Last night, a small crowd of University students gathered to participate in a forum titled “Erasing Hate: A Community Discussion,” led by Thomas B. Howard, Jr., programs director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
The event started with the screening of a video about the death of Matthew Shepard, a freshman at the University of Wyoming who was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in 1998.
“I just want to have a conversation with you about what is happening in your community,” Howard said, stressing that he would not try to force his opinions or values upon anyone.
“All I can do is speak about the world as I see it,” he said.
Howard described the difference between hate crimes and hate incidents, explaining that a hate crime involves either physical action or a pattern of hate incidents. Howard then showed a short, fictional video about a high school student who threatened his classmates because of all the bullying he experienced.
Howard said when he shows the video to administrators and teachers they try to argue that the severe bullying the student experienced is not reality, but he connects with it on a more personal level.
“It was reality for me,” he said. “I remember waking up and not wanting to go to school.”
Howard asked students how hate manifests itself here at the University.
“It’s about being an ‘other,’” fourth-year College student Khalifa Lee said. “People categorize other people — you’re either ‘this’ or you’re ‘that.’”
Lee said he feels that people spend more time with small groups of people just like them rather than learning about people who are different from them.
Howard recalled his own experience with hate, describing how he was kicked out of his Southern Baptist college after two years on the suspicion of being a homosexual.
“My sexual orientation is [a small part] of who I am,” he said. “It’s like if I was born with a pink or blue toenail and people chose to marginalize me.”
Howard urged students to remember that it is important not only to reprimand people who use racial or sexual slurs but also to educate them.
“We need to explain why something is offensive,” he said. “We can only play ignorant until we are educated.”
Howard also asked about the problems heterosexual and female students face on Grounds.
“If you are single, people wonder what is wrong with you,” second-year College student Eudora Chua said of being a heterosexual student.
About being a female on Grounds, fourth-year College student Anne Christine Lie said people expect women to dress a certain way and to be adequately feminine.
“It’s not spooky Halloween anymore; it’s slutty Halloween,” she said.
Howard reminded students, though, that the way a girl dresses does not necessarily make her a “skank.”
“We still think victims are responsible for being victimized,” he said, adding that people still tell him that Matthew Shepard “was asking for it.”
First-year College student Marvin Richards asked Howard how he deals with groups who publicly condemn gay individuals.
Howard responded that he believes it is best to simply ignore such groups.
“Just because you scream the loudest doesn’t mean you have the most power,” he said.
Howard concluded by challenging students to talk to those who are different and to be confident enough to be themselves.
Change “starts with all of us,” he said. “It’s not something grand ...it’s the way we treat those around us.”
Lie, who is a member of Queer and Allied Activism, which sponsored the forum, said she would have liked to see more people present, though she noted those who attended “were engaged.”
She also said she wished the talk could have focused more on other issues of discrimination present at the University, such as racism or religious intolerance, in addition to sexual orientation.
“Obviously it is Proud to Be Out Week, and that’s one of the issues we want to talk about,” she said. “But it would have been interesting to see if people had other perceptions of... hate crimes or incidents.
This Friday the Queer and Allied Activism will host “The Laramie Project,” a play written in reaction to Matthew Shepard’s murder, at the chapel as a part of Proud to Be Out Week.
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