Milk & Cookies

Last night, I attended the Pride Week event, "Milk & Cookies." We watched the movie Milk, about Harvey Milk's story of becoming California's first openly gay elected official,  and were given milk and cookies as a snack. The event had a good turnout, with probably around 40 in attendance. The group was very respectful and watched the movie intently (with only a few giggles when Sean Penn and James Franco shared their first onscreen kiss). I had wanted to see this movie since its release and was so happy I had the opportunity this week. It was a powerful movie.

I especially like movies that I can learn from. I'm aware that Hollywood plays a big role in creating movies based on true stories, but according to some online searching, this movie stays pretty true to real life. It amazes me that something like Prop 6 (which intended to fire all homosexual teachers, along with anyone who supported them) could have been proposed so recently. Combating that proposition was an amazing feat that I believe has lead us in a much more accepting direction. Because of contributions like Milk's, it is truly impressive how far we have come in just a few short decades.

One line that stuck out to me from the film involved a news clip against Prop 6. The woman being interviewed said something along the lines of, "If you remove the diversity from the schools, how will our students ever learn to work with diverse individuals?" This has been a repeated theme throughout our semester, as today we are still working to make our schools and campuses more diverse. This seemed to be a pivotal learning point as the population began to realize that diversity is positive, not threatening as people like Anita Bryant and John Briggs made it seem.

While this was not a feel-good movie and I walked away feeling quite saddened, so many positives came out of the sacrifice Harvey Milk made. Hope, the uniting of a community, acceptance, the beginning of homosexuals in a position of power, and combating a law that would infringe on human rights in general, and the gay population in particular. The most beautiful image of the entire movie occurred after the assassination of Harvey Milk, when tens of thousands lined the streets of San Fransisco with white candles and mourned the loss of an incredible activist and man.