Teen Suicides, Part II

The death of Jamey Rodemeyer surprised me when I read about it, probably because he lives not far from where I grew up. And yet it is because I grew up in that area that I should not have been surprised at all.

I organized the Day of Silence for my high school when I was junior. In the days leading up to it, I had asked faculty members I was close to if they'd be willing to put up posters, wear buttons and otherwise help out as Allies. Most of them agreed but one of them stopped and talked to me at length about how the homosexual lifestyle was unhealthy and he couldn't in good conscience help the cause or show support in anyway. Not wanting to push my luck and risk pissing off a member of the faculty, I let it go. I also didn't bother asking those members of the faculty who I knew to be staunch conservatives out of fear that they would have a similar reaction, or that they would, as a group, do something to stop the DofS.

In spite of this, there was a lot more support and participation among my peers than I had ever anticipated. Surprisingly a lot of them were eager to be allies, even if that meant they just wore the badge and lent support to people who chose not to speak that day. It was pretty inspiring, even if I did get called a "dyke" once or twice. In fact, it was so inspiring that, even though I was pissed off that someone had said that to me, my next immediate thought was that he was the minority in that school and he wouldn't dare announce it in forum (yes, my high school had a forum. It was twice a week after first period).

As it turns out, I was pretty wrong. Apparently after I left a friend of a friend took over organizing the DofS for the school. Other students then took the silence of participants as an opportunity to rail against them, tell them they were going to hell for being homosexuals, and otherwise treat them like shit. I'm not sure if they were trying to force them to speak or if they just did it on that day specifically because they didn't want to deal with retaliation.

I think people assume that because New York tends to vote democrat that we don't have to worry about bullying the likes of which compelled Jamey Rodemeyer to take his own life, but there is no place in America that is immune to it. People are especially quick to pretend it isn't happening in the northeast, because we don't exactly fit the bill for "gay-bashers" but they're there, and they weren't transplanted from other parts of the country. They were born and raised in the area. I think it's likely that the reason they still exist at all is because no one bothers taking a hard look at what they're saying or what they're doing. Now is a good time to start paying attention, because it's becoming more and more apparent that these are not pockets or communities of people who don't affect the larger group. This is a widely spread mind-set that crops up all across America, and we need to deal with it head on.

It's painfully important that we talk to students about this. I've heard claims made by politicians (Bachmann, no surprise) that bullying is part of growing up and to legislate in any way against it is ludicrous. This is clearly beyond bullying--this is threatening, this is extraordinarily painful, this is forcing kids who may already have a support network to kill themselves in spite of it.

And anyone who can look at the suicide of any child and scoff is not fit to be a leader. So lets stop sending the wrong message to our nation's vulnerable youth by electing them to office.