Via Gareth Higgins at Huffington Post:
Of course I never knew Tyler Clementi, the young Rutgers student who took his own life last month in a tragedy so unfathomably horrific that it doesn't permit adequate attempts at description. The story that has emerged so far is that Tyler was enjoying a romantic moment with another guy, while his roommate secretly streamed the encounter live on the internet. Shortly after Tyler found out, he jumped off a bridge.
Of course I never knew him, but his story demands a deeper listening than has yet been promoted or presented by our culture's spokespeople. This is not just a story about one man and two acquaintances whose idiotic prank appears to have caused such fear of exposure that Tyler felt he had to kill himself. It's a story about all of us. And we all need to listen to it.
On the basis of what we know thus far, I think we can guess this: Tyler Clementi died as a direct result of a culture of sexual shame in which institutionalized religion is the major investor. I am angry, and I am going to say something harsh and direct, but I am willing to take responsibility for it. Please feel free to respond if you wish.
If you have ever affirmed homophobia by not intervening to challenge the snide remarks that all of us have heard, you may be part of the reason that Tyler Clementi is dead. And most of the time, I myself have not intervened.
If you have ever used us-and-them language to divide sets of people into "normative" heterosexual cultures and "others," you may be part of the reason Tyler Clementi is dead. I spoke of "us" and "them" for most of my life until a friend challenged me; I still find myself slipping into old rhetorical habits, for our culture is so deeply wedded to the myth that our identities depend on dividing and conquering.
If you have ever disrespected, dehumanized, or belittled a person because of his or her sexuality, you may be part of the reason Tyler Clementi is dead.
I think I am part of the reason that Tyler Clementi is dead...
Well, I am tired of the excuses we make for our prejudice and the disguises we put on our repression.
I am tired of saying, "We need to have a conversation," and then not having it.
I am tired of sexuality being reduced in religious practice to shibboleths about homosexuality and adultery.
I am tired of pretending that our bodies are not part of the selves we talk about when we seek to become more human through opening to God.
I am tired of the misplaced shame I feel sometimes when I think about my own sexuality, my desires, my mistakes, my brokenness, the memories I have of humiliation in adolescence and beyond.
I am tired of not feeling free to discuss sexuality in church as anything other than a problem...
It is a story about our complicity in this bad religion, and in these distortions.
It's a story about the end of privacy in the internet age, which could be a good thing, because we may now finally be compelled to tell the truth about ourselves: that we are broken and beautiful at the same time, and that none of us is fully who we claim to be. We are stumbling pilgrims trying to figure out what it means to be human. And if I tell you the truth about me, then maybe you might feel safer to tell me the truth about you...
Like I said, I am angry today, and so I apologize if I have gone too far. Or, actually, perhaps I'm not sorry at all. Maybe I'm going to get angrier. Maybe I need to. I certainly need not to forget Tyler Clementi, a young man who died because our culture made him ashamed.
I'm sorry, Tyler. I wish I'd known you. I'm sorry that I have been part of the reason you were humiliated. I am sorry that I have been so divided within myself that even though I know what it's like to experience sexual humiliation, I held onto my own homophobia because it felt safer and more known. I owe something to you. I owe it to you to be honest about myself, to stop dehumanizing others, and to do everything I can to make sure that your place in history is simple and clear: that you would be the last.
4 comments:
I think Tyler was already at the edge when those two idiots pushed him over it. It's sickening what they did, but I don't see any anti-gay bias in it; just a complete lack of empathy or concern for the consequences of their actions. I could just as easily see them doing it if Tyler had brought a girl into the room...albeit probably not with the same results.
Which begs the question -- what put Tyler at that edge? It WAS the brutality of the anti-gay screamers who denigrate gay men and women. It WAS the Talibangelicals who called for us to be cut off from society. It WAS the pandering nastiness of right-wing politicians out to curry favor with those devils they felt needed to be controlled. It was ALSO the silence of otherwise good men and women, who let them not only do it but sometimes even get away with murder.
It's not easy to fight against fools who deliberately keep themselves ignorant, but you still have to, if only to keep them from gaining the power to make their hate into law. That's the only reason I'm voting, this year; I despise the Democrats...but the GOP and the hatred they allow terrifies me. If they get into power, we'll have hundreds more Tyler Clementis.
I agree and disagree, Kyle. I don't think (though there is no way of knowing) that if Tyler had brought in a girl, the same thing would have happened - at least not the end result, but I also wonder when gay people are so much more visible knowadays WHY the George Washington bridge was seen as Tyler's only option. I doubt Tyler was so oblivious to the world and the battle for gay rights going on around him, unless his parents had instilled some sort of shame to begin with.
It's the same for Raymond Chase, the Rhode Island student who killed himself: when I was in college it was 1994 and I didn't know any gay people in my school, but I knew where the gay bar was in town and I knew I could go across town to UK and find a gay student group. I knew I could make a connection, so that was enough to make me feel not alone.
Why when both schools have or probably have gay student groups - why suicide would still be an option?
JP, Stan and I believe we will need to get much angrier before this problem gets better. It is an issue will will have to force down reluctant throats. Our chosen family almost exclusively works in education and believe me there are more problems that we could think of answers for. Our society's views have to change on many issues before this kind of thing will stop. Even if we did get it to stop against GLBTQ people now, those same people would simply direct the hatred toward others.
On a side note JP, I think you are being a little hard on yourself. No human being can be perfect or expect themselves to do the right thing all the time. Try to do what you can when you can, but don't harbor guilt or start assigning blame to yourself for the trappings our society has built. Cultural war is insane. It is messy and unfair.
Try not to stay in the place you are in too long. Our adversaries would like that too much. We need you in play, in the fight. In my book that honors our thousands of fallen each year, more than anything else can.
(Second) Kyle, I don't think I'm being too hard. I simply don't like this feeling of hands being tied - as though there is nothing I can really do.
But you are right: it sickens me that the desire to make someone feel worthless travels. There always seems to be an us and a them. But if we see that we are all in the same boat together, this would not be possible. And truly it stems from the aggressors' feelings of their own worthlessness.
Hugs to you and Stan. :)
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