Am I Blue Reading Response

Am I Blue?  Reading Response

        I just read "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville.  It's a short story about a 16 year old boy who's still trying to figure out his sexual orientation.  He gets bullied a lot by a boy named Butch Carrigan because he's a "faggot" or "fruit", according to Butch.  One day, after Butch beat him up, a fairy godfather appeared next to him.  The fairy godfather (Melvin) had had experiences the same as the boy's.  He thought he could help him out.  He tried to teach the boy how cruel this world could be to gay people, but it wasn't until later that he actually realized.  In the end, the boy realizes that Butch Carrigan is gay, and is very surprised.  He realized that trouble with your identity can turn you completely against yourself, and other people like you.

        Some people feel bad for the people who hate their identity.  Including me.  But with people like Butch Carrigan, I don't tolerate it.  If you have problems about yourself, don't take it out on people similar to you.  People like that are trying to stay as far away from their identity as possible.  But you should embrace your identity, and if you don't like it, than don't make yourself believe it's other people's faults.  For example, Melvin gave the boy a Gaydar for a day.  He made it so that every gay person the boy saw would appear blue.  While the boy was watching TV, a homophobe politician was blue.  And when he sends Melvin to go turn Butch Carrigan blue, he was already "blue as a summer sky".  These people think they're protecting themselves, but they're only hurting themselves.

        This kind of hypocrisy is used every day.  But it's usually unnoticeable.  When people are hanging out talking, and someone says something insulting about something, sometimes, people agree with it, just so that they won't be the odd one out.  But the truth is, no one is the odd one out, most of the time.  The person who says the insulting thing is sometimes the hypocrite.

        Hypocrisy is going on every day in everyone's life, sometimes for good, and sometimes in anger or fear of people themselves.  Sometimes you have to ask yourself, is it better to be a hypocrite, or to come out and embrace your identity, and not live with fear and shame.