Bullying

Recently, there has been a downpour of bullying and suicides with young people. Back in September, a college student named Tyler Clementi committed suicide after his roommate outed him as a homosexual. Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, set up a webcam and broadcasted Clementi’s encounter with another man. Clementi had not come out, he was a shy kid who kept to himself. On September 22^nd, he jumped off a bridge, killing himself. The bullies were “just messing around” and didn’t think that Clementi would take it so seriously. They apparently did not think about what they were doing. Being gay, especially in such a oppressive society as ours, is a scary thing for someone to admit. They should have the right to admit it because it is their truth to tell. Outting someone before they are ready and doing it to have a good laugh is disgusting. Tyler Clementi is not the only one. There have been kids as young as thirteen who have killed themselves because they were teased for exhibiting gay mannerisms. This is how the hegemonic masculinity starts, however. These kids who are bullying others for a good laugh are the same ones who will grow up to be shining members of Guyland someday. A lot of the time, the bullies of these kids are projecting their own questioning thoughts about their sexuality onto their victims. About a week ago on Glee, the openly gay Kurt Hummel’s battle with a football jerk finally came to a boiling point. Karofsky, the bully, pushed Kurt one too many times into his locker, and Kurt finally approached him, telling him that no matter what he did, he was not going to beat the gay out of Kurt anymore than Kurt was going to beat the ignorant out of Karofsky. Karofsky then did something that was not surprising: he kissed Kurt. He threatened Kurt with his life if Kurt told anyone, and when it looked like Karofsky was going to get expelled, the school board pulled for him to be reinstated, saying that the bullying was not that big of a deal. This is a fictitious show, but it deals with a lot of real issues, such as the relationship between Kurt and Karofsky. Only in real life, kids like Kurt may end up killing themselves because the bullying is too much to take. The show represents the public in a truthful light, however, by showing that they did not put too much value on bullying someone for being gay. Kurt had to end up transferring schools because this kid was bothering him. It shouldn’t be this way, where homosexual kids are made to feel as though being gay is their problem and they must suffer the consequences, and if they cannot, they must find a way to fix it. There has to be some sort of justice for the victims of bullying because if there is not, we are practically encouraging harassment in the schools. Furthermore, we are teaching these bullies to become violent adults, perfect for Guyland and the after years. “People” magazine did an excellent article on bullying, which is where I am getting a lot of the information about Tyler Clementi from. They did interviews with teenagers who have been bullied for being obese, Muslim, and of course, gay. They also did interviews with kids who were bullies. The kids who were bullies admitted to believing that harassment was done because they thought they were being fully and cool, but they soon realized the damaging effects it had on people. The truth of the matter is we all judge other people, some more than others, but we have to ask ourselves why and what we hope to gain from doing it. We also must remember Tyler Clementi and the other kids who lost out on their lives because of judgments like the ones we have passed. I feel that the articles in “People” as well as the delicate attention given to characters like Kurt on Glee is a step in the right direction towards educating everyone, but especially adolescent males, that bullying is not synonymous with being a man.

I wanted to post this because after my brief look at Masculinity and the Latin culture, I will be discussing a book called Dude, You're a Fag.