When I first saw , I looked at the boy’s picture. I was in my office here at Binghamton, and I could not stop crying. It brought back my own brutal mocking when I was in high school at St. Mary of the Assumption High. I once had 100 students in an assembly sing the “Scruvy Joe” song while I sat, defenseless. No teacher ever told them to stop mocking me. They were told simply to stop making noise. I was not gay. I was clumsy, and depressed, and different than others, and I was an easy target for kids who, under other circumstances, would be considered really nice. We are not much different than chickens. We see a bleeding chicken and peck it to death.
I did not kill myself, but I also did not survive. No one survives the irrational contempt and disdain, and meanness of a mob, whether they persecute you because you are a certain color or sexuality, or simply because they are a bunch of insecure teenage morons who want to have some fun. My classmates never knew the pain they caused me. I went home every day to a mother who was dying of cancer. I never opened my mouth—not even when some of the jocks in the school began literally spitting on me. Not one teacher—not one in that whole Catholic high school—ever said to me: “Are you ok?”
I had no dates. No girl would date the school dork. My former friends from grammar school joined in the taunting, and I never got better. I died: my self esteem, my sense of trust in others, my sense that I had a right to be weird without being tormented—all that was gone. They murdered me. They broke my heart. And, if confronted, not one of them would even realize they’d done anything out of the normal, for it is normal to bully, and look down on others. After all, if you don’t want to be bullied, show some back bone, or bully someone back!
I was tough, physically strong. Even those who mocked me would have admitted I was one of the strongest kids in my grade. I wouldn’t fight because the anger and sadness and despair in me was so deep that I was afraid I might kill someone. Also, I was a neighborhood kid, and the last thing I wanted was for my dad and mom to think I was a loser. I used to spend hours on my knees praying God would kill me. I was not weak. I was depressed, deeply so, because of the illness in my family, and I didn’t know how to defend myself.
I repeat: to take away another person’s dignity, to make anyone feel that what they are is somehow intrinsically inferior—this is an act of spiritual murder. We all know the difference between gentle ribbing, affectionate kidding and hard core ridicule and persecution of others—or do we? I don’t think we have a clue.
I survived because I hid in reading and music. I would have much preferred to be a cop or a plumber than a poet. Honest. I did not want to be different. Poetry was my compensatory act. I could scribble things in a notebook, and no one could destroy that aspect of myself. But I don’t believe in “blessings” in disguise. I don’t believe that all that doesn’t kill me, strengthens me. I believe I was murdered emotionally. I believed that an already severe sadness was aggravated by being taunted relentlessly. This kid who was outed without his permission, who was exposed for the “entertainment” value of the reality TV culture is not merely an instance of gay bashing. He is a test of our failure not to torture. He is a victim of our pro-exposure, lack of empathy, sociopathic contempt for privacy or kindness. I keep his picture on my desk. I look at him every day. No one knows if he would have identified himself as gay or straight or bi. Maybe this kid was just trying to find some love. Maybe he didn’t have a set identity yet. It was his right to identify himself, and this right was taken away from him by a bunch of kids who were no crueler (or kinder) than the one hundred good Catholic boys and girls who sang to the Mickey Mouse club song:
“Who’s the leader of the scurves who’s made for every scum?
S. C. U. R. V.Y., scurvy is his name!
Scurvy joe! Fat head! Scurvy Joe! Brown teeth!”
And on and on. I was spit at, hit on the back of the head. I developed a facial tick. I became broken, and the more broken I was, the more they increased their taunting until, finally, out of boredom, they stopped. By that time, my mother had died. It was senior year of high school. They were stupid teenagers. The teachers were not stupid teenagers. I would have loved if even one teacher took my side, took time to look into my eyes and see the hurt—had done anything more than uphold the diabolical norm. No one, not one of them got involved.
We cannot use law to fix our cowardice or our own lack of compassion. It will take more than trying those morons who outed this kid for hate crimes. It will take people who have some power to be on the side of the bleeding chickens for a change, instead of standing on the sidelines, while the so called “nice” and “normal” and “popular” kids peck them to death. Law is reductionist. The human heart expands when it is allowed to deal with life in its full complexity. Law simplifies by applying specific penalties to specific actions. Law can only provide the punitive. It cannot heal the heart.
In this week of coming out, perhaps we should put ourselves on trial. Perhaps we should search our own tendency to denigrate, to mock, to deride, to disdain. Maybe, instead of using those idiot kids from Rutgers as an example, we should look into our own past. That poor child was a talented violinist. He was probably taunted and teased more often than we’ll ever know. He is on my conscience every day for the rest of my life, and if I ever see a person scorned or mocked—gay or straight—and do nothing, take the side of the persecutors, then I will be a party to his death.
I try to make an example of acceptance in my classrooms, of being open to difference. I often fail. It is not enough to point my finger at those who hate. I have to keep trying harder not to be that way myself. I pray for that boy’s tormentors. They are dead too, in so many ways—spiritually dead. I hope with all my heart they can be brought to truly feel remorse for the pain they caused. I hope I can do the same.