I did something this week that I almost never do. I made a donation to an organization I had never heard of, based on an appeal by a celebrity.
This is not generally how I roll.
I am a professional fundraiser. I am a sophisticated giver. I know how direct mail works. I know how online appeals work. I am strong and certain in the organizations I love and support, and the many more I love but don't support because of limited funds. I use Guidestar to monitor my causes. I believe passionately in philanthropy, and even though most of my work focuses on getting the big gift, I am a true believer in the axiom that every dime counts.
But this week, I couldn’t help myself. Tyler Clementi's tragic death has hit me to the core, and I watched a three-minute video by comedienne Kathy Griffin asking me to give to a group called The Trevor Project. She was compassionate and persuasive, and I bit.
There are so many terrible things happening in our lives today, and so many causes to support. Financial crises, poverty, earthquakes, the downfall of civil society, environmental devastation, destruction ransacking the world. The unending recession. Catastrophe everywhere you look. Politics and politicians that just seem to be making it all worse. We as a society are becoming financially and emotionally tapped out.
But then there is the story of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman, a violin player whose roommate and another accomplice decided that playing a nasty cyber trick would be a hoot.
After learning that he had been videotaped making out with a man in his room, and that the video was broadcast – LIVE – on the internet, Tyler jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
A senseless tragedy of such catastrophic proportions I can't even begin to delineate them all.
A young man, starting his life, who was either already comfortable with his sexuality or perhaps at the beginning of a personal journey, but who felt that he could not face the aftermath of being outed.
A man whose most personal, intimate moments were broadcast for all to see, and, because he was so young, he could not understand that there would be a time when no one would remember this stupid incident.
Two fellow students, who were so callow and insensitive that they thought using technology in such a soul-crushing, heinous manner would be a funny joke.
And now, the aftermath. A family who has lost a child. Two other families whose children may go to jail and who will suffer the consequences of their actions for the rest of their lives. Yet another campus which has a hole in its heart from the loss of a student.
Incalculable.
I have spent much of this week thinking about this story. We have not yet discussed it with our kids, although I plan to do so the next time we are all sitting around the dinner table together. I think it is our responsibility to raise these issues when they are all over the news, and all over Facebook, so that our kids hear our analyses and our thoughts about them.
And so that our kids, whatever choices they make as they grow up, know that we love them and support them and that there is a place for them in the world.
I have a friend who just took her 15 year old daughter to see "Hair." I remember being 15, and the movie "Hair" had just been released, and how terrified I was that the draft might be reinstated and that I would have friends who would go to war. It was the first time I remember realizing that world events could have a personal impact on me. It wasn't long after that I began to think and rally and write about feminism and abortion rights and big political issues that indeed, have a personal impact on me.
Today, as a parent of a 15 year old, I am certain that he is starting to think these same thoughts, especially given how much more news and information he is exposed to on Facebook and other social media networks than I was at his age. He may not read the newspaper, but he hears the news.
I want him to know that I hear the news too. And that I am aware of the terrible things that happen in the world. And that he will always have a safe home and harbor in which to explore his own identity and his own politics and his own choices.
As a parent, I am in mourning over Tyler Clementi's death – it has pierced my heart. It could have been my child at the receiving end of that cyber-bullying. Or perhaps even worse, at the instigating end.
And it could be me awash in grief, wondering what would compel my beloved child to take his own life off a bridge when there was so much more waiting for him down the road.
The Trevor Project is a national 24-hour, toll-free, confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth. I hope that my small donation can make a difference in the life of child who may be considering ending his or her own life.
And I hope that the publicity this story is receiving, and the shock and outrage it is generating will move our society a little closer to being more accepting, more inclusive and more loving. And that young people will be a little more aware of the potential devastating effects of viral media and thoughtless toying with technology.
The Trevor Project. Give as though your life depends upon it.
Karen,
I, too, have spent much of the last week or so thinking about this story, and the many similar stories of bullying and discrimination against gay children. I haven't discussed it with my children who really are too little to grasp this, although I did start the beginnings of a conversation with my almost 7-year-old daughter this week about not being a "bystander" when other kids are being bullied. Not sure where it's going, though. Thank you for taking action and writing this piece.
Posted by: Stacy | Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 01:30 PM