A Protesting Body
By being herself, she broke social norms, sometimes by voicing her opinion, but mostly just by being comfortable in her own skin and showing compassion to other people. A true activist for human rights, who even got denied by some of the people she stood up for, but still kept on fighting. To go against social norms, live in the moment, and act according to what your inside is telling you is right, is the kind of strength that can have a big impact on our society.
Marsha P. Johnson was a human rights activist who might have been perceived as a joke to many, but for people who knew her, and which got touched by her goodhearted spirit, saw her as a saint. She lived most of her days with nothing material to her name, but with that came a freedom that could not be taken from her, for she had nothing to lose. Is that the key to not be afraid of change? This seemed to be the case with the Stonewall riot. Its been said that Marsha started that riot by expressing her civil rights and thereafter throwing a shot glass into a mirror. After that, other people who didn’t have anything left to lose following her lead, and liberation started. It only took one person to be the spark that started the gay rights movement.
Even though Marsha was arrested several times for breaking the laws of society, as soon she came back out, she continued her quest for change. Not only did she officially ask for change, but also just by being present on the streets of New York, required society to rethink what is being considered “normal”, or as she describes it herself, that she might have been crazy, but that didn’t make her wrong.
Marsha, who was among the first people who started the revolution for homosexual rights, was discriminated by the same group that she stood up for. This is how cruel society can be. Just because she was gay, but also liked to dress up in women’s clothing, she did not fit the mold for what gay stood for. This might be a case of discrimination by association, which is the belief that if you are accepting an individual that is outside the norm, you might be put in that same category, which then leads to exclusion. This is one of the biggest problems in our society today. The need to belong to the masses, and therefore we cannot be open-minded for differences in people. If we only could be more willing to be like Marsha for a day. To be kind to strangers and experience different peoples struggles, and there would be more empathy towards the not-so-normal. We don’t have to agree with everyone’s choices, but respect them. It’s the judgments that are put on people that become the struggle, and the fear of the unknown that builds the wall higher between groups in this segregated country.
