A week ago I taught a Gay-Straight Alliance in Albuquerque. It was great timing, as they’d been talking about the “gay suicides” that have been all over the news. I felt for them – they’re so upset about what they see going on in the world, that bullying has driven some of their far-away peers to suicide, and they don’t have the tools to stop it.
Without tools to even identify why this is happening, it is so difficult to prevent it from re-occurring. I asked the students what they did when they heard someone use the word “gay” as an insult or call someone a “fag.” I expected that they would say it depended on who it was and that they would tell them how hurt and/or offended they were by those words.
I didn’t expect that they would say it wasn’t a big deal.
That day, I taught our “Investigating the Roots of Violence” class that explores the connection between bias, language, and violence. We looked at the names people are called and violence that happens to them based on race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. to keep them in the “boxes” that society dictates. We explore: What are accepted stereotypes of a latino man? What does a woman get called when she is assertive? What range of violence is committed so that different people will not claim their individuality and their power?
It is not surprising that teenagers don’t see the connection between language, politics and violence. It is also not surprising that everyone will work on the issue most important to them, whether it is violence against women, racially motivated violence, GLBTQ rights, or any other social issue that inherently involves addressing power imbalances. However, until we teach our youth about and are willing to see the connection between all these manifestations of violence, and start working together at addressing the origins, we will struggle to make profound change.
My hope for the coverage of GLBTQ suicides is that it will help us find more ways to work together to make the world a more desirable place to live for all of our youth.