In one of the cases, a 13 year old boy in Texas told his father that morning that he was gay after enduring torture at school not only this year but previous years as well. His father, without a lot of time to react or talk to him, dropped him at school and said we can talk tonight, unfortunately that did not happen. After school the young boy went home and used his fathers gun to shoot himself in the head, he died instantly. The worst part about this story is the family had called the school, spoke to the deans, and had meetings about the constant bullying and after this tragic incident the school is now denying that they ever met! it is truly the most heart breaking story.
After this was reported 2 other teenage boys killed themselves over bullying at school for being gay. A freshman at Rutgers college, Tyler Clementi 18, jumped off the George Washington Bridge on September 22 after his roommate video taped him and broad casted on the Internet Clementi with another guy. Clementi last updated his facebook with a status that said "Jumping off the GW bridge. Sorry". Later that evening 2 people called into the police saying they say someone or something fall off the bridge. Clementi's wallet and car were both recovered on the bridge and a body was found early yesterday in the Hudson river which is thought to be Clementi's.
This situations are so disturbing and upsetting. Many celebrities have reached out and made video posts, wrote on their blogs, and called into radio and news stations urging people to talk to their friends, siblings, family, and professionals if they have feelings of not being accepted or are having feelings of suicide. I think it is really important that public figures are speaking out about something so terrible and bringing attention to accepting others. These stories really got to me and upset me, people so young are taking their own lives when situations like this can be avoided. People all over the world are being bullied constantly and authority figures do not take notice. This is a huge topic that needs to be payed attention too. Hopefully in the future, the near future, people will learn from this and speak out and up if they are being bullied, and hopefully people will be listening!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3159538/Taped-sex-teen-jumps-to-death.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail?entry_id=73326
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1649101/20100930/story.jhtml
UPdate: It has now been confirmed that a 5 boy has commit suicide due to bullying. 3 in one week and 5 in 3 weeks is in no way okay. we need to put a stop to this!!!!
http://perezhilton.com/2010-09-30-suicide_crisis_in_america
Anna , I'm really glad to see you feeling so passionately about this. it's great to be having such a strong reaction to the news. But in the future, I want you to spend more time deconstructing what the journalists are doing to give this reaction and less time on the reaction itself. Actually you don't need to spend less time on the reactions - you just need to include the other!
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