Respect

Tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of the brutal beating of Matthew Shepard.

I don't understand why, or how, things like this can happen.

I don't understand why, or how, things like this continue to happen.

October 12 is the 10 year anniversary of Matthew's death.

10 years, brief, full of change and tumult and joy.

And it saddens me that, under our current administration, anyone who isn't a heterosexual, upper middle class white man, is for all intents and purposes and second class citizen.

Matthew Shepard wasn't a second class citizen. None of us are. Give me the freedom I have under the Constitution. Let me take the freedom I was promised by virtue of my birth, let me hold it in my hands. Give me the freedom to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. I'm an American too.

Freedom to me isn't simply the right to breathe, the right to exist, the right to walk freely, to travel freely, to eat good food, to work, to attend whichever school I want, to attend whichever school I can afford. I am free to do all those things and more.

Freedom, rather, is my confidence in my government, in the individuals I elect, in the individuals who represent me, to do my will. I want them to respect me. Is it so hard to respect me?

"The White House"
Claude McKay

Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.