Michael Wyatt VanWoert age 15
I had to get off social media today, I was checking up on how a friend's fur baby and how another high school friends parent was in status updates and was bombarded by the crap of hate . Outright hate, hate in slights , hate in "jokes" . My son wanted better for his life and this world . He is dead and the haters hate on. I am disgusted and it hurts more that my light went and this vile exists. So in his words , paper I saved from Mike then age 17 about discrimination. written by my dyslexic child who I was told had the comprehension of a 5h grader. Why because no one ever spent time with him in education or what his voice was. 1.3 GPA to 3.8 GPA. Suck it schools in North Dakota. There is no wit today no lesson but hey if my kid could figure out kindness maybe we can all take a page from his book. In the end Michael found his voice!
Mike's paper
Discrimination can take
many different forms: verbal, physical or even cyber. No matter how it comes
by, it is still discrimination. Discrimination is an action to make a group of
people, race or ethnicity stand out, to make fun of or make them feel out of
place. Discrimination makes people feel unwanted. Sometimes people are not
always aware they are discriminating because of a joke or a story or the past. I have been a victim of many of these forms,
but the one that hurt the most is in the physical form. Knowing discrimination
is hurtful, I won’t put up with it anymore; I put my foot down and say stop to
discrimination.
My example of discrimination comes in a physical way. It
was when I came out as gay. When I came out of the closet, I was scared out of
my mind. I was the only person I knew that was gay. I came out then wished
everyone would forget about it because of all the hate and shame I felt. Some
of the people I thought were close friends, unfriended and forgot about me. My
foster parents threw me out the night I came out. After all this happened, I was
labeled a freak and random people I did not know tried to make fun of me and
get in fights. Once even a restaurant would not let me in because of my sexual
preference.
After all the hate and discrimination, I became very
depressed. I found out that I was the only person to have my back. I had no
friends, I was disowned by my bio family and I got moved around in foster care just
because they thought there was something wrong with me. I was abandoned by
everyone I looked up to and cared about. I became antisocial and I feared
people. I knew how it would end, with getting kicked out and my life flipped on
its head just because I was gay. But even with all the discrimination that
happened to me, I became a better person. I found my true family and my moms. They loved and accepted me without condition. I found that I am here for anyone and
I surround myself with a variety of people from different sexual orientations
to different religions and races. I do not just accept diversity but celebrate
it. I try to be supportive in that I know the hard time people may feel when
labeled as different.
I do not allow discrimination on my watch and I do not
allow discrimination in my friend group. Making jokes about race or that
someone is slow is not a joke. I knew a group of people who would say things to
me and it caused pain. I know it causes pain to others. If I hear folks making
“jokes” at others I try to stop it no matter who is saying it. I will get my
point across to them because it is not ok to say things like that.
Discriminating is a thing people do to make themselves feel good, however I do
not allow that around me at all. The fact is that almost everyone has been
discriminated against and they know how it feels with the pain behind simple
words. We need to make it stop; if we come together as a group of people, we
can stop discrimination. We can help people that are struggling with the
problem on a daily basis.
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