“Regardless of whether she was Eddie or Gwen, she was still my kid.”
—Sylvia Guerrero, Gwen Araujo’s mother
Today is the International Transgender Day of Rememberance. Groups around the world are preparing marches, candlelight vigils and film screenings to memorialize transgender victims of hate crimes.
On this day, we remember Gwen Araujo, a transgender teen who was murdered in 2002. After Gwen was killed by local youth in the Silicon Valley suburb of Newark, high school students, residents and civic leaders respond, and in so doing, they struggle with how to deal with a brutal and preventable crime.
Their efforts are captured in this 5-minute film:
Blog
November 20, 2012 - 6:02pm
November 15, 2012 - 4:53pm
This is the second year in a row that Lancaster's students, teachers and parents have celebrated the start of Bullying Prevention Month in their city.
Dozens turned out to watch their mayor and city council sign a Not in Our Town proclamation declaring Lancaster's schools a safe zone from intolerance and hate.
Check out the full story in The Antelope Valley Times.
Just like last year, Mayor R. Rex Harris joined with local school district administrators to officially sign the proclamation that challenges local leaders and students to stand up to bullying in their schools.
Here's the full proclamation:
WHEREAS schools make substantial contributions to the future of America and to the development of our young people as responsible and productive citizens; and
November 12, 2012 - 3:35pm
Ole Miss Students Hold Vigil After Election Night Protests
Last week, University of Mississippi students stood up to another divisive protest. On Election Night, after the re-election of President Barack Obama, more than 400 students gathered to protest, yell racial epithets and burn an Obama campaign sign.
Chancellor Dan Jones quickly denounced the protests, saying students and faculty of the university were “ashamed” of the actions of a few of their peers. The following day, student group One Mississippi gathered about 700 students at a candlelight vigil, where they read the university’s creed to “respect the dignity of each person.” It was the same counter tactic they used when the Ku Klux Klan protested in support of the controversial chant—“the South will rise again”—sung at university football games in 2009.
November 12, 2012 - 3:30pm
By Janet Sasson Edgette, Psy.D
Sharing the quiet neighborhood in which I grew up was a girl I’ll call Marcie. Marcie wasn’t a particularly nice girl, but that didn’t stop me or any of the other kids in the neighborhood from trying to be her friend. She toyed sadistically and expertly with our wishes to be part of her “in” group.
One summer she made each of us pinkie swear that we believed her story about there being the decapitated Frankenstein heads underneath the sewer lids on our street. I didn’t believe in Frankenstein, but I was afraid to not believe in Marcie. I spent one whole year engrossed in the terrible, tantalizing fantasy of lifting off those lids and finding heads in varying states of decay.
November 8, 2012 - 9:29am
This sign was posted on a fence a few yards from where Marcelo Lucero was killed in a hate crime attack on Nov. 8, 2012 in Patchogue, NY.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of Marcelo Lucero’s hate crime killing in Patchogue, NY. Marcelo’s death unveiled a pattern of anti-immigrant attacks that had gone unnoticed for years. We documented Patchogue’s efforts to heal divisions after tragedy in Light in the Darkness, and we remember Marcelo Lucero today because immigrants are still vulnerable to violence.
A young Mayan man recently came to our office to share the story of how he was severely beaten by white supremacists on the streets of San Francisco last year. “I felt the first blow hit me and from there it didn’t stop,” he told us. “I didn’t know how to escape.”