Subscribe to Breaking NewsDaigle: Change Something
The desktop image on my office computer is a flowchart. At the top, in a bubble, is a simple question: Are you happy?
If you answer yes, the chart points you to a simple directive: Keep doing whatever you’re doing.
If you answer no, the chart poses another question: Do you want to be happy?
if you answer no, the chart directs to keep doing whatever you’re doing. But if you answer yes, the chart sends you a straightforward solution.
Change something.
As a community, we’ve got a long way to go before we’re happy. Yes, things are much better than they used to be, and yes, we’ve come a long way, baby, but the road stretches out in front of us, there are still battles left to fight (and win!), and our happiness today is a bittersweet one — the kind that comes with a mournful underbelly, a gratitude that still dreams forward.
Are we happy? No.
Do we want to be happy? Yes.
Change something.
It begins in us. Change doesn’t come by simply criticizing our leaders. Change comes when we hold them accountable and go out into the world and show them the change we seek. Change comes when we confront homophobia, not just complain about it. Change comes when we acknowledge that our happiness is something we create, something we are responsible for.
Come out at work. Call someone out for making an offensive joke. Correct your mom when she refers to your boyfriend as your “friend.” In small, everyday ways assert the validity of your life as a gay person — without malice and without anger — and live the equality you’re looking for.
Do you want to be happy? Yes.
Change something.
And ultimately, we need to grow into a different view of what change means, what change entails. Radical change, the kind that reshapes a world, doesn’t come without loss. And not just loss for our opponents — loss of our own, loss of ideas and beliefs and behaviors that suited us before but will not suit us now. You can’t grow a new skin until the old one is shed, so we have to embrace the act of losing, get rid of the things that keep us locked in the past and be willing, for the sake of change, to be someone and something new.
We can’t ask for change in the world without being willing to change ourselves. And we have to be the change we seek. Otherwise our shouts and rallying cries are empty words. If we don’t live what we’re asking for — if we willfully live one life in private while protesting for a different life in public — then we don’t deserve to get what we’re asking for.
Do you want to be happy? Change something. Change the view of another person. Change something in you. But make change happen. In every small way, in all small things. Change something.
Words — even these — are cheap. Action is everything.
Change.
This is really a powerful group of statements!Zora Neale Hurston once said, “It’s no use of talking unless people understand what you say.” I really do think that language is really so limited there is no way to completely express all the ideas and emotions we harbor simply through talk. We need to create empathy through action and not through words. Everyone talks too loud now. We are all so busy talking over each other,and around each other,and behind each other that we’ve become immune to the din. But actions are universal. Image is so much more provocative. I learned in my Global Gays Movement class that one of the biggest things that changes a heterosexual’s perception of the homosexual agenda is simply knowing someone who is homosexual(hopefully someone they like). That means one thing we can all do to really create change is COME OUT! Break the barrier of hetronormativity by breaking the assumption that everyone is straight until proven otherwise. When the loudest thing that resonates from the Gay Civil Rights Movement is the complaints of its people the wrong impression is made. Like the Dali Lama said, “Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes someone creates a significant impression by remaining silent.” So if you can’t think of anything that is dynamic enough to change the current situation, before you open your mouth to cry out for sympathy, instead remain silent and think of something you can do that is significant enough to create empathy.
To this day I still remember my very first Pride Parade (San Francisco 1991). It was such an awesome feeling to know that I was not the “only” gay person in the world. For the first time I felt as if I truly belonged. No more sneaking into back street “gay” bars, or wondering if I would ever meet the man “of my dreams.” I had found my people! Regardless of how people (gay and straight) view the parades, nothing will ever take the place of that initial rush when you attend your first Pride and realize there’s so many more of us than we thought!
My mom went to pride years ago and had a great time. Actually, WE had a great time. She always wondered, “I didn’t know that there were so many gay people.”
So for the pride-naysayers, pride worked for me on an interpersonal, familial level. And I bet you all that I’m not the only one who had experienced that.
Thank you EMK for your kind words, but after being compared to a dog, I’m not so sure of this normalcy.
Typhoon you are a part of the “normal” society. You are a Human being just like every other Human Being on the planet. You are an American citizen born with the same rights as every other American citizen.
Pride parades have done NOTHING for THE LGBT Communities except provide much needed entertainment for LGBT Peoples and ammunition for the Religious fanatics who never really needed much provocation to begin with.
We don’t need to get rid of the pride parades but we as a peoples(A body of persons sharing a common religion, culture, language, inherited condition of life or sense of kinship) really need to get a little serious sometime and a lot more proud ALL of the time.
Oh, you mean like see us in assless chaps, and strap ons, in public. How bout, stop using these “pride” parades as just another excuse to party. Because, if there’s one thing we’re famous for is partying. Oh, yes Lil’ Jimmy down in Kentucky, and Dear Elizabeth in Winsconsin, only wish that they see more of that in their day to day life. I’m not saying “blend in” but since these pride parade started they’ve provided nothing of value for our community, but a place to play dress up in public, and feed on stereotypes. I guess some look at it as an emblem of victory, since it’s what happened with Stonewall. But dear community, it’s 2009, and not the 1960’s.
No “Typhoon” that won’t “change” anything at all. Our Celebrations of Pride are no different than any other groups’ celebrations and we are as much a part of “normal” society as any other group.
Simply trying to “blend in” actually does a disservice to the up and coming generations of LGBT people. They need to be able to see us, know what’s possible and see others that they can look up to in a way I and many others didn’t have when we were young and discovering the fact that we were LGBT.
Love it! What to change? What to change? Oh, here’s a thought. How about, getting rid of “pride” parades. Anyone up for the challenge. Starting next year, no more pride parades. Let’s see how much that change will effect society’s view of our community. And in exchange how much that would add to our happiness to finally be part of “normal” society.