Day of Remembrance

10 thoughts on “Day of Remembrance”

1. You have got to be kidding.
   
   This is over the line. A day of mourning a group of people killed because they changed their sex?

   Go ahead and call me names but this is way over the line. We have way more serious shit to worry about than this.

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   1. People killed for who they are is a sin. Listen to your God on the subject.

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      1. I’m agnostic. Show me where I EVER said I was even a little bit religous.

         I could give a rat’s ass about sin.

         Wasting time and energy promoting a national day for transgenders that were killed for whatever the hell the reason is, is just plain dumb. Politically correct in these weird times we live in, but dumb.
         
         If that is all some people have to worry about, life must be really easy for them. Not a care in the world but to mourn confused wackos.

         Let’s have a national day of mourning for the Mongols motorcycle club and all the members that they lost. And the fact that the feds took away their patch.

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         1. Should we wait for other people to take action against those bastards, or just start looking under skirts and shooting for ourselves?

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            1. There are laws out there to protect people from murder. But making a day of mourning for a tiny group of people that were killed is stupid.
               
               People die everyday. People are murdered everyday. Wouldn’t it be better to not promote their (in my opinoin, twisted) agenda but to maybe just have a national day of mourning for EVERYBODY that was murdered?

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               1. At least in this state, it was a couple of weeks ago.

                  Anyway, you’re the one missing the point.  Anytime you have a group singled out because of a trait, or lifestyle choice, it’s a problem.  How many people need to die before it deserves a note on a random blog?  

                  Whether or not you agree with them has nothing to do with anything.  For instance, if you’re agnostic, you don’t agree with Judaism.  We are not a large group of people (something like 5% in the US), but there is a remembrance day for the Holocaust.  Not that I’m saying it’s the same thing, but awareness helps stop it becoming closer.

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                  1. but according to your line of thinking “Anytime you have a group singled out because of a trait, or lifestyle choice, it’s a problem.” that leaves the door wide open.
                     
                     We can go back to my scenerio of having a national day of awareness for the Mongols. They are not the nicest club but like most others, they sponsor many Toys For Tots runs. But the government singled them out for trumped up weapons charges and took away their club patch. It is not fair that they were singled out.
                     
                     I know I’m drawing a line different than what this thread is about but my point is why should they (transwhatever) deserve a national day of anything?
                     
                     What makes them any better than any other group of people that have had a hard time fitting in?

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                     1. are regularly singled out for violent attacks, based simply upon who they are, a matter over which they have very little control which was more of less foisted upon them by birth at random to make the best of in life, the larger community should call attention to this pattern of violent hate and try to stop it.

                        A transgender identity is not simply a “lifestyle choice” akin to membership in a club, or a preference for R&B music over heavy metal, or a decision to get cosmetic surgery like a breast enhancement.  It it simply a matter of the way someone is, often obviously so from early childhood.  The gender you perceive yourself to be turns out to be an overwhelmingly immutable thing, with or without surgery.  Taking steps to modify your outward gender appearance is a way to cope by reconciling who you are inside and what you look like on the outside, so that other people treat you in a way that is more comfortable, and so that you can see yourself more close as who you are on the inside.

                        This Day of Remembrance is just that.  A designated time to rememeber.  It doesn’t give anybody time off work, and probably doesn’t even have any Hallmark cards to go with it.

                        We routinely rememeber groups of people who have connections with each other.  On the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, many people recall that tragedy.  Others remember those who died in Pearl Harbor, and people do get time off from work for Memorial Day (and Veteran’s Day which orginally recognized the end of World War I).  There is a day to remember those who died for lack of health insurance.  There is a day to remember those who died of breast cancer.  Many religious traditions, Jews, Lutherans and Catholics among them, have religiously prescribed days for similar rites of mourning.  For example, November 1 is All Saints’ Day, a day primarily established to honor Christian martyrs, many of whom also have individual days upon which they are honored.

                        Murders do happen for all sorts of reasons.  If you want to go out and organize a time to recall victims of gang violence, or prison violence, or domestic violence, or religiously motivated violence, then I encourage you to do so.

                        A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.  People are created in such a way that they can’t easily absorb tragedy en masse.  We understand tragedy better when it is personalized and when there are some specific reasons that tie a group of deaths together providing those considering the tragedies with an agenda for action.

                        A Day of Remembrance is ultimately only partly about the dead.  It is mostly about recommitting to find ways to break down irrational hate, with information, with personal stories, with context.  Those victims remembered suffered for reasons that are very similar.  Defeating that pattern of violence takes a permanent step to reduce the total amount of violence and prejudice and misunderstanding in our society, in the world.

                        The world won’t change overnight, but it will never change at all, in any time period, unless somebody tries to change it.

                         

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2. Thanks for this remembrance reminder.  I didn’t know about it.  Makes me sad, but it’s good to think about it.  Thanks again.

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