National Day of Silence
March and Rally Downtown
Wednesday April 9

Today students from Santa Cruz High, Cabrillo College, and UC Santa Cruz partcipated in the National Day of Silence, a day of protest through the means of transforming silence as a tool of oppression into a tool of resistance.

Participating students remained silent all day to demonstrate the effects of marginalized people's lack of representation and recognition in mainstream society. A silent march began at 4:30pm from the Diversity Center to the Downtown Veterans' Memorial to break the day-long silence with a rally.

The rally began by a series of speakers noting the politics of silence and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex community. "Instead of rallying around disfranchisement," said UCSC staff Lee Maranto, 24, "we should pull together around the privileges we have and use that to stick up for people who don't have [those privileges]. Because if everyone uses their own privileges to speak up for a group that doesn't have privileges, we'll start to see a shift in how power is concentrated in this country."

UCSC student Dani Drake, 21, is the main organizer of this year's Day of Silence on UCSC campus. On being asked the political message of this event, Dani answered, "I felt that it was important to hold the event in solidarity with other campuses around the country, and in the spirit of solidarity we wanted to highlight the silencing that many people experience based on class, gender, race, sexuality, etc...This event, like any other events, it's not about the event itself; it's about the next step, it's about what comes after."

"Day of Silence" kicks off a quarter-long Queer Awareness Campaign up on UCSC. A complete calendar can be obtained at the GLBTI Resource Center: