Louder Than Words THE NATIONAL DAY OF SILENCE SPEAKS OUT AGAINST PREJUDICE by Jim Steichen photo by Alyssa Landers Odd as it may sound, someone needs your silence. This coming Wednesday, April 8 is the annual National Day of Silence (NDOS). Conceived of in April of 1996 by then first-year student Maria Pulzetti, NDOS is a day for consideration of the silence imposed upon gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people both in smaller communities such as the university and in society at large. In only its third year of existence, the NDOS has spread to around 150 colleges, universities, and high schools both in the United States and abroad, and earned Pulzetti and co-coordinator Jessie Gilliam last year's Campus Based Civil Rights Initiative Award from the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Conference. NDOS participants are silent from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and pass out cards that explain their self-imposed reticence: "Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. People who are silent today believe that laws and attitudes should be inclusive of people of all sexual orientations. The Day of Silence serves to draw attention to those who have been silenced by hatred, oppression, and prejudice. Think about the voices you are not hearing. What can you do to end the silence?" A good question indeed. Another one might be "why keep quiet? Why not make some noise?" It's a happy coincidence that this year's NDOS falls at the tail end of the Lenten season, so maybe it would help to consider a vow of silence on this coming Wednes-day as a type of Lenten abstinence. Catholics don't fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday to protest eating or merely out of sacrifice or self-discipline, but rather to have an occasion for heightened awareness of and an opportunity for reflection on their everyday behavior. Fasting makes one realize how much one takes food for granted and how little thought one can give to what one does throughout the day; the NDOS provides a similar occasion for thinking about what we say and don't say each day, about both things said and things left unsaid. NDOS participants aren't aiming for morbidity; they are appropriating the silence imposed by a hostile society for their own ends. By an amusing enough irony, when enough people keep quiet, their silence can be heard. And when the voices of people you are used to hearing from each day are suddenly inaudible, you wonder what other voices you've never had the opportunity to hear in the first place. So whether or not you're silent on Wednesday, at least ask yourself some serious questions. Consider more carefully what both you and your friends say about people. Think about what you take for granted in your everyday conversations with friends and strangers alike. Listen to the silence and you'll probably hear something. If you say, "oh, that's so gay," is that what you really mean? Do you intend to imply that being gay is an ascriptive quality to be used for the purposes of mocking something? Do you ever stop to think that that particular adjective might describe the person to whom you casually make such a remark? Or that it might describe a friend or relative who has yet been afraid to let you know about him/herself, perhaps because of comments such as "that's so gay"? If the word "gay" applied to you and you heard such a comment, would you have the guts to speak up in protest? What if it didn't apply to you? Would you remain silent? When was the last time you remarked to someone you were with about the attractiveness of some stranger passing by? Did you think twice about making the comment? Was the person you were remarking on of the opposite sex? Would you have commented so readily if you were attracted to people of the same sex? Would you have instead remained silent? Have you ever been shown someone's family pictures? Have you ever complimented someone on having a beatiful family? Have you ever sent a wedding present or offered your congratulations to a new bride and groom? Would you have reacted the same way in these circumstances to a same-sex couple? Or would you have avoided the subject and remained silent? Have you ever had your eye on an attractive classmate? Did you assume that the person was at least on a biological level attracted to you? Provided you could work up the guts, would you have any serious reservations about asking such a person out on a date? Would it be more difficult to make such an approach if the person were of the same sex as you? Would you worry that such an offer would be considered an insult? Would you instead remain silent? If you call someone a "faggot" or a "dyke" without really "meaning it," why use such words to begin with? Is it a way of distancing yourself from someone with whom you're uncomfortable? Is it not that big of a deal because it isn't being said to the person's face? Would you use the word "nigger" in the same offhand manner? Would you speak up when someone used those kinds of words even if they didn't apply to you? Would you speak up when someone used those kinds of words if they did apply to you? Or would you instead remain silent?

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