Tyler Clementi
I wish I had never heard of Tyler Clementi. I wish I had never heard of him because the only reason I've heard of him is that the 18-year-old Rutgers freshman recently jumped off the George Washington Bridge, and that is unbelievably heartbreaking.
He'd been taped, without his knowledge, having sex in his dorm room. The tape was broadcast on the web. Two Rutgers freshmen have been charged with invasion of privacy.
I gasped when I saw on the news that the student who had been taped had killed himself. The speculation, at this point, is that because it was a homosexual encounter, the boy had been "outed" against his will.
And I do mean boy. Age 18 is technically adult, is old enough to go to college, old enough to drive yourself to the George Washington Bridge. But there's still a lot of little kid in an 18-year-old. You can see traces of boyishness, of sweetness, in Tyler's picture.
So much for us, the bystanders, to be upset about. The suffering of his family.The unbelievable meanness of the taper. The unsettling way that even kids have access to technology that would have made a Cold War spy envious.
There's much we don't know about this story, and much that's none of our business. Like Tyler Clementi's sexual preference. I don't know what that was and I don't care. No one knows, at this writing, if it's true that his suicide was a reaction to being outed.
But have we not, really, come any further than this in 2010? Rutgers, like most colleges, has an organization to support gay, bi and transgendered students. There are processes and programs in place to counsel college students. You and I know that there are kind and smart people who would have been glad to talk it through, to help if help were needed. But perhaps Tyler Clementi, a brand-new freshman, didn't know that.
Now, if we know our state legislature, someone is right now instructing his or her staff to craft a bill that will mandate that public schools address the subject of sexual diversity. After all, New Jersey already mandates that, in addition to sex education, public schools must provide programs on the following: bullying prevention, sexual assault prevention, domestic violence education, gang violence prevention, substance abuse, and suicide prevention. A recently proposed bill will mandate programs on dating violence prevention.
No, I don't think a lack of mandated programs in the school is the problem here. The problem is that we need to be much more honest with each other, much kinder to each other. How do we get to that place?
I wish I had never heard of Tyler Clementi in this way, and that he had gone on to a long, happy, productive and private life. In his honor, let's try to help other young people from feeling such needless despair.
He'd been taped, without his knowledge, having sex in his dorm room. The tape was broadcast on the web. Two Rutgers freshmen have been charged with invasion of privacy.
I gasped when I saw on the news that the student who had been taped had killed himself. The speculation, at this point, is that because it was a homosexual encounter, the boy had been "outed" against his will.
And I do mean boy. Age 18 is technically adult, is old enough to go to college, old enough to drive yourself to the George Washington Bridge. But there's still a lot of little kid in an 18-year-old. You can see traces of boyishness, of sweetness, in Tyler's picture.
So much for us, the bystanders, to be upset about. The suffering of his family.The unbelievable meanness of the taper. The unsettling way that even kids have access to technology that would have made a Cold War spy envious.
There's much we don't know about this story, and much that's none of our business. Like Tyler Clementi's sexual preference. I don't know what that was and I don't care. No one knows, at this writing, if it's true that his suicide was a reaction to being outed.
But have we not, really, come any further than this in 2010? Rutgers, like most colleges, has an organization to support gay, bi and transgendered students. There are processes and programs in place to counsel college students. You and I know that there are kind and smart people who would have been glad to talk it through, to help if help were needed. But perhaps Tyler Clementi, a brand-new freshman, didn't know that.
Now, if we know our state legislature, someone is right now instructing his or her staff to craft a bill that will mandate that public schools address the subject of sexual diversity. After all, New Jersey already mandates that, in addition to sex education, public schools must provide programs on the following: bullying prevention, sexual assault prevention, domestic violence education, gang violence prevention, substance abuse, and suicide prevention. A recently proposed bill will mandate programs on dating violence prevention.
No, I don't think a lack of mandated programs in the school is the problem here. The problem is that we need to be much more honest with each other, much kinder to each other. How do we get to that place?
I wish I had never heard of Tyler Clementi in this way, and that he had gone on to a long, happy, productive and private life. In his honor, let's try to help other young people from feeling such needless despair.
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