Before 15-year-old Ottawa student Jamie Hubley committed suicide Oct. 14, he documented his torment on the Internet.
"I hate being the only open gay guy in my school ... It f--ing sucks, I really want to end it," he wrote.
According to a story in The Ottawa Citizen:
"Even though he was feeling down all the time, he always made everybody else feel better," [close friend Steph Wheeler] said.
A gifted actor and singer -- he loved Lady Gaga, Adele and Katy Perry, and posted numerous videos of himself singing on his personal YouTube channel -- Jamie wrote a month ago that he was looking forward to taking dance lessons this winter.
"Something to look forward to," he wrote.
But he also wrote of his sadness and despair, about being called a "fag."
In a post three weeks ago, he said he was depressed, that medications he was taking weren't working, and that being gay in high school was so hard -- a thousand times harder in real life than on the popular television show, Glee, which he loved.
I am so fed up with writing the same story -- over and over and over again. This madness has to stop, and the first way we decrease these tragedies is to stop minimizing the torment and harassment by reducing it to mere bullying.
These kids are not getting bullied; they are getting mugged. The schools where these kids go are not places of education but cages where students are psychologically and physically tortured. What they endure is "bullying" in the same way dropping a mouse into a snake tank is mere "bullying." What many of these helpless students put up with is more like The Wire or Oz than a legitimate learning environment.
If the same violent incidents occurred on the subway or at the grocery store, they would be considered mugging, and the perpetrator would be arrested for assault. But if these criminal acts happen in the prison yard -- um, I mean schoolyard -- they are dismissed as bullying.
The dirty little secret is that the majority of the teachers know exactly what is going on. They know who the thugs are. They know who the victims are. Yet they often do nothing and sometimes contribute to the terror -- particularly if they are anti-gay. Many teachers also want to be seen as cool, so they cozy up to the popular jocks who often lead the daily assaults.
I frequently hear that we cannot stop bullying/mugging. What a load of nonsense. We can significantly reduce it by holding teachers and administrators responsible for their actions. If a teacher is aware of a campus mugging or abets the crime, he or she should be immediately suspended without pay for a month. If the infraction occurs a second time, the teacher should be suspended for an entire year. A third violation would lead to termination. The same criteria would apply to district administrators.
Efforts at stopping school muggings must specifically include LGBT students, because they are the most prolific targets. The Southern Poverty Law Center analyzed 14 years of federal hate crime data and found that homosexuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States.
A 2005 survey by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) showed that 61 percent of school bullying was based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The only job of schools is to educate young people, and anyone who is being mugged on a daily basis or has to think about being verbally and physically assaulted cannot get a proper education.
Think about how you would perform at work if you knew that every time you entered the office a co-worker would demean, spit on or punch you. Do you really think you could excel -- or would a disproportionate amount of your energy focus on fending off or eluding your would-be attackers?
We can stop much of the anti-LGBT violence today if we really wanted to. All we have to do is make it known to the muggers and their adult enablers in the classroom that there will be consequences for both violent action and inaction.
The media should also ask tough questions of so-called "pro-family" groups that do everything in their sinister power to block efforts to curtail these muggings -- all in the name of religion. Why doesn't the media ask, "How can you say you are pro-life when the policies you promote lead to LGBT teen suicide?"
Something has to be done. We can no longer allow beautiful young LGBT people to take their lives. We also can no longer take part in the charade where those who aided and abetted such crimes are allowed to throw up their hands and disingenuously ask, "How did this happen?"
We know damn well how it happened, and we know how to stop it. What we need is the will to stand up to the muggers and their moralizing lobbyists.
Follow Wayne Besen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Truthwinsout
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My partner is a teacher in a local high school. He tells me that most of the bullying happens out-of-sight of teachers. When teachers do see it, whether they report it or not depends largely on the attitude of the administration - if the teacher thinks the incident will be treated seriously, they will report it; if not, they say "why bother". Let's not blame teachers for failure to report bullying until we understand the environment in which they work; perhaps what's needed is for the administrators to show that they will TAKE ACTION against the bully - that will encourage teachers to be as vigilant as they can be.
Also - when you say that kids aren't being bullied, they're being mugged, you seem to imply that all bullying is physical. That's not true - should we arrest a kid for calling someone names? For posting something negative on someone's Facebook page? While these are certainly bullying (and very wrong) they are not illegal or criminal.
Countering bullying in our schools is going to require a more comprehensive approach than "throw them all in jail". Of course any physical beatings should be treated as criminal; but we also need to work to create an environment where verbal and cyber-bullying is unacceptable as well.
I also think that parents have to take a stronger position in this regard. The incident gets reported to the school and they are offered a chance to solve the problem. If they are unhappy with the response, then the next move should be to report it to the police. And then parents need to consider getting restraining orders against these bullies. Take the power out of the schools hands, out of the bullies hands and back into our own.
Good golly, Miss Molly!!! Your article makes a lot of good sense, but just remember that the law must protect all citizens equally, not just LGBT ones. The statement above is the weak part of your argument. Equality before the law is a benchmark of a fair society.
Now tell again how a rule/policy, etc doesn't need to include specific language?
The main reason these students don't get as much attention is A) they are 1/100 not 1/10, B) frequently they don't know said bullying is going on (sort of if a tree falls in the forest situation), and C) when they do react they often react externally by going after the bully rather than reacting internally by going after themselves (which of course means they are blamed for everything, but that was another matter entirely).
Now he was giving a carte blance to any and all students wishing to torture me and I was also gay(this was in the 1970's).....so he actually contributed to the bullying problem. Luckily I am a fighter and survived both his immature ignorance as well as my classmate's attacks that he empowered.
I find your analysis flawed.....My senior year I got him back just three days before graduation......his first name was Vito......so I addressed him as such, loudly in front of the entire class. He beat the pulp out of me and threw me against the blackboard where my back was hurt against the chalk holder.
He should have been fired and charged for assaulting me.
You need to rethink your post.......from the 8th grade to the 12th grade this teacher saw to it that I was humiliated. I had him for Earth Science, College Prep Microbiology and homeroom teacher....he took advantage of a vulnerable kid.
To think that teachers are NEVER wrong OR contribute to the problem is both naive and adding to the bullying dilema...wake up and smell the coffee!!!!!
My issue is with the assumption that we can fix these problems by focusing on discipline of teachers and administrators. If a teacher is ignoring harassment, there has to be a place in school where students can go and get relief....The student has to know to whom he can go, and when he goes, things have to get better. And that requires more systemic reform that simply trying to go after a teacher who is alleged to have caused the harassment through neglect.
Count me as thoroughly sick of and disgusted with comments that begin with "bullying is a terrible thing BUT". The butts come out of the woodwork in discussions like this.