The LGBT Center will be celebrating National Day of Silence, Friday with a silent film festival.
When Jasper Shell participated in the National Day of Silence during high school, he faced some difficulties from his peers.
“There would be some students who … would start talking about how ‘weird’ it is and how it’s ‘wrong’ to be gay and how it’s like ‘disgusting’,” Shell, a junior studying music composition, said.
The Day of Silence is a student-led event and was founded as a way to bring attention to the problem of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools, according to the GLSEN’s Day of Silence website. The day aims to illustrate the silencing effect of bullying and harassment toward people who may identify as or are perceived to be LGBT.
This year, Ohio University’s LGBT Center will be observing the day on April 15.
The center will provide lanyards and cards for those who wish to participate in the Day of Silence, and students are encouraged to inform their teachers about their silence before class, delfin bautista, the director of the LGBT Center, said.
“When it comes to social justice tactics, we often think of rallies, … speeches and protests,” bautista, who uses they/them pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, said. “But there’s also a lot of power in being quiet.”
Last year, bautista said several students chose to place duct tape over their mouths as a “powerful visual.” However, being able to breath, drink water or swallow food became concerns for people who chose to do so.
The center will still have duct tape available for those who may want to express themselves through that image. However, people who wish to participate on the day are not obligated to wear it, bautista said.
“For folks who are wearing lanyards, for folks who duct tape their mouth, whichever (way) folks are visualizing that they are participating, it generates conversation,” they said. “Hopefully, it’ll spark enough curiosity that people (will) research about what Day of Silence is and what it’s for.”
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The center will also have a silent film festival that day as part of its Queer Hollywood Series.
Stefan Koob, a sophomore studying screenwriting and producing, said there will be “a broad collection of different films” because the only criteria for the films were that “they can’t have dialogues since it’s Day of Silence.”
The film screening will include both animated and live-action shorts. Some Pixar shorts are among the animated shorts that were chosen, Koob, who works at the center, said.
Being silent could also be a challenge as it can be difficult for some people to listen, bautista said.
“So (this day) is an opportunity to be mindful,” bautista said. “To pay attention to how people are speaking, to see what people are saying, how they’re saying it and to not get caught up in what we’re saying.”
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