Imagine the terror of a mother frantically trying to cut down her child seconds after finding him hanging from an extension cord in his bedroom. Picture the trauma of a 10-year-old girl desperately trying to hold up her older brother after finding him hanging from a noose in an upstairs closet.
These tragic scenes unfolded in the past several weeks as two beautiful 11-year-old black boys, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, Massachusetts and Jaheem Herrera of DeKalb, Georgia, chose to end their lives rather than endure another day of being bullied in their schools.
According to reports, the parents of both children had repeatedly warned school officials about the daily torment and torture that their children were subjected to during school. However, neither parents nor educators were able to intervene in time.
While most acts of bullying do not lead to traumatic acts of suicide, bullying happens to young people all the time. Studies indicate that 65% of teens have been verbally or physically harassed or assaulted during the past year. 39% of teens report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their physical appearance and another 33% report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation.
But why are our kids killing themselves? Is there something different about bullying today that makes facing the daily onslaught more painful than life itself for some of our youth? Questions like these beckon to adults reeling from the shock of these events, in part because many think that that bullying is just a part of life--something that everyone has to deal with when they are growing up. Many adults are also puzzled by the impact of bullying on children who are targeted as "gay" because they assume that being gay, lesbian, and or bi-sexual is more acceptable today than in the past.
The truth is that while being gay or bi-sexual has become more public on television, it has not become more popular. The recent "That's So Gay " campaign by the Ad Council and GLESEN point out how the word "gay" has become euphemism for everything that is bad for many kids.
Consequently, while being gay may be considered more acceptable among certain circles, this is not the case for young kids, and it is definitely not the case among African Americans. Even in 2009, it is virtually impossible to point to any openly gay figures in the black community. In Black America, there are no television shows like " Will & Grace", movies like "Broke Back Mountain", political commentators like Rachel Maddow, TV hosts like Ellen DeGeneres, or comedians like Rosie O'Donnell. The fact is that being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is still highly stigmatized among African Americans.
If two black boys had committed suicide after being taunted and tormented by white children calling them niggers, black leaders across the country would be decrying these events and demanding that action be taken. However, because these boys were called words like "gay", and "fag", such incidents have not been elevated to the status of a "black issue".
Clearly, boys are not the only victims of bullying behavior; however, the recent deaths of Carl and Raheem point to two reasons why focusing on the effects of bulling on boys in general, and boys of color in particular, may be important as we try to address this problem. First, boys, like men, are socialized to deal with their emotions in ways that put themselves and others at risk. Not only does the pain of bullying potentially turn inward and lead to acts of suicide as in the case of Carl and Jaheem; for boys, such despair can also turn outward and lead to homicide as in the case of Columbine.
Second, while boys in general are raised to believe that "actions speak louder than words" and discouraged from using language and emotional literacy to deal with problems, African American and Latino boys are also targeted by a culture that says that speaking up in the face of abuse is less "manly." A culture that extols "no homo" and "no snitching" paralyzes many black and brown boys from speaking out against injustice and identifying with the pain and suffering of others. This was the case with Raheem, who according to his step-father was consistently called gay and a snitch.
When rapper Cam'ron said publicly that he would "not snitch" on a serial killer living in his neighborhood because of some "code of ethics" he was popularizing a culture that makes it very difficult to raise boys to stand up for social justice. Bullying behavior will never be stopped if no one is willing speak up for the victims.
So what is to be done?
First, parents and educators need to know the warning signs. If a child appears sad, moody, or is depressed when he or she comes home, if the child has few friends that he or she spends time with, or if he or she appears anxious and suffers from low self-esteem then parents should not assume that these behaviors are just kids being lazy, disinterested, or a "natural" part of growing up.
Second, educators need skills that allow them to effectively and ethically intervene when bullying occurs. Teachers can not assume that kids are just "horsing around" or that "boys will be boys" when they see kids interacting in ways that are inappropriate. Most importantly, teachers should include gay, bi-sexual, queer, and/or transgender issues and people in their curriculum. All students, and especially African American students, need to learn that American history and life would not be complete without the contributions of men and women that were gay and/or bi-sexual like Bayard Rustin, Audre Lourde, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and a host of others.
Finally, students need to understand their role in stopping bullying behavior. Bullying does not happen in isolation and, while we typically focus on the bully or the victim, most students are neither, but rather are bystanders who witness bullying behavior but do not intervene. The key is to get more get kids to become interveners, those students who stop bullying when it happens.
We can do this if we believe that bullying is an issue worth dealing with.
With all the talk about torture in the headlines today, we can only hope that our leaders begin to understand that bullying is similar to waterboarding--and that many of our kids are subjected to it daily. If we do not pay attention to this reality, we will see more kids take their own lives, and the lives of others as well.
Jewel Woods is the Executive Director of the Renaissance Male Project, a non-profit organization that works with schools to eliminate bullying behavior. Shawna Renee is the host of XM Radio Show Coco Mode.