This is disturbing in many ways. First of all, this is a young man who had many years of life ahead of him and it is sad to think of the endless possibilities the future held for him, but will now never be known. It also saddens me that he felt there were no other options, no one to talk to, no other forms of dealing with this bullying. Granted, I'm not saying that the two students who were responsible for setting up the webcam and broadcasting/tweeting about it had any right to do so, but I'm just saddened that he felt there were no other ways to deal with the situation.
It also bothers me how anyone can invade others' privacy and use the internet in attempts to either humiliate or "expose" somebody. Acts of intimacy and sexuality, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, etc, are meant to be kept between the individuals that are involved in it. There's no reason to invade your roommate's privacy and to broadcast it to the world without he or she knowing. And to read the tweets that this student posted, "yes it's happening again", is unnecessary and should be unacceptable.
Additionally, this story hits me even harder because the two students being charged are from the other HS in my town (North) and are all Rutgers students. I assume these students were both raised in households that would never approve of this sort of torment/bullying/invasion of privacy. As one of the articles I linked stated, Rutgers is a diverse community and it made me happy to hear about the start of a courtesy and kindness campaign initiated a couple months ago. Unfortunately, the campaign did not seem to reach everybody and bullying/harassment still occurs, as evident in this tragedy.
When I first read about this incident, I was saddened (the second suicide that has effected/affected me in the short time span of a couple months - the first being Mr. Welsh's). Suicide is always a difficult topic to discuss, and always upsets me when I hear about it - maybe it's because of my desire to be a counselor and a listening ear to any of my friends who are in need. Then I was angry, mainly at the two students who set up this webcam broadcasting. But regardless of whether this makes you angry, sad, frustrated, etc, I think it can teach many things. Lately, I've been trying to think positively about everything, or rather see the lessons that each experience offers.
The bottom line is that everyone should follow the golden rule - treat others how you would like to be treated. Before doing any actions, one should really consider the consequences and impact. If Tyler Clementi's roommate had stopped to do this, perhaps he wouldn't have gone ahead with it. Secondly, we need to become more accepting of others. Acceptance does not mean that you need to agree 100% with what others say, do or feel, but being open-minded and appreciating peoples' differences from ourselves will make us better people. Everyone is different - there are no two people that are exactly alike (even identical twins have differences), and often this diversity allows us to learn new things about others and offers insight that we may not have experienced had we ignored the differences or faced them with intolerance. Lastly, being in a program that is to prepare me for school counseling, the rise of bullying/harassment in school settings bothers me and the addition of this story greatly increases my desire to continue pursuing to be a counselor and hopefully one day being able to prevent another tragedy like this from occurring.
I am not sure what the final charges will be against Ravi and Wei, but whatever they are, one thing is certain - they have ruined their own lives too. Charges of invasion of privacy & possibly manslaughter are certainly not easy ones to explain in the future.
This tragedy directly effected three students' lives, but hopefully the lessons that are offered from it can be learned by everyone who hears it. People need to start learning how to appreciate and accept each other. You may not agree with others, but please learn to respect them. We are ALL people and life is something to be valued.
