Hate and Love

For the past few weeks I have been preparing to write a paper on Matthew Shepard, this has been a rather difficult undertaking, as I am not all that prepared or sure as to how I can speak in a affective voice that is also academic on Matt and the culture of mourning that surrounds him.

For the last couple days I have been reading a lot of stuff about anti-gay violence and homophobia - naturally this has impacted my mood quite a bit.

There are hundreds of quotes from the materials I have been reading that I want to put here, dozens of statistics that I want to share, numerous thoughts and personal stories that people have expressed to me. But they would fill this blog space infinently.

I think any one that identifies as queer, gay, lesbian, trans-gendered, non-gendered, intersexed can testify to the culture of pain and fear that we still operate within. It is getting better - at least I like to think so - but the fact remains that homophobia and hate crimes against gay and lesbians occur still today - in our urban centers and in our rural communtities. There will always be an Aaron Webster or a Matt Shepard... but we should also try to remember the nameless individuals who fall to the violent acts of hatred and fear. The ones who go unnoticed in the media and the legal systems of our contries.

At the same time we should celebrate places like the 519 Center in Toronto, The Center in Vancouver, The Harvey Milk School in New York, and the (horribly underfunded) Triangle Project School in Toronto. These are just some of the places where hate can be combated - this is a horribly small list, there are dozens others that I cannot name here. But they exist and I say thank you to them.

I want to remember Matt Shepard (died 1998). I want to remember David Buller (died 2001). I want to remember Aaron Webster (died 2001). I want to remember John Clarke died 1996). I want to remember Henry Drosdevech (died 1993). I want to remember David Curnick (my grade 8 French teacher - died 1994). I want to remember the hundreds more both named and unnamed. Remember not as just people who died because of hate, but because of people who loved - whose love was cut short.

thank you.
matt