After reading this paragraph I invite you to take a few moments to close your eyes and listen.

Identify some of the sounds around you. It’s springtime: perhaps you’ve heard the birds chirping and new leaves rustling. Maybe you’re in the library or a classroom and the main sounds around you are of computer fans whirring, keyboards clacking, a computer mouse clicking, books and papers rustling, your professor droning on. Are there human voices?

Probably. Imagine some of the human voices you hear every day: your teachers, your friends, your family, yourself. Think about the kinds of messages, pivotal and mundane, you convey with your voice.

Now imagine silence. Imagine your own silence. You have no way to greet your friends. You have no way to warn your beloved of danger. You have no way of expressing your joy, anger or sadness or your opinion on the game last week or your friend’s new shoes. No way to ask questions and get vital information (What was the answer to question seven on the midterm?).

This is one of the most profound side effects of a serious social disease we call oppression.

The word itself evokes the imagery of bondage, handcuffs and ropes, a giant combat boot crushing someone’s head, a gun-toting giant standing over a pathetic, cringing figure, chain link fences topped with razor wire, a lock without a key. The problem is, systems of oppression are rarely so overt.

Silence is endemic to communities under oppression. Conveying the message that you are not welcome, that you have no voice, no vote, that no matter what you say, how loudly or how often you say it, your words will not carry weight, is the most effective way to prevent someone from even aspiring to their full potential.

The illegal immigrant who can’t fill out a tax form and thus convey to the government how important her work is to the economy knows it. Suffragettes, battling for the right to vote in the early 20th century knew it. Any child whose parent has disregarded his input at a so-called “family meeting” knows it.

Students who identify as transgender, as lesbian, as bisexual, as gay, indeed as any form of “queer,” know this very well. We know how it is to want to say something only to check ourselves with the thought “nobody wants to hear that,” a thought which is only reinforced when we do share an idea or a feeling only to be told “that’s so gay.” Never mind the firm understanding that in some contexts, if we say something that even hints at queerness, our very lives are in danger. Ask the victims of gender-based violence who are slain by the hundreds, if not thousands (silence and underreporting go hand-in-hand), every year what silence sounds like.

What does silence sound like? Every year, beginning in 1996 with the University of Virginia, LGBTQ+ students around the nation have joined together on one day in April to take a short-term vow of silence in order to give their schools a small taste of what the effects of silence are like. Students will refuse to speak, sometimes opting to deliver answers to teachers and friends via written notes, or often simply sharing a pre-printed card explaining the reasons for his, her or hir* silence and asking for support and otherwise maintaining complete non-communication. The goal of this event is to use this tool of oppression to gain attention and raise awareness of the issues being overlooked and downplayed in our society.

It has become a tradition to hold a “Breaking the Silence event” at the end of the day, during which these students can gather to share their experiences, make fresh statements, express their support for one another and ceremoniously turn their silence into sound with a purpose. SMU has now had the honor, for two years in a row, of holding the Breaking the Silence event, hosted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which brings together participants from several schools in the area, on its grounds.

This year’s Day of Silence will be Friday, April 16. Breaking the Silence will occur from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center.
 

* “Hir,” pronounced similarly to “here,” is the objective form of one proposed version of “gender neutral” pronouns for the English language. GNPs are intended to acknowledge the gender identities of individuals that lie outside of the male/female binary.

Aaron Barnes is a junior cultural anthropology major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].