Research Entry #2

• "Students who describe themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered are five times more likely to miss school because of feeling unsafe. 28% are forced to drop out. --National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, "Anti-Gay/Lesbian Victimization," New York, 1984.

• The vast majority of victims of anti-lesbian/gay violence - possibly more than 80% - never report the incident, often due to fear of being "outed." --New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project Annual Report, 1996.

• 85% of teachers oppose integrating lesbian, gay and bisexual themes in their curricula. --"Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth: Report of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth," 1993.

• Due to sexual orientation discrimination, lesbians earn up to 14% less than their heterosexual female peers with similar jobs, education, age and residence, according to a study by the University of Maryland. --Badgett, M.V. Lee, "The Wage Effects of Sexual Orientation Discrimination," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, July 1995.

• 42% of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. --Orion Center, Survey of Street Youth, Seattle, WA: Orion Center, 1986.

• More than 84% of Americans oppose employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. --Survey Conducted by Newsweek, January 1997.

• 75% of people committing hate crimes are under age 30 - one in three are under 18 - and some of the most pervasive anti-gay violence occurs in schools. --New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Report, 1996.

• Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are at a four times higher risk for suicide than their straight peers. --Gibson P., LCSW, "Gay Male and Lesbian Youth Suicide," Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989.
  

• A survey of 191 employers revealed that 18% would fire, 27% would refuse to hire and 26% would refuse to promote a person they perceived to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. --Schatz and O'Hanlan, "Anti-Gay Discrimination in Medicine: Results of a National Survey of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Physicians," San Francisco, 1994."

cite: http://www.now.org/issues/lgbi/stats.html
(And all other links).

It really shocks me how much being gay or lesbian can affect your life. It can ruin or give you a detriment on your career, get you bullied in high school, and even make you drop out. So many gays or lesbians commit suicide, or have hate crimes committed toward them. How would it feel to have someone who was homophobic treat you as if you were a different species?
I think that this would be a good topic to write about, because it really shows kids that no matter who you are, you should still be able to live a happy life and be treated as equally as others.

A Bunny's A Bunny, No Matter How Small

For my picture book, I would love to do an "expansion" or "separate way of looking at" the quote from Horton Hears A Who, "A person's a person, no matter how small."
You know, when I hear this quote, I think of people. I think of the fact that all people should be treated fairly, equally. But what else comes to my mind are animals. Yes, we all know that animals get abused. They go to shelters, and make wonderful pets to adopt and love, you care for them, they care for you.
The two probably most common pets are cats and dogs. Maybe that why they're included in the expression "It's raining cats and dogs", and not exotic pets that are kept worldwide. Maybe if we did, the expression would be, "Hey! It's raining monkeys and hedgehogs!"
When people see ads or campaigns or fundraiser signs for animal shelters or animal protection organizations, they see cats and dogs. On a pet shop ad: cats and dogs. Cats and dogs are seen everywhere. Why? They're such common pets. The thing is, some people don't think about the smaller or more exotic animals that get abused or put in shelters or euthanized each day.

"According to the ASPCA, companion rabbits are the third most frequently euthanized animals at shelters, behind cats and dogs. While many shelter rabbits come from feed stores, flea markets, or laboratories, in reality, most rabbits facing euthanasia were once family companions or classroom pets who were bought at pets stores or breeders and surrendered to shelters when the novelty wore off or at the conclusion of a school year. Many people mistakenly assume that rabbits are low-maintenance or good starter pets for children, rather than physically fragile, yet spirited and opinionated animals..."
(http://saveabunny.org/about#need)

Some people don't know that small animals like rabbits or birds or ferrets or reptiles are abused so much each year. I didn't even know how much either, until I took the time to research it, and I learned so much.

I went to SaveABunny.org, (a link is listed above), and found out how many rabbits were abused each year, and even read up on some real-life rabbit-abuse cases and their trials. It's astounding how rabbits can be mistreated. While some can be living in horrible, cramped, and filthy conditions, others can be outright abused, through torture or other kinds of beatings. The white and gray rabbit to the left was even set on fire. (Phoenix - This brave & loving bunny was tortured and set on fire. He came to SaveABunny for treatment of his physical & emotional wounds.)

Since this whole entire project is for social awareness, I want to raise social awareness on how many small animals -not just bunnies- get abused each year. Because after all, a bunny's a bunny, no matter how small.

A Bird Cries, A Damsel Sighs...

When Art Spiegelman wrote the life-changing graphic novel, MAUS, he wrote about anything but a fairy tale. Portraying the characters as different animals, Spiegelman tells the story of his father's experience in the Holocaust.
Right away, I saw a connection between this book and Terrible Things. Not only are they both stories of the Holocaust, but both show the characters as animals, but I think that they both did so for different reasons. Eve Bunting, the author of Terrible Things, had different animals being discriminated against to show the reader the ridiculous things that people in real life discriminate against, and how differences don't matter.
In MAUS, I think that Spiegelman did something very clever with which people from the Holocaust he put as each animal. Spiegelman, his father, his family, and all the rest of the Jews are drawn as mice. Later when he draws the Nazis, if you look closely, you'll notice that they're cats. This says a lot about what happened in the Holocaust. The Nazis and Jews were just like cats and mice: cats hunt mice, and unlike in Tom & Jerry, the cats win the fight in real life. They mice are their prey, small, weak, and helpless. But cats seem like lovable, friendly creatures, a companion, a pet. But to most people, mice, rats, or just all rodents in general, are rabid, nasty, garbage hoarding, dirty, foul beasts, and that's exactly what the real Nazis in the Holocaust thought about the Jews, although the Jews were innocent victims of their power. But the real-life version is the cat is the exact opposite of what the Jews thought of the Nazis. To the Jews, Nazis were killers, liars, men to be feared.
The fact that sometimes animals like mice or rats, playing a human role or not, can be misunderstood, relates back to an entry way back on this blog. This particular entry was about Templeton. Remember him? The rat from Charlotte's Web? I don't think that I'll ever let the idea that he's the real victim of discrimination in Charlotte's Web leave my cerebrum. Throughout the whole book he was described as a nasty, mean and dirty. I find that not only were the animals in the barn discriminatory toward Templeton, but also E.B. White!

¹rat noun \ˈrat\

1

a : any of numerous rodents (Rattus and related genera) differing from the related mice especially by considerably larger size

¹mouse noun \ˈmau̇s

: any of numerous small rodents (as of the genus Mus) with pointed snout, rather small ears, elongated body, and slender tail

I wonder why people think that rats or mice are such abd creatures. Is it because they've had to adapt to be dirty or live in subways because of what us humans have done to the world? Modernization, construction, pollution....what could have made the difference?

Equality, And I Will Be Free.

Equality

You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and making time.

You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.

You announce my ways are wanton,
that I fly from man to man,
but if I'm just a shadow to you,
could you ever understand?

We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.

Hear the tempo so compelling,
hear the blood throb through my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
-Maya Angelou

The first time I read this, I thought about African Americans, and how there was so much segregation in the United States involving them and whites. It all seems so long ago, but there was still segregation in the US when your grandparents were alive, maybe even your parents. I decided that the poem talked about how the African Americans were fighting for equality and acceptance in society when there was segregation. Maya Angelou is speaking to the white people that aren't accepting. She speaks of their ignorance toward her race, how they know that there should be equality and that they know African Americans wish for it, but don't want to stand up and take action against segregation.
This reminded me of the children's book that we read recently in class called Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting. It's an allegory of the Holocaust, and takes place in a quiet forest, until the "terrible things", which represent Nazis, come and start to take animals that have certain features away. When the terrible things wanted animals with quills, they take porcupines. When they wanted animals that swim, they take the frogs and fish. And each time an animal is taken away, the rest speak badly about it, even if they were friendly before they got taken by the terrible things. In the end, the last survivor thinks, "I wish that I could have stood up against the terrible things."
I think that this moral relates to the poem Equality, because it teaches readers to stand up against people, or even "things", that aren't doing the right thing. The poem teaches readers not to take ignorance as an answer, and to always fight for what you beleive in, which in both cases is equality, for all different types of people or animals, and the African Americans and the whites during segregation.
Another childhood book that the poem Equality relates to is Horton Hears A Who. Horton Hears A Who is about an elephant and his companions that are so small they live on a speck of dust. Others in the forest think that his friends are non-existent. In order to prove that they are real, the beings that live on the speck of dust gather together to make a loud enough noise so that the animals in the forest can hear it. All the villagers beat their drums and shout and scream and blow their whistles and play their loudest instruments. Still, the noise is not loud enough. The mayor runs all around town, in search of one more villager. Finally, he finds one: a little boy named Jojo. When this boy yelps, he makes the noise loud enough for the animals in the forest to hear, and finally their voices are heard, the animals in the forest accept them for who they are, despite their shock that such a small creature could even exist, on a piece of dust no less!
All three authors are telling the reader the same thing: Stand up for what you beleive in, because without a person that's willing to speak their mind toward a person who's doing the wrong thing, their voice will never be heard.