In the fall of my senior year of high school, I applied to two colleges. My number one choice was Seton Hall University, in South Orange, New Jersey. My second choice was the University of Albany.
I wanted a school in New Jersey, so that I could be closer to my dad, as well as the rest of my family that lived in New Jersey. Out of the 100 students in my high school graduating class, I was the only student who opted to come to New Jersey for college. I was proud of my choice, feeling that I was ready to carve out my own niche in the world. There were also other reasons that led me to choose Seton Hall over Albany, but we’ll get into those a little later.
My acceptance letter from Seton Hall arrived at my Walton house on December 24, 2001; I forgot to check the mail that day, and ended up opening my acceptance letter on Christmas morning.
I was very excited to be attending Seton Hall University, with its long-standing traditions of academic excellence. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted out of Seton Hall; I wanted to ready myself to succeed professionally in the world. I applied to the Hall as a Criminal Justice major, but by the end of my first semester realized that Sociology was a much more appropriate major for me.
I had made a decision prior to my first day at Seton Hall. In regards to the homosexuality issue, I had decided that I wasn’t going to hide my true self from anyone. I had lived my life as a secret forever, and I refused to continue to do that. I would be honest about my sexuality. If people accepted me, that would be fantastic; if they didn’t, that would be fine as well. I didn’t need the approval of other people to justify the feelings I had inside. I wouldn’t lie about who I was anymore.
At the same time that I said that I would be honest with people, though, I also had a very strong feeling about how I was going to do this. I didn’t want to use my sexual orientation as an identifier, for it was only one part of me. I decided that if I were asked point blank about my sexuality, I would give an honest answer; I would volunteer the information to people that I felt close to, but not as a means of introduction.
I opened up to a few people after the first two weeks at Seton Hall University, and they were completely accepting of the issue, and of me. It was a big shock coming from such a small school that certainly wouldn’t be the poster school for diversity. Suddenly I was at Seton Hall, where diversity was simply a way of life. I don’t really know what type of reaction I expected from people at college, but the natural accepting of something that had always seemed so uncomfortable to me was an enormous surprise, one that was not surprisingly refreshing and renewing.
I cannot begin to describe the feelings that I started to identify within myself within the first few weeks at college. For the first time in my life, I started to carry myself with confidence, with pride that I could finally be myself. I walked around campus with a smile on my face, and with pride in my heart; this pride came from the fact that I was, at last, living a life that was true.
I was completely and totally comfortable with the person that I was. I felt as if I was living life on my own terms; I refused to play a part any longer. I also realized that I wasn’t flaunting my sexuality, wasn’t rubbing my homosexuality in people’s faces. Living a life that was suited for me, I began my life for the first time, all over again.
Everything was going my way, from standpoints both academic and social. I was making the grades and making the friends. I couldn’t ask for anything more. People were accepting me; little did I know that things were about to be taken to a completely different level, one that I could never have prepared myself for.
Feeling more comfortable with my sexuality, I started to make friends at Seton Hall who were also gay. We would talk and share stories about how we had come out, and about how receptive people at Seton Hall were to the issue of homosexuality. We all seemed to agree that students really didn’t view homosexuality as a big issue; perhaps society was slowly beginning to change, or perhaps students were becoming more freethinking than their society was encouraging. Either way, homosexuality didn’t seem as if it mattered to most of the students at Seton Hall.
Had I spoken that last sentence, there would have been extra emphasis put on the word “most.” I learned that most of the students at my college accepted gay students, but most does not mean all. I learned this in a way that no homosexual student should have ever had to learn this. In my first two months at Seton Hall University, I became the victim of a hate crime.
Forever burned into my mind are the memories of what I saw when I found myself standing in front of my door when I returned to my dorm room one week shy of my 18th birthday.
White walls and brown wooden door stained red with permanent marker, the words were everywhere. “Faggot,” “Queer,” and “Homo,” were just some of the words that now permanently adorned the tile surrounding the door to my room, in addition to the door itself. When I had been out over the night, someone who suspected my homosexuality had given voice to their suspicions, in the form of a cowardly act that marred my door. I called my friend Cassie to come over to my room and help me try to remove some of the graffiti.
Somewhere around two hours later, most of the marker had faded enough so that it wasn’t distinguishable. I thanked her for her help and she went back to her room. I walked back into my room and sat on my bed.
My spirit was broken. I didn’t know what to do. I had never encountered hatred like this before, only the subtle jabbing of a curious high school student. I had come into contact with ignorance, but never in such a blind manifestation.
In high school, I was always used to feeling empowered, feeling that I could truly do something that I felt passionate about, and could accomplish whatever I set my mind out to do. This vandalism knocked me down. How do you fight back against a faceless coward? I didn’t feel that I had any power to do anything; the loss of control was one of the things that bothered me the most.
But the part that truly bothered me was the sheer ignorance of the writing. Someone hated me because of something that was clearly misunderstood. I wasn’t these awful words on a door, was I? This thing came out of nowhere, and made me completely re-evaluate if my choice to be open was truly the smartest choice after all.
After a restless night, I decided that I wasn’t going to accept the vandalism on my door. This was a direct affront, not only to my property, but to my very character. Moreover, this was an assault on the entire gay community. I wouldn’t just lie in my bed and lament the ignorance; I would fight it with every breath in my body.
I approached the Hall Council of my Residence Hall with the situation, and asked the Residence Housing Director what could be done to get people to start talking about the issue. My hope was that, through greater dialogue and an increased discussion of the issues regarding sexual orientation, people would feel more comfortable. It was decided that all students living in my residence hall, which was somewhere around 300, would be mandated to attend a Town Hall style meeting in which the issue would be directly addressed. With an issue that affected me so directly, I asked to be a part of the meeting. I asked to speak.
With the help of the National Coalition Building Institute, the meeting was planned from start to finish. The meeting was scheduled to take place in October, just a few days before my eighteenth birthday.
News spread quickly through my residence hall that I would be speaking at an upcoming meeting on tolerance, and speculation built as to what topic I would specifically be covering.
With the meeting only a few days away, I received a call one night on the telephone in my room and asked to come to the room of my Resident Assistant. Once there, I saw that several of the Assistant’s from the building had already arrived. They asked me what I would be speaking about, and I told them exactly what my speech would entail. I had crafted a speech that was not confrontational, wouldn’t put anyone on the defensive, but still strongly addressed the issue of intolerance and prejudice on a college campus.
The Resident Assistants all agreed that, due to the situation, it would be in my best interest if I were to perhaps look into obtaining a campus security escort, should I find myself walking alone on campus after dark.
The idea of using a security escort was so foreign to me; I had come from a town in which no one locked their doors at night, where people trusted people. I believed that people were basically good at heart, and the idea that my physical well-being would be threatened had never seriously crossed my mind, at least, not seriously enough to actually obtain an on-campus security escort. I declined the escort, putting my faith in people. I left the room, knowing that I would need to rest in order to be fully prepared for the task that was at hand. In just a few days, I would be coming out to the entire campus of Seton Hall University.
I decided that since the incident in question had happened to me, I would know best how to speak to the crowd about the experience. I asked to speak, knowing full well that I would have to do something to show students the severity of the incident. While I did feel that I had a responsibility to do what was right, I also did not want to go over the top, to make the incident some plea for help, or worse yet, a bid for attention.
I spoke with a few friends about how to handle the speech. I was met with criticism on several fronts. The staff of my residence hall was unsure that coming out to the university would be in the best interest of my physical well-being. Both my high school and college friends shared in that opinion. Several members of the gay community thought that perhaps I was doing too much for the issue, and that I should simply let the problem fix itself, instead of playing such an active role. My gay friends thought that there was no need to push my sexuality in people’s faces, that it would accomplish nothing.
All of the people involved in the incident, the town hall meeting, and the speech itself found themselves asking me one question; what did I want to come from this meeting?
I wasn’t expecting instant tolerance to blanket my college campus after my speech, I didn’t expect the person who had defaced my door to suddenly come forward and confess. The only thing that I wanted as a result of my speech was to get people talking about the issues that concerned homosexuality. I felt that once people saw a “gay kid” on the level that I was hoping to present myself, a lot of their misconceptions would hopefully come to the surface, where they could be discussed in an open forum.
The day of the speech seemed to fly by. I had four classes that day, in addition to working three and a half hours at my on-campus job. I took a brief nap before the meeting in my friend Cassie’s room. The meeting was scheduled for 8:30 that evening. I slept until 7:30. When I woke up, the magnitude of the task before me finally hit; whether it was stress, fear, or a combination of the two, I was reduced to the uncontrollable sobs to which small children often succumb. I knew that, by speaking, I would be identified for the next four years as “the gay kid.” I wondered why this burden now rested on my shoulders, why I was the one who had volunteered to speak. This moment of doubt, of uncertainty, was very uncharacteristic for me.
I shrugged off my worries, which is easier to say now than it was to do then; I then walked back to my dorm, to shower and prepare for the meeting that was only an hour away.
Showered, shaved, and dressed, I walked to the auditorium with several friends. I was more nervous than I could ever remember being in my life, but I knew that nerves usually drove me to my best performances. Now, when I hear people talking about how public speaking is their biggest fear, I smile. Try putting the biggest secret of your life out there in front of a room of strangers, and then perhaps we can talk about fear.
The meeting started, and then it was time for me to approach the podium, to deliver my speech. I brought a folder up to the podium with me. Inside of the folder was my speech and a picture that I held clasped in my hands throughout the duration of the speech; the picture was of my best friend Liz, my rock.
About twenty minutes later, my speech had been delivered. No one had moved during the speech, no whispers, no giggling. My message had sunk in. Before I thanked the audience for their patience, I looked around the audience at the reactions I was receiving. My call for equality, for tolerance, had left several people crying, and many more smiling. I ended the speech and dropped my head to put my speech back into my folder.
When I raised my head, I saw the entire audience, somewhere around 500 people, standing and applauding. I lowered my head once more and held tight the picture of my best friend. When I again raised my eyes to the crowd, it was through tears, for I realized what had just happened. I had laid bare my soul to a room of strangers, and I had earned their respect. I left the podium to raucous applause and many pats on the back, smiles from the crowd, and encouraging comments.
Returning to my dorm a few hours later, without a security escort, there was a group of ten to fifteen students assembled outside of the entrance. As I started to walk by them, I felt a hand on my shoulder; one of the guys in the group had something to say to me, and felt the need to do it at that moment. In front of eight of his male friends and five or six female friends, this guy told me that he respected me and admired me for what I had done. I thanked him and told him that his respect did truly mean a lot to me.
I returned to my dorm room, where I again showered and then changed into my pajamas. Getting ready to go to bed, about four hours after the meeting was over, I decided to check my e-mail. There was one message, from a girl named Jessie. In this e-mail, which had been sent to most of the campus, Jessie came out to the University, giving voice to feelings that she had harbored inside of her; this e-mail reiterated in my mind that I had indeed done the right thing. It had been written immediately after the meeting had ended.
I had chosen to combat ignorance with knowledge, misconceptions with truth, and hatred with hope. I had taken a risk and put my character on the line in the hope that homosexuality would be seen in a different light by the students that attended the meeting; I feel that I was able to do that. I had taken a situation that was negative and tried with all that I had to turn it into a situation that was productive for both the heterosexual and homosexual communities as a whole. I did my part, and the audience did theirs.
Looking back, I have no regrets about anything that happened; this includes the original vandalism on my door. I no longer am hurt by what happened to me; in fact, I am thankful, for it allowed the issue to be brought to the forefront.
But I also know that with great opportunity comes great responsibility. I believe it is a direct result of my upbringing that I now believed that what had happened to me had happened for a reason
No comments:
Post a Comment