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Singled out for self-expression
Friday September 5 2008
By RICHARD VIVIAN Banner Staff Writer
 
Orangeville’s Sean Waring has been verbally harassed, mocked, threatened and followed home — all because he chooses to wear eye make-up.
At times, the 17-year-old says he’s been so concerned about being attacked that he’s taken different routes home so his followers won’t know where he lives.
“I’m not going to stop because of this; it’s just something that’s not going to happen,” Waring says of wearing eye make-up, which he acknowledges is “kind of unusual.”
“I would say there’s only two guys in town that actually wear make-up.”
The high school senior has been expressing himself through eye make-up for about nine months now. He says he was inspired to don a design on his face by the Jrock music movement in Japan, which he describes as a combination of emo and metal.
“It’s all about emotions and what’s going on ... but they express it through a visual way,” he says.
“Commonly, when I go to school and stuff, everyone listens to the same kind of thing — Metallica and all that. I’m just not into that whole hatred kind of thing. When you listen to Jrock ... it’s more exploiting the good side of someone.”
Dirty looks, snide comments and threats are commonplace for Waring, who notes they come from a range of age groups. He says he’s even been told by a local business to either wash his face or get out. Of course, he left.
This kind of discrimination is prevalent in society; even among members of a “clique” or other type of group, suggests Sonia McDonald, a child and youth worker with the Canadian Mental Health Association.
“A lot of times, if kids do step outside the box ... they see that as very different because he’s only one. If there were six or eight of them, they would become their own little group,” she says. “Because there’s only one ... they probably single him out a lot more.”
Adults are the biggest perpetuators of such intolerance, she adds. By making snide comments and other actions they may believe harmless, she says, they’re teaching youths to discriminate.
Waring says he’s disappointed by the reaction he gets from most people, though he says some are quite encouraging. For those people who do judge him negatively based on his appearance, Waring says he enjoys approaching them with a polite demeanor or an offer of assistance to demonstrate you can’t judge a book by its cover.
“I go and show who I really am,” he says, noting his approach isn’t always welcomed, even among fellow students who complain about being discriminated against.
“Then when I’m the only one that dresses like me, everyone that says they’re discriminated against, discriminates against me.”
Deb Waring, Sean’s mother, sees how people react to her son and is concerned what might happen — that someone may follow through on their threats.
“People are entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to act on them,” she says. While fearful, she says she’s not going to pressure him to change, because he should be allowed to express himself as an individual.
“They don’t know who he really is.”