More on the Harvey Milk High School (NYC)
I spotted this story from The Miami Herald concerning the new Harvey Milk School in New York City:
If the problem is straight kids harassing gay ones, I'm not convinced the best solution is to send the gay ones packing. Especially since the real world doesn't work that way, doesn't allow you to be sealed away in some safety zone from that which makes your life miserable.
If New York schools have $3.2 million to spend on this problem, maybe they should use the money to do what schools are supposed to do: educate. Teach tolerance to the little miscreants who think hitting a gay kid somehow makes them bigger than they are. Teach it to educators and administrators who allow that behavior.
I agree with that to some extent. If the school officials were doing their job and stopping the harassment, we wouldn't need places for gay students who are suffering from harassment. Below are reasons why we need the Harvey Milk School. They speak louder than anything I can say about it. I would also direct you to the story I published of George Loomis, a gay high school student who was forced to drop out of high school because of harassment. No one did anything about it, and because of it, George was unable to gain acceptance to the UC system. He later sued the school district successfully, but nothing will bring back the experience and the years that he lost.
Below I have listed just a few cases in the last few years. The list goes on and on (on the list I'm reading, over 300 cases of harassment). I've listed just a few.
CALIFORNIA April 1998: Five students file a lawsuit against the Morgan Hill Unified School District claiming that officials at Live Oak High School and Murphy Middle School did nothing to stop antigay harassment dating back to 1991. One of the plaintiffs, a seventh-grader, was hospitalized after a group of boys repeatedly beat him at a school bus stop while shouting antigay epithets. The bus driver, the suit says, did nothing.
MASSACHUSETTS
May 1999: Two students at Northfield Mount Hermon School corner a 17-year-old fellow student and carve HOMO in five-inch block letters across his back with a pocketknife. They say they targeted the boy because he likes the British rock band Queen, whose lead singer, Freddie Mercury, died of AIDS-related complications in 1991.January 2000: A Boston High School student is sexually assaulted and beaten unconscious on a subway by a trio of female classmates who assumed she’s gay because she holds hands with girls. The victim, a Moroccan, grew up in a culture where hand-holding among schoolgirls is customary.
NEVADA
January 2000: Derek Henkle, a former Reno student, sues the school district there for failing to protect him from antigay harassment, including threats that he would be dragged from a pickup truck and an incident in which a lasso was thrown around his neck.NEW YORK
September 1999: After many days of being subjected to antigay harassment, a 16-year-old gay student at Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park is ganged up by five students. After he hits one of his tormentors on the head with a stick, he is suspended. School officials allegedly take no action against the assailants. The incident prompts school officials to add the words sexual orientation to the school’s antiharassment policy.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need the gay high school, but I'm not willing to wait until we have a murder case to give my support to this school.
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While I must admit that it's not a bad idea, and the concept of such a place is very compelling in a dream-world kind of a way, I think that the danger is great.
But not the danger to the school itself, the danger to the kids who don't attend.
Because, unlike seperation on the basis of race or gender, seperation on the basis of sexual orientation cannot be absolute. The students at this school are self-selected, but the fact that it exists allows the rest of the school system to point to it while ignoring harrasment and unsafe environments in the "mainstream" schools.
The US promises every American child a free, effective, and safe education. What about the children who are left behind in the sweep toward Harvey Milk?
What about the people who aren't comfortable enough with themselves to identify with this school?
What about the kids whose parents aren't supportive enough to *let* them study there?
I worry not that this is segregation of gay students from thier heterosexual peers, but that it is seperation of well-supported gays and lesbians from those who are less supported.
By focusing on this one school, and not all of them, a situation created in which the LGBT students who are left behind are left not only without the attention of the school system, but without the support, help, and protection of others like them, since they have been moved to Harvey Milk.
That would be destructive, and, in some situations, deadly.
b9,
You say that you don't hate gays, then you turn right around and say,"Boofin' and stickin'-their-schlongs-where-da-sun-don't-shine is repulsive. But, if you're not, then, great."
If what I like is "great", then why leave your message of judgement? I used to delete messages from this website that dealt with opposing issues, some of which were downright hateful. But then, I thought that it would be good to air them to get a fuller picture of what people were thinking.
You are entitled to what you think. I am also entitled to what I think. I think I'm also entitled to the respect to make my own choices in my relationship. Mine has lasted for 27 years so far. Will you be able to say the same about yours?
The "way", as you put it, is YOUR way, not mine. And yes, I do think you are judging. Do you have a better word for it?
I don't hate gays, but what they do I hate: Boofin' and stickin'-their-schlongs-where-da-sun-don't-shine is repulsive. But, if you're not, then, great. Read my URL and pass it around to homosexuals who don't know the Way. Think I'm judging, do ya? Not. Read Daniel 12:3
No, I don't honestly think that segregation is the answer. I'm probably more emotional about this subject than most having been on the receiving end of that kind of abuse, but I'll try to be rational about this.
We actually still do a lot of segregation in this country today. We have boys-only and girls-only schools. People send their kids to those schools because they feel they will get a better education. And whether we want to admit it or not, there is still a lot of racial segregation. They won't call it that, but it exists.
I would love for these gay kids to be accepted and be able to learn just like other kids, but I'm not willing to put their asses on the line so that I can be "politically correct". If I were being politically correct, I would DEMAND that these kids go to regular public schools and make the schools that are making their lives a living hell deal with them. It's easy to say that when it is the gay kids who will have to deal with the wrath of being there.
I also understand your point about the school being a target, and I don't have a good answer for that. I was actually concentrating on the first order of business for ANY school, which should be that of educating its students. To do that, you need an atmosphere that nurtures learning. For a gay child, I think the Harvey Milk school could offer that because having to deal with anti-gay bigots wouldn't be an issue.
You can make the argument of what will happen when they leave the school property. These kids are already targets. Others know who they are and that they are gay. I don't see why going to this school would make them bigger targets than they already are. If someone is sick enough to kill someone, they are going to do it, and that could happen to any of us.
But is segragation really the answer? And by having a strickly gay school, is that not the same as putting a bullseye on these kids? While I understand your point, how long before the school is trashed, or god forbid, someone walks in with a gun, just to "take out the all the queers at once". Segragation can't be the answer for a gay community that just wants to live normal lives.