I'm on the way
大二的时候，辅导员曾每人发了张纸让我们写下自己的理想，当时虽然很不爽地想着“我跟你又不熟凭什么要把我的理想告诉你”，却还是认真地写下了“成为一个真正的知识分子”。
前两天想起这茬时很激动，跑去找同班的友人讨论，果不其然被她嘲笑了一番。但这个二货说她写的是“我不知道自己以后会怎样但一定是个很好的人！”……我觉得她没资格嘲笑我。
这几年的想法变化还是很大的。大一的思修课上还跟老师说“我是不会出国的，我无法容忍自己离开祖国半步”，当时还掉了眼泪，有全班人见证的羞耻play真是想忘都忘不掉；大三时某事件爆发，我处于风暴中心的广州，在澎湃热血和残酷现实的冰火两重天之中，也曾心生怯意，想做一个写作冷静读作安逸的旁观者；而近期的一系列变故让我伤心愤慨，头脑却也清明了很多：我看到了自己做不到的、不能做的与做得到的、需要做的。
我不羞于，亦不怯于记录下这些想法。我需要此刻的信念尽可能的清晰和坚定，用以催生未来的动力。一切的困难，无论来自自身还是外界，都不足为惧，因为这并不是件难比登天的大事。我所要做的，只是往大海中尽我所能地投入几颗水滴。而我知道哪怕力量再小，也不是徒劳。
那些被迫沉默的人们从来不曾离开，后继的勇士们业已接过他们手中的火把。我会成为下一个接力者吗？
昨天看了个很棒的TED演讲，摘下transcript.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a 1968 speech where he reflects upon the Civil Rights Movement, states, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."
As a teacher, I've internalized this message. Every day, all around us, we see the consequences of silence manifest themselves in the form of discrimination, violence, genocide and war. In the classroom, I challenge my students to explore the silences in their own lives through poetry. We work together to fill those spaces, to recognize them, to name them, to understand that they don't have to be sources of shame. In an effort to create a culture within my classroom where students feel safe sharing the intimacies of their own silences, I have four core principles posted on the board that sits in the front of my class, which every student signs at the beginning of the year: read critically, write consciously,speak clearly, tell your truth.
And I find myself thinking a lot about that last point, tell your truth. And I realized that if I was going to ask my students to speak up, I was going to have to tell my truth and be honest with them about the times where I failed to do so.
So I tell them that growing up, as a kid in a Catholic family in New Orleans, during Lent I was always taught that the most meaningful thing one could do was to give something up, sacrifice something you typically indulge in to prove to God you understand his sanctity. I've given up soda, McDonald's, French fries, French kisses, and everything in between. But one year, I gave up speaking. I figured the most valuable thing I could sacrifice was my own voice, but it was like I hadn't realized that I had given that up a long time ago. I spent so much of my life telling people the things they wanted to hear instead of the things they needed to, told myself I wasn't meant to be anyone's conscience because I still had to figure out being my own, so sometimes I just wouldn't say anything, appeasing ignorance with my silence, unaware that validation doesn't need words to endorse its existence. When Christian was beat up for being gay, I put my hands in my pocket and walked with my head down as if I didn't even notice. I couldn't use my locker for weeks because the bolt on the lock reminded me of the one I had put on my lips when the homeless man on the corner looked at me with eyes up merely searching for an affirmation that he was worth seeing. I was more concerned with touching the screen on my Apple than actually feeding him one. When the woman at the fundraising gala said "I'm so proud of you. It must be so hard teaching those poor, unintelligent kids," I bit my lip, because apparently we needed her money more than my students needed their dignity.
We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't. Silence is the residue of fear. It is feeling your flaws gut-wrench guillotine your tongue. It is the air retreating from your chest because it doesn't feel safe in your lungs. Silence is Rwandan genocide. Silence is Katrina. It is what you hear when there aren't enough body bags left. It is the sound after the noose is already tied. It is charring. It is chains. It is privilege. It is pain. There is no time to pick your battles when your battles have already picked you.
I will not let silence wrap itself around my indecision. I will tell Christian that he is a lion, a sanctuary of bravery and brilliance. I will ask that homeless man what his name is and how his day was, because sometimes all people want to be is human. I will tell that woman that my students can talk about transcendentalism like their last name was Thoreau, and just because you watched one episode of "The Wire" doesn't mean you know anything about my kids. So this year, instead of giving something up, I will live every day as if there were a microphone tucked under my tongue, a stage on the underside of my inhibition. Because who has to have a soapbox when all you've ever needed is your voice?
Thank you.
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