Today, like any other Monday, I walked into my 3rd class thinking, "I'm halfway done!" As I walked in a girl that I have become acquainted with smiled and said, "hey girl!" As soon as I settled into my desk she walked with her laptop in hand...she said, "I want to show you something funny" and she hit play on a youtube video. She said, "this man was delivered from homosexuality and we think its funny how his voice changed." While she is doing all this 2 of the guys sitting there were having a very loud debate about the subject of homosexuality from their hyper spiritual devoted christian outlook...One of the guys said, "I will hang out with anyone, but I'm not gonna hang out with gay people...I don't want nobody thinking that about me!" The other guy, which I personally think is family, said (in his best TV evangelist voice) "Homosexuality is a spirit!" "Praise God that man got deliverance." She was much kinder and said, "No sin is greater than the other, so I don't judge anybody."
I graciously nodded as the video ended and she picked up her lap top and walked back to her desk.... I grabbed my cell phone to text Susan for comfort.... She said, "Baby be the change." Those words played over and over in my mind while my classmates remarks interrupted and I began to hear the haunting sound of those from my past join in. I felt like I was in a whirlwind....In that moment I was experiencing the most intense and horrifying sense of deja vu of my life. I felt an array of emotions that were quickly rising up inside of me. My face got hot, my breath began to labor, my hands began to tremble and my eyes filled with tears.... I can't believe that I am hearing this, again! What's more troubling is that it is from the generation that I have such high hopes for, the barely twenty-somethings, the College students. There was so much that I wanted to say but I chose to remain silent. Which seemed more painful than the comments that were still flying around the room about me and those that I love.
I knew that silence was best in that moment, because I didn't want to speak under the influence of so many emotions.... to do so would probably have caused harm to one or more of those that were involved, and that would have been fruitless. So I stood up and walked over to her desk and said, "I have a video that y'all need to watch and she slid her computer over to me so I went to YouTube and pulled up L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin. I said it's kind of long so you will have to watch later. She and those around her looked curiously at the screen as she hit play. She said we are going to have to watch this later it's an hour and a half. I walked back over to my desk, praying that they do indeed, not only watch it, but hear the message of it.
I pray that this will spark a conversation..... I pray
Just Bb
