Rebecca Harrelson
10/10/10
10:34 pm
Seth Walsh who was 13 years old committed suicide on September 19th, by shooting himself in the head, he died after ten days on life support. On September 9th Billy Lucas's mom found her son, who had hung himself in their barn, he was only 15 years old. An eight grader, Asher Brown, who was only 13 years old shot himself on September 23. Tyler Clementi who was 18 years old and a freshman at Rutgers University committed suicide September 19th after his roommate and a "friend" allegedly filmed his sexual relationship with another man. Then they proceeded to stream it live on the Internet. Tyler Clementi's last status update on Facebook stated "Jumping off the gw bridge. Sorry"
More than 85 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students report being harassed because of their sexual or gender identity, and more then 20 percent report being physically attacked. About a year ago President Barack Obama signed a hate crime law, known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act. After learning of the overwhelming lives taken in September, Ellen Degeneres spoke on her show about all four of the victims. She said "One life lost in this senseless way is tragic. Four lives lost is a crisis."
Which got me thinking to a large question we have gone over many times in our class. What makes something a social problem? A textbook definition of a social problem would be that social issues are matters which directly or indirectly affect many or all members of a society. They are considered to be problems, and controversies related to moral values, or both. If you ask me these hate crimes and all the lives taken because of hate crimes, are social problems or as Ellen put it, a crisis. At the end of Ellen's speech she says something that I will never forget, something that made me realize there are things out of our control, but even when we have control over something this important we as a society have dropped the ball. Ellen gives hope to all of society, whether they are gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual by saying, "things will get easier, people's mind will change, and you, should be alive to see it." My heart goes out to all the victims families, and to anyone who feels like suicide is their only way "out." This solvable problem will not get any better until society has the will to solve it.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/01/2010-10-01_tyler_clementi_video_by_ellen_degeneres_speaks_out_against_teeny_bullying_alongs.html
2 comments:
I couldn't agree more that this is a social problem and a crisis. Also it looks hopeful that a larger social movement and some real change will happen as a result of these suicides. As I read somewhere "Closets are for clothes, not people." I agree that things will change and we will look back on this as we do now the civil rights movement. Our children will want to know where we stood on the issue and what we did to help everyone receive equal treatment in the world.
This makes me sad. People are entitled to their own opinions on gay and lesbian relationships, but whether you support it or not, it is wrong to harass these people. No one should have to endure that kind of guilt and humiliation.
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