When I was a struggling out of work lawyer (the first time around), my then-boyfriend (now husband), got Juan Williams to sign a copy of his biography on Thurgood Marshall. The inscription included words of encouragement to me and a reminder that everyone stumbles sometimes, even someone as great as Justice Marshall. I reflected on that inscription in the wee hours of the morning when I first read the tweet that announced Williams' dismissal from NPR, and here is my take on this whole incident:
So a couple of nights ago I woke up to turn off my computer and saw a random tweet that Juan Williams had been fired from NPR for comments he had made on the O'Reilly Factor. It seemed odd that the tweet had been posted at midnight and that it linked to afull-page article attached to a full-sized photo of Williams. Seemed like someone was really angry and needed to prove a point...
Now curious and wide awake, I clicked to the New York Times and Washington Post websites to read if there were any additional details, and sure enough, my hunch was correct--Williams had apparently pissed off a few folks at NPR and his recent comments were the final straw that resulted in his dismissal.
The real story is not that Williams got canned, but what happened next. The next day, he got the ultimate payback in the form of a $2 million multi-year contract from FOX. And that is when things really got interesting because this is an election year, Juan Williams is black, the controversial subject of his remarks were Muslims on airplanes, and NPR is perceived to be a snooty liberal government welfare recipient whose hand just happened to be out all last week soliciting listener donations. This was all a perfect storm...
A perfect storm that began with NPR attempting to justify a personal decision as a personnel decision based on the elusive conceit of journalistic integrity (which is about as transparent as Williams' fortuitous job offer from FOX...) Perhaps two recent firings provide instructive analogies here: Williams was (Shirley) Sherroded by NPR; then he went over to FOX and (Rick) Sanchezed them.
The Sherrod-ing was in firing him without really listening to the entire interview. Taken out of context, Williams suggested that he gets nervous when he sees passengers in Muslim garb aboard an airplane. But in its full context, Williams was really saying that we all have moments when it might be easier to make a snap judgment, but it takes more courage to truly analyze a situation in order to move beyond our gut feelings. After taking that next step, we have the power to decide whether to succumb to fear, ignorance, racism or personal animous. Ironically, NPR's management made a snap judgment and foolishly stuck with it.
And then Williams turned around and Sanchezed NPR by burning that bridge. I have no illusions that Juan Williams did not see the handwriting on the wall with respect to his dual career as a senior news analyst at NPR and as a liberal commentator at FOX. He could not continue to do both and it was clear that his expanding role at FOX had more to offer than did his diminishing role at NPR. He certainly could have left NPR to join FOX full-time, but it was far more lucrative for him to get sacked, especially since he has recovered quite nicely and no longer has to operate under the constraints of "journalistic integrity". Now I am not suggesting that he intentionally made provocative statements to get fired, but he certainly had to have known that he was teetering so close to going over the line that if he breathed too hard that would have been enough. Juan Williams is nobody's fool...or victim.
And now NPR's government funding is an election-year issue and we're debating Islam again. Juan Williams gets another shot at relevance and FOX News gets to pretend that it really is 'fair and balanced' for swooping in at just the right moment to defend the First Amendment and for hiring a self-proclaimed (yet disgruntled) liberal. Not bad in a week when the real story should have been the reignited Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill saga, brought to us by his embittered wife and his long-lost ex-girlfriend.
The other issue that simmers just below the surface of all of this is the fact that Juan Williams was one of a handful of black or brown voices on the air at NPR. Not that his presence ever provided me with any compelling reasons to become a supporter of my local station, but I wonder how many other people of color had given NPR a pass for allowing diverse content to make up for a quantifiable lack of diversity in its on-air talent.
Hopefully, this distraction will blow over by mid-week and attentions will shift to real issues again. On Facebook I commented to one of my friends that I hope Juan Williams will enjoy stepping into the "Colmes" role for Bill O'Reilly because that is about all his $2 million contract is worth at face value. Regardless of the outcome of this election, I am sure that enough liberal elites will band together to save NPR just as we did back in the 90s to save Big Bird and Barney the Dinosaur. We really will not come to any conclusions about Islam in one news cycle and I am sure that NPR will find another senior black correspondent or two. And I will join my local station.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Finishing What I Start
The husband is off on a work-related trip and I am here at the house that may never get as clean as I would like for it to be. This was the source of some tension prior to his departure, but the point is that I am trying to reform my ways.
I am a chronic starter. I am not always a polished finisher. In some cases, I don't finish. My house is a testament to all of the undone things that I once had hoped to accomplish. I have a blog that I long ago abandoned when it became clear that I did not have the right stuff to really tackle my own landscaping and yard maintenance. A few weeks ago, I deleted a bunch of unfinished blog pieces because it was evident that something I never finished four years ago was unlikely to be finished now.
But because I am serious about getting my life together, here is my TO-DO list for now until Christmas:
I am a chronic starter. I am not always a polished finisher. In some cases, I don't finish. My house is a testament to all of the undone things that I once had hoped to accomplish. I have a blog that I long ago abandoned when it became clear that I did not have the right stuff to really tackle my own landscaping and yard maintenance. A few weeks ago, I deleted a bunch of unfinished blog pieces because it was evident that something I never finished four years ago was unlikely to be finished now.
But because I am serious about getting my life together, here is my TO-DO list for now until Christmas:
- Two pending blog posts that I am determined to finish
- A massive pile of unsorted laundry that needs to be washed, folded and put away
- Summer clothes to store
- Clothes that need to be dry-cleaned
- Meeting minutes that need to be distributed to the committee members
- Committee reports that need to be drafted
- A meeting agenda to draft
- A fellowship application to download and complete
- Paperwork to file for a client
- Preparation for various meetings
- Dances to learn
- Reservations for travel
- Appointments with various doctors
- Old paperwork that needs to be recycled
- Purchase a new computer
- Networking
- Emails and cards to send
- Volunteering for GOTV efforts
- Plantlings to re-pot
- Breathe
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Relentless
My husband calls me Dorothy, but not because of my childhood love for all things related to "The Wiz" (or less so to "The Wizard of Oz"). He calls me that because of my shero, the late Dorothy I. Height. And it is not meant in an enduring way...
But screw him and his ability to compartmentalize and shift focus to the less important things in life (like professional baseball and new restaurants). I am happy for anyone who can live in wonderful mindless bliss. I cannot.
I am a political junkie. I have causes that drive me. I was watching Roland Martin on TV One this morning at 11am instead of sitting in a church somewhere. Almost every decision I make has some kind of political, global or social consequence to it--I shop at Target instead of Wal-Mart because of how the latter mistreats its employees. In fact, on a friend's Facebook inquiry about where to buy a club membership, I suggested Costco because I happen to know that Costco is a better employer. I have waged a boycott against Kraft Foods for years because I think their synthetic ingredients and reliance on high fructose corn syrup explain why half of America has diabetes and high cholesterol. I recycle even when none of my neighbors do. I am trying to wean myself off of products that harm the environment.
Whew!
This week, in an effort to wage an online GOTV effort, I am trying to rally the troops with daily email messages. I will work someone's nerve before all is said and done, but I just want us to wake up and face the reality of what might happen in less than two weeks! So if someone defriends me or adds my name to their email spam filter, so what. I am going to be me and even if I annoy the hell out of folks, no one will doubt my passion and perseverance. I remember how passion, perseverance and idealism convinced the country that it could elect a black president. At some point, I will sway someone to act.
Back to my nickname-sake, she represents why I cannot give up. She was a woman at the helm of a civil rights organization in the 60s when such things were unheard of. People may not remember much of what she and the National Council of Negro Women did, but because she was there in the trenches fighting against Jim Crow, people do remember what she and the NCNW represented: dignity, strength, perseverance, and fortitude.
So I carry on and will keep being me. A relentless, driven, true-believing busy black woman.
But screw him and his ability to compartmentalize and shift focus to the less important things in life (like professional baseball and new restaurants). I am happy for anyone who can live in wonderful mindless bliss. I cannot.
I am a political junkie. I have causes that drive me. I was watching Roland Martin on TV One this morning at 11am instead of sitting in a church somewhere. Almost every decision I make has some kind of political, global or social consequence to it--I shop at Target instead of Wal-Mart because of how the latter mistreats its employees. In fact, on a friend's Facebook inquiry about where to buy a club membership, I suggested Costco because I happen to know that Costco is a better employer. I have waged a boycott against Kraft Foods for years because I think their synthetic ingredients and reliance on high fructose corn syrup explain why half of America has diabetes and high cholesterol. I recycle even when none of my neighbors do. I am trying to wean myself off of products that harm the environment.
Whew!
This week, in an effort to wage an online GOTV effort, I am trying to rally the troops with daily email messages. I will work someone's nerve before all is said and done, but I just want us to wake up and face the reality of what might happen in less than two weeks! So if someone defriends me or adds my name to their email spam filter, so what. I am going to be me and even if I annoy the hell out of folks, no one will doubt my passion and perseverance. I remember how passion, perseverance and idealism convinced the country that it could elect a black president. At some point, I will sway someone to act.
Back to my nickname-sake, she represents why I cannot give up. She was a woman at the helm of a civil rights organization in the 60s when such things were unheard of. People may not remember much of what she and the National Council of Negro Women did, but because she was there in the trenches fighting against Jim Crow, people do remember what she and the NCNW represented: dignity, strength, perseverance, and fortitude.
So I carry on and will keep being me. A relentless, driven, true-believing busy black woman.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Clothes and the Modern Man
One of the blog postings that I needed to complete.
I am wading into tricky waters here, but I feel compelled to speak up in defense of Morehouse College, the target of an article recently published in Vibe magazine, "The Mean Girls of Morehouse". When I first read the title, my eyes rolled in trepidation...there have been several articles written lately that have attacked HBCUs in general or specific institutions, and unfortunately, here was the recently resurrected Vibe magazine joining the fray.
To offer some background, a decade ago when my brother was a student at Morehouse, he complained that the campus culture had become too permissive of overt homosexuality. We debated the issue, with me often taking the position that he was unnecessarily sensitive, and even if what he alleged was true, it was a sign of the times. Furthermore, as the only private, all-male HBCU, Morehouse College had to embrace the spectrum of black manhood that accommodated both Malcolm X and James Baldwin. An institution that prides itself on nurturing great black leaders has the same urgent charge to nurture great gay black leaders to stand against the injustices and inherent danger of unchecked homophobia. Not surprisingly, I did not win those arguments; my brother demanded to move off campus and my parents (father) acquiesced.
When a Morehouse student nearly beat another student to death with a baseball bat, the school was forced to finally confront the culture of homophobia that pervaded the campus. Since then, Morehouse has come to terms with its allure as a magnet for the best and brightest young black men--straight and gay. However, tolerance does not mean that anything goes, and a dress code was enacted a couple of year ago. At most institutions, such a move would be deemed unnecessary, but I doubt most other institutions have a campus cross-dressing problem...
Yes, a problem. Would cross-dressing be considered a problem across town at Georgia Tech or Emory? Probably not (but then again this is the south...) Nevertheless because Morehouse is the only private, all-male HBCU, it seeks to promote a standard of conduct in its students that runs counter to certain forms of behavior and expression that might be acceptable on other campuses. Therefore, a dress code that bans doo-rags, sagging jeans and women's attire such as dresses, skirts, high heels, and purses is consistent with the Morehouse "brand" of producing respectable black men. To outsiders who believe the College is being reactionary or discriminatory, this current controversy centers on whether the attire policy infringes on the students' freedom of expression. To others, the policy asserts the right of a private institution to determine the limits of that free expression.
The Vibe article, under the guise of questioning the legitimacy of the dress code, calls into question whether Morehouse is merely acting to protect its brand or whether it is singling out a few campus eccentrics. Conveniently for a publication that is struggling to remain relevant, this story breaks in the wake of several highly publicized incidents involving bullying of and suicides by gay teenagers. Inconveniently for Morehouse, this is yet another attempt to diminish its reputation (and again, it is a sucker punch to the jaw of one of the more prominent HBCUs).
Morehouse has made tremendous progress in navigating the rapidly changing societal attitudes towards homosexuality. A generation ago when I was a Spelman student, traditional ideas about masculinity kept many young men in the closet; a decade later when my brother was in college, the atmosphere had changed, but not without a lot of discomfort (to put it mildly). It is not surprising that an institution founded as a training ground for black preachers would have struggled to make this uneasy, yet inevitable transition towards tolerance.
And this is where the Eddie Long/Catholic priest/Ted Haggard scandals become instructive--a LOT of people have been taught to regard homosexuality as an issue of conduct and not an issue of identity, which is usually grounded in one's reading of the Bible. This article conflates identity with conduct and casts Morehouse as both a haven for bigots (another common refrain against black folks lately) and as a microcosm of how nearly every community outside of Atlanta, New York, DC, San Francisco, etc. is evolving towards varying degrees of tolerance.
The most cynical aspects of this article are the profiles of the students who felt victimized by the policy. Sadly, their naivete about the world they expected to encounter at Morehouse explains a bit why they allowed themselves to be caricatured by Vibe, which made it clear from the tongue-in-cheek title of the article that the "mean girls" of Morehouse are actually the main attractions at a freakshow.
My opinion? Biased, as expected, in favor of the dress code. It is also biased in favor of private institutions to set policy that will govern its charges. Do the students in this piece earn my sympathy? Yes, both for the humiliation they suffered and for the confusion they endure as young people seeking to define themselves. And, that is all.
I am wading into tricky waters here, but I feel compelled to speak up in defense of Morehouse College, the target of an article recently published in Vibe magazine, "The Mean Girls of Morehouse". When I first read the title, my eyes rolled in trepidation...there have been several articles written lately that have attacked HBCUs in general or specific institutions, and unfortunately, here was the recently resurrected Vibe magazine joining the fray.
To offer some background, a decade ago when my brother was a student at Morehouse, he complained that the campus culture had become too permissive of overt homosexuality. We debated the issue, with me often taking the position that he was unnecessarily sensitive, and even if what he alleged was true, it was a sign of the times. Furthermore, as the only private, all-male HBCU, Morehouse College had to embrace the spectrum of black manhood that accommodated both Malcolm X and James Baldwin. An institution that prides itself on nurturing great black leaders has the same urgent charge to nurture great gay black leaders to stand against the injustices and inherent danger of unchecked homophobia. Not surprisingly, I did not win those arguments; my brother demanded to move off campus and my parents (father) acquiesced.
When a Morehouse student nearly beat another student to death with a baseball bat, the school was forced to finally confront the culture of homophobia that pervaded the campus. Since then, Morehouse has come to terms with its allure as a magnet for the best and brightest young black men--straight and gay. However, tolerance does not mean that anything goes, and a dress code was enacted a couple of year ago. At most institutions, such a move would be deemed unnecessary, but I doubt most other institutions have a campus cross-dressing problem...
Yes, a problem. Would cross-dressing be considered a problem across town at Georgia Tech or Emory? Probably not (but then again this is the south...) Nevertheless because Morehouse is the only private, all-male HBCU, it seeks to promote a standard of conduct in its students that runs counter to certain forms of behavior and expression that might be acceptable on other campuses. Therefore, a dress code that bans doo-rags, sagging jeans and women's attire such as dresses, skirts, high heels, and purses is consistent with the Morehouse "brand" of producing respectable black men. To outsiders who believe the College is being reactionary or discriminatory, this current controversy centers on whether the attire policy infringes on the students' freedom of expression. To others, the policy asserts the right of a private institution to determine the limits of that free expression.
The Vibe article, under the guise of questioning the legitimacy of the dress code, calls into question whether Morehouse is merely acting to protect its brand or whether it is singling out a few campus eccentrics. Conveniently for a publication that is struggling to remain relevant, this story breaks in the wake of several highly publicized incidents involving bullying of and suicides by gay teenagers. Inconveniently for Morehouse, this is yet another attempt to diminish its reputation (and again, it is a sucker punch to the jaw of one of the more prominent HBCUs).
Morehouse has made tremendous progress in navigating the rapidly changing societal attitudes towards homosexuality. A generation ago when I was a Spelman student, traditional ideas about masculinity kept many young men in the closet; a decade later when my brother was in college, the atmosphere had changed, but not without a lot of discomfort (to put it mildly). It is not surprising that an institution founded as a training ground for black preachers would have struggled to make this uneasy, yet inevitable transition towards tolerance.
And this is where the Eddie Long/Catholic priest/Ted Haggard scandals become instructive--a LOT of people have been taught to regard homosexuality as an issue of conduct and not an issue of identity, which is usually grounded in one's reading of the Bible. This article conflates identity with conduct and casts Morehouse as both a haven for bigots (another common refrain against black folks lately) and as a microcosm of how nearly every community outside of Atlanta, New York, DC, San Francisco, etc. is evolving towards varying degrees of tolerance.
The most cynical aspects of this article are the profiles of the students who felt victimized by the policy. Sadly, their naivete about the world they expected to encounter at Morehouse explains a bit why they allowed themselves to be caricatured by Vibe, which made it clear from the tongue-in-cheek title of the article that the "mean girls" of Morehouse are actually the main attractions at a freakshow.
My opinion? Biased, as expected, in favor of the dress code. It is also biased in favor of private institutions to set policy that will govern its charges. Do the students in this piece earn my sympathy? Yes, both for the humiliation they suffered and for the confusion they endure as young people seeking to define themselves. And, that is all.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
It Gets Better
I intended to edit the piece I had already written, but Blogger was not cooperating. Andy Cohen from Bravo made this video in response to the suicides and gay bullying incidents:
It Gets Better
Mazel to Andy! Ellen DeGeneris weighed in last week with her plea to end bullying:
Something Must Be Done
And while I am sure that the mean-spirited among us--those who believe that sensitivity to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and other facets of human identity will not get it, someone will. It will make a difference to the kid who is awake right now in his room anguished about school in a few hours. Or to the girl who cuts herself. Andy and Ellen are right--it will get better.
It Gets Better
Mazel to Andy! Ellen DeGeneris weighed in last week with her plea to end bullying:
Something Must Be Done
And while I am sure that the mean-spirited among us--those who believe that sensitivity to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and other facets of human identity will not get it, someone will. It will make a difference to the kid who is awake right now in his room anguished about school in a few hours. Or to the girl who cuts herself. Andy and Ellen are right--it will get better.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Love Potion #9
Tomorrow is my ninth wedding anniversary, and God willing and the creek don't rise...we'll be around to celebrate many more in the years to come.
My husband does not read this blog, so there is no danger that he would ever find out about any gushing...he gets me. Ladies, the best man you will ever find is a man that gets you and loves you anyway. I have the worst house, barely cook anymore, and don't bring hardly a dime into this household, but he still loves me. If he ever thought the grass would be greener somewhere else, he might be right...
But he gets me. I fuss, but I let him toss his dirty socks into places that they should not go. I get annoyed, but I support his shouts at the TV during Yankee games. I do the best that I can, and so does he and together, WE keep traveling together on this road called Life.
Some of the folks around us are going through all kinds of hell and we do our best to encourage them. We don't tell others to do what we do, because what works for us probably would not work for a lot of other people. But we get by.
I had a glass of wine earlier (so I am probably sharing too much), but I am about to eat dinner that I cooked with my husband. Tomorrow, I will figure out what to do with my hair, put on some make-up, and meet him at some restaurant where he is likely to pull out a Groupon and brag about how cheap it all was. We'll enjoy a nice glass or two and probably talk about whatever. And then we'll head home still thankful that in this cruel world, we have each other.
I have been opening up about how much of a weirdo I think I am, and I guess tomorrow is affirmation that either he is also a weirdo, or maybe both of us are just fine.
My husband does not read this blog, so there is no danger that he would ever find out about any gushing...he gets me. Ladies, the best man you will ever find is a man that gets you and loves you anyway. I have the worst house, barely cook anymore, and don't bring hardly a dime into this household, but he still loves me. If he ever thought the grass would be greener somewhere else, he might be right...
But he gets me. I fuss, but I let him toss his dirty socks into places that they should not go. I get annoyed, but I support his shouts at the TV during Yankee games. I do the best that I can, and so does he and together, WE keep traveling together on this road called Life.
Some of the folks around us are going through all kinds of hell and we do our best to encourage them. We don't tell others to do what we do, because what works for us probably would not work for a lot of other people. But we get by.
I had a glass of wine earlier (so I am probably sharing too much), but I am about to eat dinner that I cooked with my husband. Tomorrow, I will figure out what to do with my hair, put on some make-up, and meet him at some restaurant where he is likely to pull out a Groupon and brag about how cheap it all was. We'll enjoy a nice glass or two and probably talk about whatever. And then we'll head home still thankful that in this cruel world, we have each other.
I have been opening up about how much of a weirdo I think I am, and I guess tomorrow is affirmation that either he is also a weirdo, or maybe both of us are just fine.
Inside the Mind
I have been thinking a lot about the Rutgers student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge a couple of weeks ago. His name was Tyler Clementi. A lot of media attention has been focused on the fact that Clementi's roommate had been secretly taping and broadcasting video of his homosexual encounters. A lot of people have focused on the role of technology, the apathy and possible culpability of the roommate...but what about the suicide?
I was thinking today about how difficult it must be for the family to understand how humiliation or embarassment led to this since there is no indication that anything else contributed to Clementi's decision to jump off that bridge. I believe the humiliation was not the catalyst, but it was the tipping point...unfortunately, no one knew how deeply hurt this kid was.
I've been there. Not suicidal, but deeply hurt enough to believe that if I just disappeared, life would go on just fine without me. I felt that way a lot in high school--the cruelest time of my life (actually, middle school was the cruelest, but I hadn't developed the ability to brood about it yet). In high school I was invisible to most of my peers. Actually, they saw me quite clearly, but they determined that I was too young, too weird, too awkward, too unattractive, too eager, too talkative, etc. to be bothered with me.
And that awkwardness followed me to college where I fell into pretty much the same pattern of disconnectedness. I made friends, but we were not close and while they were off dating, I was in my room listening to Prince and Sade. The difference about being away from home was that I did not have a family around to distract me from my peer isolation. Luckily because there is a clique for everyone in college, my loneliness was temporary and I eventually found other friends with whom I connected. But as an adult, I have had recurrent struggles with feeling alone, and I often think that people don't notice.
I feel badly for Tyler Clementi because instead of finding his niche in college, he encountered yet another predator who mocked him at his most vulnerable state. Without knowing more about him, I am sure that Clementi was bullied in high school, but because he had his music and a family to counteract the toxic deluge of teenage ridicule, he built up a fragile immunity to his pain. But once he went away to school, the protective cocoon of family was gone and he just could not see a way out other than to take his life.
What I hope will happen in the aftermath of this tragedy is that other people see and intervene before the darkness obscures the light of living. In my experience, teenage depression is written off as moodiness, but there is an intensity to the darkness that is anything but typical. Teenage angst feeds on insecurity and it is inside that darkness that a person can become vulnerable to the temptation to give up.
-----------------------------------------
As I think about the darkness that overcame Tyler Clementi, I also thought about the other relevant fact about this tragedy which is the closet. How hard must it be to live a lie because the light of the truth might place a bullseye on your back? Of course, the LGBT folks totally understand that angle of the tragedy, but how much hatred and intolerance we can accept before someone else gets killed? How many people shrugged this incident off because their belief system condones ridicule of homosexuality? I thought about the standing ovation Bishop Eddie Long received when he addressed his congregation and how his extreme stance against homosexuality was essentially defended even as he stands accused of sexual abusing young men. Or how the ridicule and harassment heaped upon another college student in Michigan gets defended as free speech by his boss. Or how a group of protesters will get to argue the indefensible act of protesting homosexuality at the funerals of American soldiers at the Supreme Court.
I am afraid that I know what was in Tyler's head when he jumped...but what about the rest of us when we do not speak up to the bullies of intolerance? Are we just watching more kids like Tyler take the plunge?
I was thinking today about how difficult it must be for the family to understand how humiliation or embarassment led to this since there is no indication that anything else contributed to Clementi's decision to jump off that bridge. I believe the humiliation was not the catalyst, but it was the tipping point...unfortunately, no one knew how deeply hurt this kid was.
I've been there. Not suicidal, but deeply hurt enough to believe that if I just disappeared, life would go on just fine without me. I felt that way a lot in high school--the cruelest time of my life (actually, middle school was the cruelest, but I hadn't developed the ability to brood about it yet). In high school I was invisible to most of my peers. Actually, they saw me quite clearly, but they determined that I was too young, too weird, too awkward, too unattractive, too eager, too talkative, etc. to be bothered with me.
And that awkwardness followed me to college where I fell into pretty much the same pattern of disconnectedness. I made friends, but we were not close and while they were off dating, I was in my room listening to Prince and Sade. The difference about being away from home was that I did not have a family around to distract me from my peer isolation. Luckily because there is a clique for everyone in college, my loneliness was temporary and I eventually found other friends with whom I connected. But as an adult, I have had recurrent struggles with feeling alone, and I often think that people don't notice.
I feel badly for Tyler Clementi because instead of finding his niche in college, he encountered yet another predator who mocked him at his most vulnerable state. Without knowing more about him, I am sure that Clementi was bullied in high school, but because he had his music and a family to counteract the toxic deluge of teenage ridicule, he built up a fragile immunity to his pain. But once he went away to school, the protective cocoon of family was gone and he just could not see a way out other than to take his life.
What I hope will happen in the aftermath of this tragedy is that other people see and intervene before the darkness obscures the light of living. In my experience, teenage depression is written off as moodiness, but there is an intensity to the darkness that is anything but typical. Teenage angst feeds on insecurity and it is inside that darkness that a person can become vulnerable to the temptation to give up.
-----------------------------------------
As I think about the darkness that overcame Tyler Clementi, I also thought about the other relevant fact about this tragedy which is the closet. How hard must it be to live a lie because the light of the truth might place a bullseye on your back? Of course, the LGBT folks totally understand that angle of the tragedy, but how much hatred and intolerance we can accept before someone else gets killed? How many people shrugged this incident off because their belief system condones ridicule of homosexuality? I thought about the standing ovation Bishop Eddie Long received when he addressed his congregation and how his extreme stance against homosexuality was essentially defended even as he stands accused of sexual abusing young men. Or how the ridicule and harassment heaped upon another college student in Michigan gets defended as free speech by his boss. Or how a group of protesters will get to argue the indefensible act of protesting homosexuality at the funerals of American soldiers at the Supreme Court.
I am afraid that I know what was in Tyler's head when he jumped...but what about the rest of us when we do not speak up to the bullies of intolerance? Are we just watching more kids like Tyler take the plunge?
Friday, October 01, 2010
Why Do Some People Have Jobs?
I just watched a video that featured an assistant attorney general in the state of Michigan who is waging a campaign against the first openly-gay student body president at the University of Michigan. This 21 year old student is the object of a blog and periodic protests in front of his home by a grown a$$ man with a law degree. The attorney claims that he is speaking out against the student's radical fascist agenda, and as an alum of UMich, he is exercising his First Amendment rights.
Anderson Cooper, who interviewed this twit, was so thoroughly annoyed by this guy that he kind of got stuck on the fact that this guy is a state employee. And after consulting with the elected Attorney General of the state, the guy won't be fired, even though his actions are clearly insane.
So that we are all clear...people who are employed by the government can say whatever they want about someone else as long as they do so on their own time. They can post inflammatory blogs and protest in front of someone's house even. OK.
Shirley Sherrod was asked to resign over a doctored video tape of her giving a speech to the NAACP on her own time, but this loser who admits that he has both set up the website and maintained a vigil of harassment against a college student, HAS A FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ENGAGE IN HATE SPEECH ON HIS OWN TIME.
Got it...
Anderson Cooper, who interviewed this twit, was so thoroughly annoyed by this guy that he kind of got stuck on the fact that this guy is a state employee. And after consulting with the elected Attorney General of the state, the guy won't be fired, even though his actions are clearly insane.
So that we are all clear...people who are employed by the government can say whatever they want about someone else as long as they do so on their own time. They can post inflammatory blogs and protest in front of someone's house even. OK.
Shirley Sherrod was asked to resign over a doctored video tape of her giving a speech to the NAACP on her own time, but this loser who admits that he has both set up the website and maintained a vigil of harassment against a college student, HAS A FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ENGAGE IN HATE SPEECH ON HIS OWN TIME.
Got it...
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