Monday, October 4, 2010

Bullying, bigotry, and other bias

Last week a Rutgers college student committed suicide after his homosexuality was outed on the internet by his roommate and another student. Where they trying to be cool or something by secretly filming him and posting the video more than once on the internet? What were they trying to prove other than the fact that they are insensitive idiots?

Two issues here: First someone's sexual orientation is their issue and not anyone else's. I don't really care what someone's preferences are. Why should I? Their personal decisions don't really impact me.

Also, I do care about not seeing other people's sexual interactions. That is a private activity meant for privacy.

So what was the point here? I do think the actions of these two should be charged under hate crimes and that they get good long sentences for their insensitivity. Some may argue that they will ruin their lives. But they caused another person to decide they made his life not worth living.

This is another example of the bullying that has become so news worthy in recent years. Bullying is all about bigotry and bias. "I'm cooler than you" mentality.

But seriously we are all different. Some short, tall, fat, thin, white, black, Asian, Ukrainian, Swedish, Flemish, Lao, or any number of ancestries, Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Muslim. Why is one better than the other? We should accept our differences in that they are what makes the world and interesting place where we allow our differences to complement each other instead of allow them to create hate, fear, and bullies.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

I agree this story was disturbing to say the least. I'm sure the room mate never meant for a suicide to occur, but that's the trouble with such bullying behavior, you just don't know how much someone can be hurt by a cruel action and what might ultimately happen as a result of it. Lesson in there for all of us.

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