Genta Sebastian's Blog, page 22

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

It's June - the gayest month of the year! Pride events are already springing up across our great nation with rainbows flying proudly. Families are bringing picnics, musicians are performing in the open air. Booths, displays and giveaways give free information and entertainment to the LGBT community. Children have their faces painted, pretty beads and balloons are everywhere. People stroll in public parks and down public streets holding hands or even kissing. And nobody has to hide. There is n...

American History Changing Novels

I have always loved books that stir stuff up, either socially or solely within me. So today I thought I'd pass along two of my favorite American political shock waving titles - AND I found them for free on Amazon.com!

All you need is an Amazon account and an e-reader or app. If you don't own a Kindle you can still read these two history changing novels by downloading a FREE Kindle app for other devices, such as PC's, phones, pads, and others. See the link just to the right of this article. And...

The Green Lantern Battles Bullying

YES. YES. YES!     This morning I was scanning the news headlines and discovered an article by The New Civil Rights Movement website that reports Alan Scott, aka The Green Lantern (yes, the way cool super hero first introduced in DC comics 72 years ago in 1940), is not only gay - he's now championing the fight against bullying! Perhaps not literally on the page, but by being an inspiring role model. 
     I followed The New Civil Rights Movement link to another article...

Dharun Ravi gets 30 days - Is it enough?

Dharun Ravi, as you may recall, bullied Tyler Clementi before he killed himself. After the talented Rutger's freshman jumped to his death it was discovered that Ravi had set up a webcam to catch Clementi in a romantic encounter with the mysterious MB. When Ravi found out there was to be a second date, he Tweeted about it, urging others to watch with him. In his last hours, Tyler Clementi's computer shows he visited Ravi's Twitter page thirty-seven (37) times before leaving Rutger's campus and...

7 year old hangs himself due to bullying

I was working on another post for Writing the Good Write, when this news came in from USA Today:

7-year-old boy's suicide shocks Detroit community
The seven year old, who has not been named by the press, was bullied in school, an unsafe place that he most likely tried to avoid. When he couldn't avoid it, he went knowing he would be humiliated, hurt, or furious by the time he got back.

But even his neighborhood wasn't safe for this first or second grader. After school and on weekends, he was bul...

Was Romney a typical school bully? Is he still one today?

The Washington Post report on May 10th: Mitt Romney's prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents ignited a firestorm, especially coming, as it did, on the heels of President Obama's May 9th personal endorsement of gay marriage.

Kathleen Parker, opinion writer of the Washington Post, states that it's all a great fuss over nothing important. She suggests that since the word gay had not yet been appropriated by the homosexual culture and the movement had not yet begun...

Zero Tolerance Doesn't Work

I've known this for a long time: Zero Tolerance is no deterrent to anything - but perhaps especially bullying. Zero Tolerance is just code for intolerance with a 'z'. And as we all know, the intolerance is too often directed at the person being bullied, rather than the bully.

In the following article, Carolyn Laub, founder of Gay-Straight Alliance Network, tells you exactly why it doesn't work, and more importantly, offers another, and perhaps better, way to deal with school bullying. It takes...

Ho Mo Faux Be Uh

From the World English Dictionary:
homophobia, n. intense hatred or fear of homosexuals or homosexuality.


Today, May 17, 2012 is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and to start the conversation I'm going to share a segment from the first chapter of my new novel,  The Boxer Rebellion on the subject.
Summary:  Nick is a new junior at Tranquility High. His family moved over fifty miles to give him a fresh start, away from the bullying at his old school whe...

Do we share responsibility for each other?

That used to be a question nobody ever had to ask. What a sad statement of the times that I not only ask it, but I'm unsure of your answer.

When I re-read this poem again recently, it made me think about all the sheeple who watch bullying and do nothing. I've never understood it, being the kind of person who gets involved the moment I see bullying. But after writing The Boxer Rebellion and exploring the fear and guilt experienced by these watchers through the characters of Angela and Margaret,...

Student Non-Discrimination Act

After I met my Beloved I moved from California out to Minnesota. It was not a place I'd ever thought I'd live, but once I got here I found great neighbors, great culture, great sports and something much rarer:

Politicians I can respect.

Paul Wellstone was my Senator when I first moved here, and through him I found the integrity, hope, and sense of dedication to the people I'd only dreamed of until then. He was unafraid to stand up and be counted, and he had a way of leading people into standing...