EHS Students Discuss Documentary About Being Gay

Imagine a neo-Nazi with tattoos and a Mohawk haircut beat you senseless when you were 13 and then left you to die in an alley. Imagine that this man — and a dozen of his friends — targeted you solely because you were gay. And now imagine that over several decades, that same man turned against his peers and former beliefs and became an advocate for peace and acceptance.

Would you be able to forgive him? Should you forgive him? And should he forgive himself?

Those are the kinds of questions that Encinal High School (EHS) students reflected on and discussed last week when they watched the documentary Facing Fear produced and directed by Jason Cohen. Sponsored by the Fetzer Institute, the documentary is being screened around the country to spark interest in and awareness of the challenge and power of reconciliation.

“My goal this year was to do something dramatic, something large, to bring attention to LGBTQ History Month,” said Gene Kahane, who organized the screening at the school and is an English teacher at Encinal High School, as well as a member of AUSD’s LGBTQ Roundtable. “Last year lessons were written and posted on the AUSD website, but I’m not sure how many teachers taught the lessons. So I decided on a movie, one the whole school could watch. Facing Fear fit the goal I had perfectly.”

“The Only Way to Get Past”

Facing Fear details the story of Tim Zaal, now 48, and Matthew Boger, 46. The two met in 1988, when Boger was living on the streets of LA after his mother kicked him out of the house for being gay. In high school, Tim had become a white supremacist enamored of violence and prejudice. He and his gang saw Matt one night on a street in Hollywood and, fueled by what Tim calls a “heightened level of aggression,” beat the young teen senseless.

Twenty-five years later, the two had a chance encounter at the Museum of Tolerance in LA. Zaal had renounced his ways as a white supremacist and was giving public talks about having left the museum. Boger was managing the museum. The film traces the story of how the two men struggled with self-doubt, anger, and fear as they journeyed on the path to reconciliation. “I don’t know if I’d be able to forgive somebody the way he forgave me,” Zaal says of Boger. Yet, notes Boger, “the only way to get past it is to forgive him.”

“Hate Doesn’t Bring You Anything”

All the students at EHS viewed Facing Fear and, after each screening, Cohen and several organizers with AUSD’s LGBTQ Roundtable took questions and comments from the students.

Some students felt that forgiveness was both laudatory and achievable. “I thought it was amazing to see how two people can change over time and change their values,” said one boy. Added one girl, “Hate doesn’t bring you anything. If you know he’s trying to be a good person, maybe it’s good to try to give him a chance.”

Others were less sure. “That would be very traumatizing,” said one girl. “He was trying to kill him. Would he have changed if he really had killed him?’” Added another, “History tends to repeat itself. How do I know he won’t hesitate to do it again?”

Cohen, who lives in Berkeley, made a key point at the end. “Zaal and Boger are not trying to say forgiveness is the answer,” he said. “They’re saying forgiveness is tough. We want you to take this idea into your own life and think, ‘How would this work for me?’”

In comments turned in after the screening, EHS students continued to open up about their reactions to Facing Fear. “The movie made me really think about how much hate can be in a person’s heart,” one student wrote. Added others: “...it made me think about being more kind to others because life is too short to live in hatred” and “This made me feel like I should think about what I’m about to say to someone because I don’t know how it will affect them.”

A coalition of Alameda groups — including the high school Gay Straight Alliances, the LGBTQ Roundtable, the Alameda Harvey Milk Day Committee, and the faith community — is considering a screening of Facing Fear and a discussion with Boger, Zaal, and Cohen at a public theater in mid-January.

“I believe Facing Fear is an important film to bring to Alameda,” said the Reverend Laura Rose, senior minister at First Congregational Church of Alameda and a member of both the LGBTQ Roundtable and the Alameda Interfaith Clergy Association. “Not only does it make a direct and very personal connection between internalized homophobia and violence, it also highlights the oft-forgotten truth that any process of forgiveness must include the opportunity for the victim to publically name the injustice that has been perpetrated. Only then is true healing and reconciliation possible.”

The screening of the film at EHS “serves as a symbol of the work AUSD schools are implementing with restorative justice and anti-bullying efforts,” said Interim Superintendent Sean McPhetridge, Ed.D. “We laud the work being done by students, staff, and community leaders to promote tolerance and understanding in Alameda.”

--Information from Alameda Unified School District