Day of Purple: A Vigil To End Homophobic Bullying (Emery Barnes Park, Thurs Oct 20th, 7pm)
I have purposefully spent the last 3 years covering more queer and GLBT issues on my blog, and as an educator at one of Canada’s premier universities, I spend a lot of time educating my students in being accepting and proposing policy solutions to address homophobic bullying (although I’d like to expand the definition to anti-queer bullying).
It’s heart-breaking that queer youth feel so overwhelmed that they make the choice to end their lives. I can’t stop shedding tears whenever I think about this. It just breaks my heart, it really does. I purposefully make it my goal to mentor queer students (whether they are my students or other faculty member’s) and offer advice and I try hard to be there for them. But I teach at the university level, and much of the bullying happens in earlier stages of life. So I am never sure if I have any impact.
Recently, a Canadian youth took his life after repeated bullying, and the trend is scary as it continues to happen in the US, even with youth who have created “It Gets Better” videos. This is very disheartening. We need to help our youth, and our queer youth specially, and help them get through this tough period of time.
For the second consecutive year, there will be a vigil to remember these youth and to take a stand against homophobic bullying. And I will be there, alongside other thousands of people. From the Facebook page:
Wear purple to stand in solidarity and show support to those struggling every day through homophobia. This event takes place everywhere. All you have to do is throw on a purple shirt, tie up a purple tie, wear some purple shoes… Just put some on yourself, somewhere.
At this point the Vancouver vigil will be happening exactly a year after the first vigil, on October the 20th at 7pm. The vigil is to remember the youth who took their own lives due to homophobic bullying and to show people that IT GETS BETTER.
If you know of any other vigils happening in other cities, PM me or post them on the wall and i’ll put them up here.
In Vancouver, BC the vigil will take place at Emery Barnes Park (Davie and Richards St), October 20th, 7pm. I would suggest to wear a purple shirt. I will. Please pass this on.
More links:
* Gay Vancouver post on the topic.
* Quebec government to spend $7M fighting anti-gay bullying
Will spread the word. Thanks for this.
Your voice is appreciated Raul.