If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Gupta's supporters will say he took on the government because he was convinced of his own innocence. As was Ravi. But was it a conviction born out of a sense of his own innocence or a hubris born out of wealth and privilege?
The trial court's unjustifiably lenient sentence for Dharun Ravi has shocked the public's conscience.
Ravi's Twitter posts, webcam spying, and homophobic attitude were stigmatizing, and it is possible that these pushed Clementi to a tipping point. But Clementi's suicide did not happen in a bubble with only him and Ravi; it took place in a society in which homophobia is still rampant.
There has been much talk about a potential backlash against President Barack Obama for his endorsement of gay marriage. But we also can't discount the possibility of what I call "whiplash" -- which is the president's support causing many people to fundamentally rethink this issue.
Dharun Ravi finally wept. But it had nothing to do with Tyler Clementi, his former roommate who jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
While Ravi must take responsibility for his actions, we are all accountable, not just him. Punishing one dumb kid for failing to rein in his dark side primarily serves to make us feel better when it shouldn't, to shift the burden of responsibility to anyone but ourselves.
No jail term, community service or public outrage will ever rid the world of bullying and homophobia -- only you can.
Central to the Clementi tragedy is the encounter between a straight immigrant student and a gay American, abandoned to the perils of freshman coexistence without proper preparation for either of them.
Dharun does not deserve to be sentenced so harshly... We have lost one child, Clementi, let us not lose another, Dharun.
We know 20/20 has a mixed history on LGBT issues, but in this case, Chris Cuomo simply gave Ravi a free ride without any challenges to what seemed like a "too little too late" set of rationalizations for his actions.
The sad account of Tyler Clementi's short time at Rutgers exposes a deficit that feels like a missed opportunity: direct conversation. To me there seemed to be an alarming lack of simple human interaction around him in his final days.
It was about mocking Tyler for being gay. That is bias, and it's part of the hate we all grow up with in a society that hates gays. The crime Ravi committed should not be punished severely or with deportation, but any way you slice it, it was motivated by that bias we all share.
No jury that thought long and hard about the case could have returned with any other verdict. It is not the jury's job to think about sentencing or punishment. It is it's job to follow the law.
With the jury's guilty verdict in the so-called Rutgers University webcam spying case, Ravi, it appears, has been turned into the proverbial sacrificial lamb for society's collective guilt about its own bias intimidation against homosexuals.
Maybe it helps to make sense of Clementi's death by creating a narrative, a cause and effect. Maybe it helps to make sense of Clementi's death by fabricating a villian. But incarcerating and/or deporting Ravi only compounds this tragedy.
Just yesterday, a New Jersey jury found the spying by Dharun Ravi of Tyler Clementi a hate crime. Many feel this will be a message to youth about how ...
