Omaha claims I'm not observant, but even I noticed this.

[elfs]

One of these things...

This evening my daughter's school had its annual fundraising auction, and while I was there I stood in the hallway with a couple of other couples waiting for the drunken revelry and insane spending of money would begin.

The event was held at the local community college's main dining room. South Seattle Community College, a school at which I used to teach. SSCC is primarily vocational, and two of their biggest specialties are tractor-trailer driving (including engine maintenance, both for trucks and aircraft-- Boeing is a big draw here), and food preparation (including a cooking school, restaurant management, service, and all the rest). The cooking school is quite good, and when Omaha and I lived right down the street from them we enjoyed it when the pastry chefs had their annual open-to-the-public cook-offs. Minor vocations include floral and beauty school. It's in South Seattle, which it Boeing territory-- industrial and vocational attitudes reign.

As I was standing there in the hallway at SSCC, I noticed something about the notices on the wall. You can see the part of the wall that stood out in the photograph. I asked the other parents: "Do you see anything odd about this hallway? Anything particularly sad?"

None of them did. There were thirteen bulletin boards along the walls of the corridor, which not only led into the dining area but also back toward the student union and the bookstore-- a fairly well-traveled part of the school, where lots of students would wander.

Only one bulletin board is protected behind plastic sheeting, closed off with lock and key. This one. All the other ones are out in the open: Mexican American Student Association, Christian Student Association, Student Diesel Drivers Association, Muslim Student Association, Student Culinary Council, Vietnamese Student Association, Khmer Student Association, Chinese Student Association. All publicly displayed without the need for protection.

Only the bulletin board for gay and lesbians students is locked down. I would hazard a guess and say that it's probably the only one that routinely suffered vandalism, and the only one that needed this degree of protection.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

At my school we were refused access to the locked bulletin boards, despite quoting official policy (and despite being the only group that actually complied with the date-stamping and formatting requirements). I was on the Propaganada Committee for our group, and got some advice from the LGBTQ group at the University of Toronto:

1. Make many different versions of each poster, each with different fonts, colours, and sizes. People will tear down every copy of the first style they read, but will miss the ones with different appearances.

2. Use flat-head thumbtacks, as it takes more time for people to pull them out.

3. Put a second, smaller poster (with a different colour and appearance) underneath the main poster. They'll rip off the first one but ignore the one underneath if it looks different enough.

4. Leave space for people to creatively deface your poster. They're more likely to leave it up (which lets people still get information) if it's got anti-gay graffiti on it. It worked! The only poster that stayed up for more than a week was the one giving the contact information for "Humans Against Homophobia" - someone went through with a pen and changed the title to "Humans FOR Homophobia", and that sign stayed up for more than a year.