It Gets Better

Growing up isn’t easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, leading them to feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for LGBT kids and teens, who often hide their sexuality for fear of bullying.

The It Gets Better was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.

— the It Gets Better Project

Let me introduce myself. My name is Han Park. I am a musical theatre major here at the University of Michigan (also a big TEDxUofM fan), and am currently finishing up my last semester. Please allow me to share with you a benefit concert that I am putting together next Monday (MLK Day, 1/16/12) at the Kerrytown Concert House.

Last year, I came across a YouTube video of Fort Worth City Councilman, Joel Burns, sharing a very personal and moving story about his struggles growing up as a homosexual, and pleading to the LGBT youths to not give up on their lives. His message to them was that life WILL get better, and that even though right now their struggles with their sexual identity might not seem worth living another day for, if they just stuck around, they WILL live to experience the better days. Life WILL get better.

The video was incredibly moving. I remember just weeping watching this video, thinking about the kids who decided that they had no other choice but to end their lives because who they were deep inside brought them so much pain. Having grown up not fitting in, I’ve had my dark days as well, but I was lucky enough to have people in my life who told me that I was perfect just the way I was, and that I had nothing to be ashamed about. They didn’t, and eventually that feeling of being different and being alone got to them.

The truth is, they are not alone. And it is our responsibility as adults to make SURE that they know that they’re not alone. The It Gets Better Project was created to do just that. Tell the kids being bullied that if they can somehow just get through this phase of their lives, they will eventually find other people who celebrate them for who they are, and life WILL get better.

It is one thing to be hopeful. It is an entirely different thing to be hopeful after having seen the dark days, and to still want to wake up the next morning knowing that they will have to go through hell again. Choosing life when you’re being bullied everyday takes tremendous courage. It is our responsibility to help these kids make that decision to hang on, to keep on fighting, to believe that who they are deep inside deserves to be loved.

Being a musician, I decided that I was going to do this through music. And so I put together a concert with some of my favorite people. The concert will be at the Kerrytown Concert House next Monday (MLK Day, 1/16/12) at 8PM, raising awareness and money for the It Gets Better Project. It will be a night of pop songs (from The O’Jays to Jessie J), performed by the musical theatre students here at the University of Michigan, with video clips of “It Gets Better” messages from various celebrities in between the songs . The videos of the concert will be posted on the It Gets Better Project website as well.

Please come join us in spreading this important message: It Gets Better. Let’s do our part in making sure that not another life is taken away from us because of bullying. Ann Arbor, come sing with us!

Reserve tickets for next week’s show here.

It got better,
Han Park
hanchaneepark@me.com