As a parent you look forward to the day your child grows up and goes away to college. You help pack them up, move them to the dorm, and tell them you love them and that this is one of the best times of their life. As a parent you worry about whether they will eat right, will they get enough sleep, will they remember to go to class, will they make friends, will they remember to do their laundry, will they be safe. You worry about their safety late at night, walking by themselves, going places with people they just met. One thing you don't think you need to talk about is bullying. I mean really - you figure all of that is left behind at the grade/middle/high school. But bullies go to college too - and these days the way they bully is hi-tech.
I am sure this is what Tyler Clementi's parents thought as they dropped their son of at his dorm at Rutgers. He was going to a well known college - going to enjoy all the experiences of dorm life. That's where the story takes a drastic turn. If you've been reading the papers or listening to the news you have heard the tragic story of how Tyler's roommate decided to transmit a live web feed out to the Internet of Tyler and another boy in Tyler's dorm room. Not being able to deal with what had happened Tyler took his own life.
This story has struck a chord with many people across the United States. You don't think about the possibility of your child committing suicide when you send them off to college.
Besides the senseless death of a young man, you know what pisses me off about this case - All the people coming to the defense of the roommate who secretly filmed Tyler and webcast it out to anyone who wanted to watch - "he's a good kid" "he made a mistake" "it was an innocent prank" "he didn't know this would happen" Shouldn't he have to take some responsibility for what happened? When someone accidentally hits a person in their car because they were texting they can be charged with manslaughter - I'm sure the driver didn't know that glancing down to read a message would end up killing another person - but they are held responsible for what happened. In this case - the "car" was the webcam and the "texting" was sending it out over the web. No matter how he thought this was going to end he should still be held responsible for how it did.
I heard some people say that all the responsibility is on Tyler. That he made the choice to end his life. That it was just a prank and he should have been able to deal with it. My belief is that these people were either bullies themselves or they never experienced being bullied. These people never felt helplessness, unable to change anything, that their life was not worth living. Sometimes you just get to a point where you can't handle it anymore. Was this the one and only thing that made Tyler end his life - or was this the straw that broke the camels back? Had his roommate being harassing him about being gay before the webcast - had he been bullied all his life. We will never know.
What I do know is that there have been too many teen suicides because of bullying. When are we as a society going to say enough is enough? When are we going to stand up for these victims? I get so mad when I hear people say "oh, kids will be kids" "they are good kids and good students" "It's just teasing and the victims should just ignore it" Yeah - I have never heard of a bully stopping what he/she was doing because their intended victim ignored them.
Until we as a society stand up and say that this behavior will not be tolerated - Until parents stop making excuses for their kids and start making them take responsibility for their actions - there are going to be more suicides.
De
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