Since Halloween is a day when the dead walk the earth and we strive to pay them due honor and respect (or should) I want to say something about one kid who left this world far too quickly, and while here got little respect in life. His name was Jamey Roddermeyer, from Buffalo New York. He was bullied mercilessly by classmates, because he was supposedly a homosexual. Watch this video he made for the It Gets Better Project shortly before he died.
Notice the level of discomfort he betrays when talking about the level of support he had received from the homosexual community, and from strangers, which he says he knows "sounds creepy" as though he is trying to shrug off the germs. This happens at just after the 1:40 mark of this 2:05 minute video. In another part he inadvertently lowers his voice a slight degree as he glances around nervously, apparently at his bedroom door.
If this kid was a homosexual, then he was sick, in my opinion, in the throes of a delusion. So why in the hell harass him? Would you harass somebody that had cancer?
Of course, I'm wasting my time explaining this to heterosexual bullies, because 1, they don't give a damn, and 2, they don't give a damn. But its incumbent on parents and teachers to understand this phenomenon, and try to get some kind of control over it. After all, not all kids who are bullied are gay (not that it would make it all right if that was the case). Just recently, there was a young kid in Covington Kentucky who, like Jamey, committed suicide because he was constantly bullied. Yet, there was no indication at all that he was gay. He was Sam Denham a nice kid who just wanted to be friends with people and help those who needed help.
A sign of weakness to bullies, and probably to most kids. And there's the rub. Until we understand what causes bullying, it will not get better. This is a primal urge with roots back in prehistory, when the weak were outcast and even destroyed, or made completely subservient to the will of the strong. Bullying is just an outgrowth of that, and it was and is based on an unconscious drive aimed at strengthening the species. This is why a sick animal will be left behind by the herd, even its immediate family. While healthy enough to travel with the herd, they serve the function of being the prey to an attacking predator and thus enabling the others to escape with their hides intact. When they get too weak, or old, to keep up, then they no longer fulfill this function. In fact, they become a hindrance.
So when kids fight, or when they brutalize a smaller, weaker child, they are following the same pattern of asserting their authority, manhood, or worth to the tribe as two buck deers when they lock horns. The bullied kid is worth nothing more, and as a result has no self-worth.
There are ways of dealing with this, by sublimation, and in previous years sports provided a vital outlet. Now, however, in many schools, sports are frowned upon, at least in more "progressive" districts, discouraged by those who don't want to see any child excel or stand out above his or her peers. This mindset, while not prevalent in sports in most schools, yet, still rears its ugly head in other areas of public school, even in the grading system in many cases, while kids are hammered constantly with the demands that they treat all minority groups with a kind of respect that nearly amounts to deference. We are not allowed to express certain aspects of cultural pride in our own European ethnicity, or increasingly even pride as Americans. Yet, such ethnic and cultural and even religious pride is not only encouraged among minority children, it is expected, all but demanded of them.
Is it any wonder then that bullying, aggression, and hostility, having fewer and fewer outlets provided it for positive manifestation, has instead metastasized? And in the meantime, we as a society are encouraged to be supportive of homosexual behavior, which not too long ago was seen by mental health professionals as a sickness and a delusion (rightly in my opinion), to the extent that it almost seems as though homosexual activists are actually trolling public schools for naive, insecure boys and girls to indoctrinate, if you will. As such, homosexuals, in and out of the school yard, seem to be growing into more and more of a protected class status. And the more misguided educators and other adults encourage them to "come out", the more of a target they become.
Ironically, though I concede I might be wrong, I don't think Jamey was a homosexual. He might have been, he might not have been. He might have just been a weak, insecure kid going through puberty and not knowing how to deal with his feelings and the hormones raging through him. On the one hand, not having any "guy friends", only girlfriends, and facing constant bullying and harassment. Maybe he was nothing more than an effeminate boy who made an easy target.
For whatever reason, he reached out, and found aid and support from the homosexual community, and I'm sure he was quite popular. He received tons of support and encouragement from homosexuals and their supporters in the greater community, and seemed to have a supportive family as well.
Yet, he killed himself. How, I am not clear, though he was found in his family's front yard. Assuming he did really kill himself purposely, and not through an accidental overdose in a desperate attempt at self-medication, the question remains, why?
This is why I am personally convinced that he was not really a homosexual, he was just going through a great deal of confusion. Unfortunately he had no one to whom he could turn to, no one he could trust. On the one hand he was bullied by people who hated homosexuals, while on the other he was pressured to be a homosexual by gay activists and their supporters, in school and out. He had no choice in the matter, it seems, but to accept the fact that he was a homosexual. And at his age, that was a choice he not only didn't feel comfortable making, it was one he didn't have to make. Not at the age of fourteen.
Yes, he killed himself, but he had all kinds of help getting to that decision, from both sides of the issue, and no reason to not go through with it, from his perspective. After all, he wasn't just some messed up kid in desperate need of acceptance, love, and help. He was far more important than that. He was a symbol, and he was made to know that he had a responsibility, one that was greater than the feelings and insecurities of a fourteen year old boy.
He owed it to some obscene movement to speak for all of them, and to be out and proud. In the meantime, the bullies on one side of the issue hated him, and many other bullies from the other side of the issue wanted to go down on him. And the responsible adults in his life either didn't know the right way to deal with it, or in the case of the educators in his life, were hamstrung by political correctness if they cared at all.
You all helped kill this kid. Yay, good job douchebags.
