Go see the film MILK!
I was fortunate to have a lot of platform options. Like many women, I was involved in music and the arts and sadly heart disease and cancer have taken family members, but I went with the issue immediately effecting me - higher education success and funding.
If I could rewind time and be a contestant again there are a lot of things I'd do differently, the first being an Equality platform. Somehow my very conservative upbringing in a very small town also included biracial and homosexual family members. Since I was young I've been passionately defensive of those family members because love trumps differences. It's easy to understand that as a child before politics and religion get in your way. As an adult, I have well crafted words to combat bigotry, but tonight I realized that I don't know the half of it!
MILK is the most moving and motivating film I have ever seen. It's about leaders of the gay rights movement in the early 1970s when some lawmakers tried to restrict the occupations and residences openly gay people could have! I guess I thought this issue had come to the forefront more recently and I can't believe the fight for equality is taking so long! Did we learn nothing from women's suffrage or the civil rights movements? Not to mention the fact that people first came to this country to escape religous persecution, yet today some use religion to justify persecuting others!
I know you don't log onto this blog for these type of entries and that some of you disagree with my beliefs, but if you're still reading, do see this movie! Even if it doesn't give you goosebumps and tears, like me, you will learn something about our country's history that is not yet taught in schools. Also, contestants, ask yourself if you're really advocating what you're most passionate about. Are you making the difference you want to make? Will you be compelled to keep volunteering with it once your crowns start to tarnish? (And yes, they tarnish.) At Miss America the past few years there have been some new and even odd platforms; as long as you're giving your time to it and can convincingly argue it's an important social issue, I say go for it!
If I could rewind time and be a contestant again there are a lot of things I'd do differently, the first being an Equality platform. Somehow my very conservative upbringing in a very small town also included biracial and homosexual family members. Since I was young I've been passionately defensive of those family members because love trumps differences. It's easy to understand that as a child before politics and religion get in your way. As an adult, I have well crafted words to combat bigotry, but tonight I realized that I don't know the half of it!
MILK is the most moving and motivating film I have ever seen. It's about leaders of the gay rights movement in the early 1970s when some lawmakers tried to restrict the occupations and residences openly gay people could have! I guess I thought this issue had come to the forefront more recently and I can't believe the fight for equality is taking so long! Did we learn nothing from women's suffrage or the civil rights movements? Not to mention the fact that people first came to this country to escape religous persecution, yet today some use religion to justify persecuting others!
I know you don't log onto this blog for these type of entries and that some of you disagree with my beliefs, but if you're still reading, do see this movie! Even if it doesn't give you goosebumps and tears, like me, you will learn something about our country's history that is not yet taught in schools. Also, contestants, ask yourself if you're really advocating what you're most passionate about. Are you making the difference you want to make? Will you be compelled to keep volunteering with it once your crowns start to tarnish? (And yes, they tarnish.) At Miss America the past few years there have been some new and even odd platforms; as long as you're giving your time to it and can convincingly argue it's an important social issue, I say go for it!
I love you Abby. You are amazing for voicing your opinion on this and I only wish more people felt as passionate about this as you.
ReplyDelete