We’re all complicit

By: centraljersey.com
I didn’t know Tyler Clementi.
But like many people – not just here in central New Jersey, but across the nation – I was horrified by the tragic turn his life took at a time when he was beginning to build his future as an adult.
The teen, who jumped from the George Washington Bridge last month after a roommate at Rutgers University and another student allegedly videotaped him having sex and then broadcast it on YouTube, has become the subject of a national debate on bullying and the potentially invasive nature of the technology we take for granted.
The New York Times, in its Week In Review section on Sunday, said the Ridgewood native "may have died from exposure in cyberspace" – a neat play on words, but one that fails to get at the real contours of this tragic story.
Tragic is an overused adjective, too often used to mean sad or terrible. In this case, however, the use of the word reaches beyond these rather mundane meanings to get at something deeper – a societal flaw that has led three lives to be ruined and three families to be terribly broken. Tragedy, in the Aristotelian sense, is not accidental but based on human flaws and human agency.
In this case, the tragedy unfolds because we live in a society in which sex is public but somehow stigmatized, in which gay sex remains taboo and in which gays and lesbians remain second-class citizens.
This collided, in this case, with expanding reach but still limited understanding of technology to set this awful story in motion.
Let me be clear: Suicide, ultimately, is a personal act and Tyler took his own life and ultimately has to be held responsible for that choice. But Dharun Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, and Molly W. Wei, also 18, of West Windsor, the pair charged with violating Tyler’s privacy and who still may face bias charges, were (if the charges are true) complicit in Tyler’s death. They may not have pushed him from the bridge, but they shoved him in that direction.
And we are complicit, as well, because we continue to refuse to treat lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgendered as full citizens in our democracy.
In most states, including New Jersey, gays and lesbians are denied the right to marry, though in many they have access to a wholly separate and ultimately unequal alternative.
And while gays and lesbians are allowed to serve in the military, they cannot do so openly; they must remain in the closet or fear court martial, because their sexual identities are considered under law to be disruptive to military order. That means gay and lesbian troops are left with an untenable choice: Lie about their sexuality (lying is a violation of the military honor code) or come out and be in violation of the "don’t ask, don’t tell." That gays and lesbians are forced into this choice makes them less than full participants in the military, leaves them looking over their shoulders and waiting for someone to out them.
And we still have politicians who vilify gays and lesbians at every turn – U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said this week that openly gay teachers should not be allowed in the classroom, and the bulk of conservative Senate candidates have proposed a range of regressive, anti-gay bills, including a national constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.
This is the atmosphere in which the accused students conducted themselves (again, assuming that the charges are true). When you systematically and publicly deny equal citizenship to a class of people – in this case, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered – and a significant portion of your political culture believes it is OK to publicly denigrate that class, you create a situation in which that class can be targeted, in which the privacy of that class’s members is of no consequence.
Our unwillingness to grant LGBTs full rights is a societal/cultural admission that we think of them as less worthy than the rest of us. It allows the stigma to remain in place and allows the hate to continue to flow.
Tyler Clementi committed suicide; it was his decision, in the end, to take his life. If these charges are true, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei’s decision to videotape him and post it to the Web appears to have been the catalyst.
But we are lying to ourselves if we believe we bear no responsibility. We are complicit, each and every one of us.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post. E-mail, [email protected]www.kaletblog.comfacebook.com/hank.kalet.