As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi was outed on the Internet, leading him to jump off the George Washington Bridge to his death. What I didn’t explain, though, were the details of how he was outed.
Not that you need me to explain, as it’s been on the news. But, a brief recap: Clementi’s roommate at Rutgers secretly recorded Clementi having sex with another man and then streamed it on the Internet.
People across the country have responded with vigils, tributes, anti-suicide campaigns, etc. But they’ve also responded with hate directed toward Clementi’s roommate and the roommate’s friend who helped him stream the video. Just do a search for their names on Facebook, and you’ll see some tolerance, but you’ll also see some pretty hateful stuff:
I can’t say I would ever stream someone’s sexual escapades on the Internet, so I can’t say I understand where these kids are coming from, or that I’m particularly happy with them. But if their cyber-bullying was a problem, why is it appropriate to respond with more cyber-bullying? Just sayin’.
Nothing will bring back Tyler Clementi. Nothing will ease his family’s pain now. Certainly not hate speech directed at these two students. The last thing we need to do is drive two more kids to suicide. The best thing that can happen is that these two become advocates against bullying and use their experiences to prevent more situations like Clementi’s. But we need them to be around for that hope to come to fruition.