On Sept. 9, 15-year-old Billy Lucas hanged himself in his family’s barn after facing a long period of anti-gay bullying at school. On Sept. 19, 13-year-old Seth Walsh was found unconscious in his backyard after he tried to hang himself from a tree for similar reasons. He died of complications on Sept. 28. On Sept. 22, Tyler Clementi, 18, jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly filmed and posted a video online of him having sexual relations with another man. Asher Brown, 13, shot and killed himself on Sept. 23 after enduring constant harassment from his classmates for being gay. On Sept. 29, openly gay Johnson & Wales student Raymond Chase, 19, hung himself in his dorm room.
The Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School and the National Education Policy Center released troubling information in regards to the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students: “Over 85 percent report being harassed because of their sexual or gender identity, and over 20 percent report being physically attacked. Far too often teachers and administrators do nothing in response. In part because of this, the suicide rate for LGBT students continues to be three to four times higher than that of their straight counterparts.”
Suicide bubbles, especially among young people, are nothing new—one of the earliest documented examples includes Werther Fever, which spread among teenagers in 18th century Europe after the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s terribly depressing novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” However, as authorities realized at the time, suicide clusters should signal a pressing need for increased awareness and action in regards to a social defect that is most likely being swept under the rug.
As a gay kid growing up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, life was pretty good. I had a lot of friends and enjoyed going to school. I’ve always wondered why I was so lucky. Of course, I wasn’t out until after high school, but my personality leaves few people guessing. Columbus, as many of you might not know, is the epicenter of the gay Midwest with one of the largest LGBT populations outside of New York. So the sort of liberal-minded energy that often exists in such settings probably just radiated all around. I left Ohio for Massachusetts to attend boarding school, where I was greeted by an even more liberal atmosphere.
But even so, it’s not hard for me to relate to this numbing fear—the fear of being exposed. Harassment comes in all forms and the recent string of suicides shows that younger kids are just as vulnerable to its effects. Undoubtedly, part of what is contributing to the harassment, and that did not exist in its totally consuming, ever-present form when many of us were younger, is the Internet. Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.” Well,now, lies and truths are swimming through invisible wires at breakneck speed and destroying so many lives in the process.
The Internet also grants anonymity, a blanket under which cowards hide.
On our own campus, rumors breed like bed bugs. We spread lies online, or we paint hate speech on the bridge under the cover of night or we drunkenly heckle a student walking home from the library.
The individual act, we may be able to explain away as an isolated instance, an innocent slip-up. But there is no such thing as a single act.
Each of us, every one, is the total sum of all the good and bad things that have passed in our day, and our weeks. Any act that works to degrade or humiliate another human being, no matter how insignificant we believe our role to have been, is not harmless—it is indecent. An individual should not have to be strong to get through their day. Their life should not feel like a burden. What does take strength is listening to the voices of goodness and decency that are sometimes muffled under the increasingly growing invitation for mass cruelty.
There is no wisdom here. Only an observation: I worry that the fight for decency is losing ground. In the preface to his book, “The Conquest of Happiness,” philosopher Bertrand Russell states, “This book is not addressed to highbrows, or to those who regard a practical problem merely as something to be talked about. No profound philosophy or deep erudition will be found in the following pages. I have aimed only at putting together some remarks which are inspired by what I hope is common sense.”
Thomas Gebremedhin is a Trinity senior. His column will run every other Friday.
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