thinking thursday : save a child’s life
Rest in peace, Seth Walsh
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people." -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On this "Thinking Thursday," all I am thinking about is the epidemic of young gay youth who are killing themselves rather than endure one more moment of bullying. I am thinking about Tyler Clementi and Seth Walsh and Billy Lucas and Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Jaheem Herrera and Eric Mohat and Carl Hoover, all teenagers, all now dead, having killed themselves to escape their tormentors.
We cannot stand idly by. And yet we are. We do. We sit in our comfortable homes and react in anguish when another teen kills him or herself because they were bullied to death. What are you doing to stop this? What am I doing? Clicking "like" or "share" or "retweet" on Facebook and Twitter is just simply not enough. It is not nearly enough. It is not enough to scream that our schools must do better, though they must. WE must do better. We must raise children and mentor children and love children into knowing that bullying is wrong. Schools alone cannot do this.
Tyler Clementi's privacy was violated, horribly. What the hell is wrong with us, that we believe it is okay to livestream onto the internet someone's private moments in their own room?
Today I am reminded of a message I wrote on these pages in 2008 after a gay teen was shot in the head by a classmate:
Why have we made a silent, unspoken agreement to not do significant work in the world?
I am tired of having long, endless, polite conversations about discrimination and hate. I am tired of executives who keep asking me for the "business case" for diversity as if another notebook of statistics will finally make them pay attention like the other 120 notebooks of data have not. I am tired of going to meetings to hear about the state of our communities relative to race or other diversity issues only to hear talking heads present illegible PowerPoint bar charts about disparities in graduation rates between blacks and whites.
Good lord, don't we know all this already? Raise your hand if you are white and straight and would volunteer for the rest of your life to be treated as people of color and GLBTQ people are treated in this country. If your hand isn't raised, then you know we have to do something about the discrimination GLBTQ people and people of color–and others–face DAILY. If your hand isn't raised, then you know this is going on and you cannot pretend not to know any longer.
Are we delaying action by insisting on more data because we don't know what to do, or because we like the status quo because it is by and large working for us, or because we are just damned lazy or overworked or too busy saving up for that summer house?
I am also damned tired of people being killed just for being who they are. Are other people so threatening to us that we must disavow and hurt and even kill them? That is so much about who we are, and not about who those targets of our hate are. It is our trash, and we need to stop it. What are we afraid of?
Ellen DeGeneres, in talking today about a 15-year-old boy recently shot in the head by a classmate because he was gay, offers this challenge (and resources) on her website:
“I would like you to start paying attention to how often being gay is the punchline of a monologue or how often gay jokes are in a movie,” DeGeneres said to an estimated 2.5 million viewers. “And that kind of message, laughing at someone because they’re gay, is just the beginning. It starts with laughing at someone, and then it’s verbal abuse, then it’s physical abuse, and it’s this kid Brandon killing a kid like Larry.”
The reason these things continue to happen, I firmly believe, is because we allow them by not doing significant work in the world. If you are a parent, a teacher, a community member, a human being living on this planet, it is your work to do. Let's stop fooling ourselves that we are too insignificant to make a difference, that it is not our work in the world to make this planet hospitable to all humans. Let's stop fooling ourselves that another slide presentation will make a difference, that we don't already know what's happening in Darfur and, for that matter, in classrooms across our country. If we could solve these problems with data, they'd be solved by now. If we could solve these problems by having another conference in a nice warm location with a lot of people dressed up in suits, they'd be solved by now.
Perhaps I can't change the world. But I can damn sure raise two children who will know what it means to consider every person they meet to be as fully, beautifully human as they are.
From the Human Rights Campaign came this message today:
"This is an epidemic.
Last week, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi killed himself by jumping off a bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with another male student, then broadcast the video online.
I wish I could tell you this was an isolated incident. But Tyler's death as a victim of anti-gay harassment was just one of a number of recent suicides among teenagers who were ruthlessly "bullied to death."
Our schools and our nation cannot sit back and wait for the next tragedy. So today, we're calling on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to speak out immediately – and to push every school anti-bullying program in the nation to include sexual orientation and gender identity like HRC's Welcoming Schools program. Please stand with us.
Tyler wasn't the only one.
After months of relentless bullying, 13-year-old Seth Walsh hung himself from a tree outside his California home this week. Billy Lucas of Indiana was 15 years old when he hung himself after being called a "fag" over and over again. Asher Brown's classmates teased him without mercy and acted out mock gay sex acts in class, and last Thursday he shot himself in the head. He was only 13.
And a single district in Minnesota has seen seven suicides in the last year by young victims of intolerance. As a virulently anti-LGBT candidate seeks the governor's chair (a man who could decide the fate of anti-bullying measures), it's clear that the very lives of Minnesota's children are at stake.
This isn't a new problem. It's been happening for decades. And too often, administrators fail to act, even after parents complain about the bullying at school.
That's why HRC developed Welcoming Schools, an innovative program that gives elementary school teachers, parents and students across the country the tools to help stop the name-calling, bullying and gender stereotyping that so many students face every day. It helps kids learn respect and tolerance early on, to prevent violence later in middle and high school.
But it's up to those who run our schools – from Secretary Duncan down to every local school board – to act to end the bullying.
Once you take action, I hope you'll write a letter to the editor of your local paper. I hope you'll also let educators and administrators in your local school district know about www.welcomingschools.org and explain why you want to see Welcoming Schools in elementary schools near you. The more we spread the word, the better our chances of preventing another tragedy.
If school officials don't act, more young lives will be tragically lost. We can't let that happen."
That is HRC's message, and here's my message to you:
I am begging you to do these things:
1. Tomorrow morning–not next week or in February, but tomorrow–call your local school district and/or university and ask what kind of anti-bullying programs they have in place. Call principals, call school board members, call the superintendent of schools, call the chancellor's office. Provide them with information about the HRC "welcoming schools" program. Find other resources and offer them as well. Keep calling them.
2. If you have a child or are active in the life of a child, call their principal tomorrow and ask what they are doing to ensure that no child is bullied, and in particular what support they offer to LGBTQI children. Offer to help. Do not stop at the level of internet activism — Go there. Volunteer. Show up for someone. If your child is home-schooled or unschooled, include anti-bullying discussions on your agenda.
3. Talk to your children or children in your network about bullying. Often.
4. Educate yourself about cyberbullying.
5. Don't be a bully yourself. You know when you are. Stop.
6. Speak up. If your child is being bullied, or if you see other children being bullied, do not suggest that they "suck it up" – intervene. Give them the tools they need. Listen to them. Do not minimize their pain. Talk to other parents, even if it is uncomfortable.
7. Show Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" video and all the videos made by LGBTQI folks as part of his campaign to show kids that there is life beyond the crap they are enduring in high school. Show this to straight and questioning and gay kids alike. And if you identify as LGBTQI, make a video and post it to the "It Gets Better" campaign.
8. If you are a parent or involved in a child's life in any way, buy books that demonstrate that diversity is beautiful. Read them to your children. Then read them again.
9. Devote a year to getting to know someone who scares you.
10. When you hear a gay joke, or a black joke, or any other kind of demeaning humor in a film or TV show, write the producers. Let them know it's not alright. When you hear them in your home, your office, your community, speak up.
11. Be an effective ally for GLBTQ people.
12. Educate yourself on what to say when people tell homophobic, racist, sexist, or other hurtful jokes.
Save a young person's life. Show up.
