Activism And The Tunnel- Reasons Why I Do What I Do

Activism and oppression are two of the more controversial, sometimes hurtful words in the English language or some of the most invigorating, depending on whom you talk to. I have believed in volunteer activism for years, but more recently, I have become decidedly more vocal about activism for the marginalized voices, strengthening my resume as a further than up-and-coming gay rights/ rights for people with differing abilities. I feel like as someone who has felt marginalized for a majority of his life, both for reasons having to do with autism and reasons outside of it mostly due to pieces of confusion in sexual orientation and other loss of privilege, I concur that it is my duty to further franchise the disenfranchised and get the people to where they can feel in better harmony and feel like I can strengthen myself and the community and that is why I feel like I should though to be in the trenches of something completely emotional and completely further providing the strengthened hope for the people. Which brings us to this next topic of this two-for: the Tunnel of Oppression. Since this is a public blog, for those who are unfamiliar, the Tunnel of Oppression is a three-day twice a year event at Boise State that is theater showing how various groups that are oppressed in a form that seems harrowing and graphic. I have been a guide, been on a planning committee, worked the front desk, been in a video, done discussion groups, debriefed, and been a participant for this worthy cause and have done that for six out of the eight years it has been on campus. It gets harder every year to see these things because as someone who is rapidly losing privilege and had been rapidly oppressed in previous school spots and even at some points at Boise State, mostly by professors and basketball players, though there have been a few people in the library, at the SUB, and near the Greenbelt who have shown oppression towards me. Fortunately, since the passing of an act where it is against university policy to use ableistic language towards people who appear to be or are ones with differing abilities, I haven't heard nearly any of the same language that I used to hear, the oppression instances since then (March of 2012) have been 3. 3 too many? Sure, but as someone who has spent his whole life fighting oppression, I'll take it. Maybe that's the piece why the Tunnel is so hard for me- I have never felt free- I am oppressed to this day because of no fault of my own. Before you use or think about using terms such as the r-word, the i-word, the 3-letter f-word, or any other term as a synonym for stupid, think about the people it might affect. And be careful about comparing people to characters from movies due to a certain skill or ability. I still get called Rain Man due to a character played by Dustin Hoffman in the classic movie of the same name, and it is extremely disconcerting and hurtful and partially why I haven't watched it in years. Feeling on the outside I feel more compassion and more understanding for the oppressed because I feel initiated as an outsider sometimes still. Loved by many? Sure. But there are still people out there who say things when they don't fully understand the situation who couldn't care less about my well-being who don't even know who I am. So before I react strongly for those people, I have to think that we never know why. They might just have to use the restroom and something hurtful comes out. We never do know the situation,so we should think of others always. Stay tuned next week for a lighter topic: people I admire and feel thankful for.