Gaga, THIS must be your message!

Deutsche Version dieses Blogs hier.
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Definitely read-worthy on this topic, too:
My blog from October 20th 2011
Spirit Day 2011

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This is 14 year old
Jamey Rodemeyer
 from Buffalo, NY.

Jamey made this video in May 2011,

for the "It gets better" campaign.

He especially thanked Lady Gaga

for her iconic song "Born this Way"

that had given him hope.

In spite of him being so inspired at that time

and also inspiring, indeed,

things got worse again for him 

over the summer months,

and on Sunday, September 18th 2011

Jamey took his life.

Another teenage suicide,

caused by anti-gay bullying.

And this happened

almost exactly one year after

four gay US teenagers took their lives
within just a few weeks in fall 2010

due to being bullied.

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I first heard about Jamey's suicide by a comment that a friend of Jamey made on my video "It is okay to be gay ... Stop Bullying Now!" during the night of this week's Tuesday to Wednesday.

I was absolutely stunned. This message hit me really hard, and I had to work some half hour on finding appropriate words for a comment reply for the girl who had written to me there, and fitting them into a space of only 500 characters ...

Before I wrote my reply, and also after that, I made some research on the Internet, and I found several articles that reported about what had happened.

In the most intense one of those articles, I found a quote that brought into words what I felt exactly:

"Don’t Ask Don’t Tell ended its discriminatory reign today. Glee is on tonight. But none of this matters in the hallway, does it?"

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Jamey's death was in the news everywhere during the days that followed. And on Wednesday evening, Jamey's parents and his sister gave a very moving interview on Anderson Cooper 360°.

Lady Gaga

Apart from that, Jamey's suicide made Lady Gaga give a statement on her Twitter account (including a link to Jamey's video that I embedded above) where she demands that Bullying must be made illegal:

"Jamey Rodemeyer, 14 yrs old, took his life because of bullying. http://tinyurl.com/6e7n49s. Bullying must become be illegal. It is a hate crime… I am meeting with our President. I will not stop fighting. This must end. Our generation has the power to end it. Trend it #MakeALawForJamey."

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Well ...

I am glad that Lady Gaga spoke up, and her campaign is notable. But she focuses only on the small portion of the whole issue. And she does so out of grief (that I share) and frustration, and out of anger, that I understand so well, and share, too.

Still ... This is not the way that will bring the change we need. It will only make bullies act in a more refined way, to prevent being caught.

There are laws and regulations against bullying already, and there are tougher laws coming up on that in more and more states, too.

Yet:

There are laws against drugs.

But: We have drugs at our schools, anyway.

There are laws against violent behaviour.

But: We have violence at our schools.

There are laws against stealing, and many other things that happen every day, and that students suffer from.

But still, these things are going on, all the same.

Why is that?

Because victims always stand alone when something happens, and no one is there to help!

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In the first week of September, Jamey wrote the following in his blog:

"No one in my school cares about preventing suicide, while you’re the ones calling me a faggot and tearing me down"

and

"I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens. What do I have to do so people will listen to me?”

This is exactly where my thoughts catch up ...

What we need, is someone like Lady Gaga standing up and telling her fans to (of course) not bully themselves, and urging them to stand up for victims the very moment bullying happens, and make a stand against bullies!

This does NOT mean fighting back. Using fire against fire will always cause double destruction.

What the students (and teachers!) need to do, is help together, every single one, to create a climate at schools, where bullying just can't happen, because it won't be tolerated, won't be accepted, and will be dealt with.

What we need is students defending victims, by becoming witnesses (and not only bystanders), by saying "No!" (instead of looking away), by being in the way between a bully and his prey (instead of personally keeping out of harm's way), and by getting help if help is needed, plus reporting a bully, no matter what he (or she) threatens to do.

And the school officials then must react and take the case from there!

We can't wait for the law to rule things. We can't accept that bullying will continue to happen, and then call the cops afterwards.

This is a social matter, and it needs to be dealt with actively within the social environment where it happens. Because bullying can be prevented, if all help together, and if they do so because they are adamant about not accepting it - not wanting anyone to suffer from bullying, and not wanting to possibly be the next victim themselves.

And teachers and principals must help in this matter, too, by encouraging and empowering their students to help together and create a climate at schools where bullying simply has no chance to sprout and grow. 

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I said the following before already, but I can't repeat it often enough:

There are many victims out there.

And bullies are numerous.

But all the others, who are neither victim nor bully, their number is legion!

It's time that those "legions" stand up and act as one, in the ways they can, and that are appropriate. It's a simple question of numbers, and a question of being resolved - not only the single student making a stand, but trusting that all students act alike on that.

Gaga, THIS must be your message!

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Lady Gaga, BORN THIS WAY

(Single)

Lady Gaga, BORN THIS WAY

(Album, Special Edition)

 

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