Experience of a Lifetime

I was sitting in the Pride Center today, thinking about my first personal experience with LGBT* identities. I was in high school and one of my close friends came out to me as gay. He said I was the second or third person he opened up to about his sexuality. I realized that his coming out to me showed a great deal about his trust in me as a friend and a person. I didn’t know the term for it then, but this was my first experience of discovering what it means to be an ally.

Before this experience, I had never (knowingly) been around anyone from the LGBT community. I was raised in a very sheltered setting, not very aware of personal differences. I remained extremely naïve as a child, even as late as high school. I don’t remember knowing about people being gay or that they were around me. I just thought “people were people.” I was raised in a heavily Protestant family. I was taught that being gay was a choice and that it was bad. I learned that, according to the Bible, God didn’t agree with people who are attracted to the same sex. Realizing that one of my close friends is gay helped me make some personal decisions of what is true for me.

Surprisingly enough, my relationship with my friend was not at all negatively affected by his coming out. In fact, I think our friendship actually became stronger. I knew he trusted me and I was able to support him in his coming out to others when he was ready. I still saw him as the same person, because he is the same; the difference is that I now know him more completely. The fact that he is gay doesn’t change his personality or the friendship we have between us. Unlike some TV shows, I was not, all of a sudden, worried that he was attracted to me just because he is gay. He helped me understand that, for him, it wasn’t a choice. His sexuality was something he had been struggling to understand and share for quite a while. I am glad he chose to confide in me and include me in his coming out process. I am also glad his courage sparked courage in me to learn how I can be a better ally to him and others in the LGBT community.

Since I have been at OSU, I have found that going to the Pride Center events have helped me explore my own thoughts regarding sexuality and the LGBT community. I would like to consider myself a proud ally, and I encourage caring curiosity with regard to what it means to be an ally. I encourage you to check out the Pride Center soon. The Rainbow Continuum student group is another great avenue to learn more. I especially encourage you to check out their fall and spring drag shows, which are quite fun! In fact, their next drag show is at 8 p.m. Oct. 28, in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

Thank you for reading,

Nick Taylor, Community Relations Facilitator

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*(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)

My name is Bree Mead and I am a sixth year graduating senior from Novato, California. I have been here so long because I am double majoring. I have an Art History degree already completed with a focus in Mesoamerican Art Studies, along with a Spanish minor and I am just finishing up my Fine Arts degree with a focus in Printmaking. I have officially been a Community Relations Facilitator for OSU since early April 2011 and it has really altered my life. I have been reading on social justice and diversity and also attended the first ever Exploring White Identity in a Multicultural World Retreat (EWI), the sister to Racial Aikido for students of color. It is a retreat for white people to learn and understand their own white privilege and oppression. In addition, I recently completed the Building Inclusive Communities (BIC) workshop to better educate myself on oppression & privilege.

These emotional experiences have been the most valuable to me in my growth as a white person in this world we live in. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last weekend, while visiting my family members, I was able to witness the reinforcement of societal prejudice. Although my they come from a conservative background, what was said during a conversation at dinner was inexcusable. With my brothers sitting at the dinner table, a family member openly made comments degrading people of the Middle East. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the last two years of working on understanding social justice and diversity I have had many battles within myself. I have worked hard to gain a better understanding of my white identity and how I may be perceived in our society. Yet, there is still something that I can’t understand or agree with that many white identified individuals have said. Many people who are White have said that they don’t believe they have a culture or there is no white culture. I’m shocked every time I hear someone say this to me as they believe they have no culture what so ever. Read the rest of this entry »

Being a person of color in a predominantly white institution can definitely have its challenges. I have been at Oregon State for over a year now and being here has been very interesting. It has been here at OSU that I have been more intentional in learning about my own culture and what it means to identify as a Latina/ Mexican-American than anywhere else. I believe the reason for that is because it has been not only here in Corvallis, but also here in Oregon that my ethnicity matters.  I constantly find myself in conversations about who I am and where I am from and it’s not because of my job. These conversations have been occurring since my arrival to Oregon. Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever someone makes a mistake or does something wrong that might affect others, the world expects us to take responsibility for it and own up to it. In a sense, this is very similar to the way privilege works. In our world, there are millions of beneficiaries of societal constructs which define who will be the advantaged and disadvantaged group in society. This is something that is out of the control of most, but is reinforced by institutions and society as a whole.  Although it is not intentional, it is imperative that we analyze where we fit in, and recognize the areas that we are the beneficiaries. By recognizing advantage, you are owning it, and can then learn how to use it to make this community more inclusive. Read the rest of this entry »

Dead week already!!?? Is it just me, or does anyone feel like it went by too fast? Many things happened, many things didn’t happen, but one thing that is for sure, transitions in the middle of the school year, at least for me, have not been the best. I like order and knowing what to expect, so when change occurs in the middle of the school year it tends to throw me off.  As a fifth year senior, however, I have learned how to deal with change in my life and I hope you all do too.  As many of you know, or don’t know one of the biggest transitions for me was coming here to Oregon State.  I can still remember how lonely I felt even though I was surrounded by thousands of people. Read the rest of this entry »

On the morning of February 8^th I was assaulted outside of the town houses on 10^th and Jefferson. I was with two friends a man and woman. We were heading back from Qdoba to a friend’s house after a night out. Read the rest of this entry »

An ally is a person who identifies within a dominant identity, yet chooses to aid or fight alongside those who identify with subordinate identities. An example of what an identity can be is how I identify as being a white, straight, male. Those are all examples of dominant identities and the supplement subordinate identities would be a person of color, gay, and female. I now consider myself an ally to all subordinate identities, even though in the past I didn’t give my support. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple of weeks I have been discussing where I identify with social class and how my new identity has changed my outlook on life.  Now the question remains, what am I going to do from here?  Being in an area of privilege, I have the opportunity to serve a community that is oppressed throughout society.  Over the past three weeks I have been reading ad researching various ways to serve communities that are oppressed due to class.  Although breaking the institutionalized classism in America is difficult, starting to slow the growth of classist remarks on a personal level is extremely feasible.

Read the rest of this entry »