{"id":699,"date":"2015-02-09T17:55:22","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T01:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=699"},"modified":"2015-02-09T17:56:15","modified_gmt":"2015-02-10T01:56:15","slug":"out-and-proud-week-embraces-individuality-and-sexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/out-and-proud-week-embraces-individuality-and-sexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Out and Proud Week embraces individuality and sexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PHOTO<\/a>
PHOTO BY STEPHANIE BLAIR | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
By CAITY ARIAS\r\n Freelancer<\/pre>\n
Open Mic Night encouraged Western\u2019s community to embrace their individuality.<\/p>\n
The event focused on sexuality to coincide with Out and Proud Week. Out and Proud Week brings awareness to the equality of all people regardless of their sexual preference.<\/p>\n
Lacey Roop, spoken word poet, was a special guest. Other performers joined the stage to share their creations.<\/p>\n
The first performer, Keenan Richmond, played the acoustic guitar and was encored to sing three songs. The songs were \u201cNorwegian Wood,\u201d \u201cThings We Said Today\u201d and \u201cA Day in the Life\u201d written by The Beatles.<\/p>\n
All of the songs emulated love and life, indicating that neither of the concepts are perfectly defined.<\/p>\n
Aliyah Nicholson walked to the stage next, drawing attention to her appearance, no makeup and comfortable. Nicholson recited a poem she had written over the summer. The poem described that words do hurt. A vicious cycle is implemented when
\npeople use words to defy and destroy others. The cycle will consist of repeatedly hurting each other and diminishing each other\u2019s self-esteem.<\/p>\n
To avoid this cycle, Nicholson said, \u201cself-image can be restored by the change of mind frame.\u201d Roop, \u201chigh five and hug\u201d connoisseur, introduced the power of poetry through laughter and seriousness, happiness and sadness.<\/p>\n
In one of Roop\u2019s poems, she pokes fun at the reactions she has received from other people in her life: \u201cI walked into a bar and this guy asked me, \u2018are you a dude or are you a dyke?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t really know,\u201d Roop replied, \u201cI guess you can ask your girlfriend after she went down on me last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roop balanced prevailing stories about her life with her poetry to imply that her writing is based off of her memories. She illustrated the ignorant displays
\nof humanity that she\u2019s had to face, but also voiced her love and acceptance for herself. Her easy laugh and humor guided the audience to relate with her.<\/p>\n
The last performance by Sofia Yamez featured a poem about her struggles with her sexuality and the stereotypes that come with it.<\/p>\n
She ends her poem by saying, \u201csexuality is predetermined by my own soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the show, Joseph Thorpe, a senior and interdisciplinary studies major commented, \u201cI really enjoyed it. The poetry was inspiring and thought provoking.<\/p>\n
I feel like I need to change what\u2019s going on. There\u2019s something more I should do to try to help people. It makes me want to change a lot of stuff about my life. I didn\u2019t know poetry could make me do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henelle Crites, community health major, said the show was \u201creally good and a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By CAITY ARIAS Freelancer Open Mic Night encouraged Western\u2019s community to embrace their individuality. The event focused on sexuality to coincide with Out and Proud Week. Out and Proud Week brings awareness to the equality of all people regardless of their sexual preference. Lacey Roop, spoken word poet, was a special guest. Other performers joined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}