesha Stewart, Adolphus Simmons, Alexio Bello, Patricia Murphy, Beyoncé Williams – all killed in 2008, and memorialized in this video.

April 25th – Day of Silence to honor Lawrence King

Update: Fight Out Loud produces video highlighting 2008 LGBTQ hate-killings
For the past eleven years the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has organized the national Day of Silence demonstration against harassment (i.e. silencing) faced daily by many LGBT school kids.

This year’s Day of Silence, which will be on April 25th,  will be held in memory of Lawrence King, who friends say was murdered in a California school February 12 because of his sexual orientation and gender expression.

Heartening news from Oxnard

In the aftermath of the shooting at an Oxnard, CA Jr. High School this past week of 15 year old out gay student Lawrence King,  local students conducted a “flash” memorial march Saturday.  The brainchild of two high school sophomores, the event came together over the past three days via cell phone messages, the internet and flyers.  Turnout, said to be nearly 1000 participants, far exceeded the organizers expectations.  The marchers carried signs supporting tolerance,  and honoring Lawrence King.

What strike me, in a good way, is that this was a grass-roots effort led by students themselves,  who expressed genuine anger and frustration at the hate and intolerance.

Also, see earlier related posts.

Below:  Teens prepare at E.O. Green Jr High School for the Memorial March

The Los Angeles Times interviewed the organizers and several participants.  See the full  LA Times article:

Melissa Crutcher, 16, who helped organize the march, said King’s slaying infuriated her. Sporting pink-tinged hair, hot pink pants and multiple ear piercings, Melissa said she knew what it was like to get picked on for looking different.

“I know I stick out myself,” she said. “And it’s just appalling that just for being himself he got shot.”

Jerry Dannenberg, superintendent of the Hueneme School District, of which E.O. Green is a part, joined the marchers. He had been told that an event was being planned by students and sent word that the school should support it, Dannenberg said.

“We forget the goodness that is in most of our kids,” Dannenberg said. “This tremendous turnout by kids is an expression of their voices, their opinions.”