In memoriam

Although the shocking news about Tyler Clementi's suicide broke last week, I've been feeling an overwhelming sense of anger and emotional draining over it. I did not know Mr. Clementi personally, nor did I know the other LGBT students who have taken their lives as a result of bullying. But as an ally and as a person who believes in the dignity of everybody, I feel compelled to write about it.

I can't get over how people seem to think that bullying and harrassment is somehow OK, as long as it's directed at certain individuals and groups. I just don't understand who decides which people somehow aren't deserving of basic human dignity, and I don't understand how that sort of nonsense just is perpetuated. What is it that marks one group an easy target and another off limits? What is it that gives people the feeling that they can do something this cruel?

Part of me feels it has to do with the de-humanizing of certain groups. If you mark certain people as somehow less than or not even human, it makes it a lot easier to perpetuate cruel acts against them. If you see your own group as the default or the "norm," it makes anyone else come across as different and less than. In my previous post, "Same Old Song and Dance," I described a heartless "fake prom" that was put on to discriminate against the LGBT and disabled students at a high school in Mississippi. Clearly, the cowardly and mean-spirited folks who hosted it saw this group as less than the rest of the student body and wanted them out.

What we need to do is NORMALIZE EQUALITY. We have come a long way, certainly, but we cannot stop. We need to make things like bullying a thing of the past by recognizing that EVERYONE is valuable and EVERYONE deserves respect. It doesn't matter what your political party or holy book or parents may say. We are all people and we all deserve respect.