We're All the Same

Feb. 1, 2015

Imagine you’re this guy: I reach for his hand, and watch as fear trembles through the twitch of his thigh to the convulsion of his arms. We’re taught to be afraid of them, but all I feel is anger. Over my left shoulder sit two teenagers smacking their lips together as if their tongues were the last piece of gum on the earth. Yet I can’t feel the embrace of the man I love without losing an eye, or more. To my right sits a woman; mid-30’s, platinum blonde, the rich daddy’s girl type. She keeps glancing over here, puckering her over-plumped lips, fluttering her eyelashes as dark as judgment night, and quickly looking away when she catches my eye. So I do it, and wait as the eyes of the room stare holes into our fingertips. A few gasps go around the room, Blondie and gumsmackers included, until finally the tough guy of the bunch comes over to have a word. Just come outside, I won’t hurt you he says, but I can hear the whisper of f**king fags under his breath, and I can see the band of tough guys waiting outside to put some sense into us f**king fags.

I love who I want to love. Why should others not be given these same privileges? Feelings aren’t biology, they’re emotion of sensation. The government steals the right to choose, formally and informally. Placing laws against a group prods the public towards discrimination, and drives terror into those contrasting the conventional notions of society. We are each our own individual person who deserve a choice and not punishment for being who we are. In Addie on the Inside, James Howe expresses the idiocy of how others view gay rights by comparing joining a gay rights group and being called gay to joining an animal rights group and being called a giraffe.

Homosexuals are perceived as derogatory in our society, and showing them support can lead to brutality, or in Howe’s case, being called the exact term you agree with. These civil liberties are freedoms, and supporting them is supporting humanity. You are who you are, no law can change that. All they can do is keep attempting to shame you into becoming someone you’re not. Don’t let them.

Now imagine you’re someone else: I shove my hands into the front pocket of my sweatpants and feel the crisp crunch of candy wrappers rustling at my touch. The dark gravel sifts at my toes with each step and the street lights illuminate my complexion from darkness to lucidity. As I get further into the neighborhood I feel a pair of eyes glaring hostility into the cotton of my hood. So I keep moving, and quicken my pace, growing the urge to face the culprit of my fear. Ten minutes turn into twenty, and the unease creeps further with each second. Taking every bit of strength in my being, I flip the cap of my hood down, pinch my fingertips together in anxiety, and contest my body around to the disturbance of my nightly stroll. Bare emotion fills the eyes of my stalker like I’ve never seen before. Utter hatred? In my hand I clutch the bag of candy burrowed inside my pocket for comfort and search through my memories for what I could have possibly done to this man for him to hate me so much. The last thing I remember is the muscle of his forearm rising up to his chest, the glare of something shiny in his palm, a loud boom, and then blackness.

How far have we come since 1965? Throughout history, if the color of your skin didn’t match society’s ideals, you’re labeled a configured stereotype, unable to advance in the world. Every news story I hear broadcasts more obstacles coming between African Americans and justice. "˜Treyvon Martin, unarmed, shot by neighborhood watch man.’ The case of young Martin conflicts between whether racism factored into the murder of an innocent child or if it was an accident of a protector. Have we made any progress in the equality of African Americans since 1965? Under the laws of our government, murder is just if suspicion arises, but suspicion of race is a law embedded against human beings. This suspicion stole the life of not only a brother; but a son, student, teammate, and friend. A person is not their race.

They are their passions, memories, goals and loved ones. That man wearing a hood doesn’t consent to his death. He is more than imprudent stereotypes. He is a person. And so are you.

Now let’s imagine we’re all the same. Does freedom exist? Has America lost the concept our founding fathers envisioned? As John Adams once stated, "Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." Have we lost our liberty? Or was freedom never an option for a country functioning off the appetite of narrow-minded white males? First African Americans were denied their rights and now homosexuals. At the rate we’re going, there will be another Holocaust, but with the blood of not just red, but white and blue on our hands. American society treats injustice as a friend, but it’s time for change. Let’s throw our skepticism into the pits of hell, alongside all the discrimination strained upon the shoulders of the innocent. One person can change the course of the world, and that’s you.

"Better die fighting for freedom, then be a prisoner all the days of your life." -Bob Marley

Jillian McCreery-Piotrowski is enrolled at Petoskey High School and also enrolled in her community college’s Early College program. She participates in Varsity Basketball, Model UN, and National Honors Society and enjoys reading and writing poetry.