It’s easy to make jokes from a safe distance about giving Texas back to Mexico, but there are still brave souls there defending the legacies of Texans like Don Yarborough, Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, and Molly Ivins.
Warning: Absolutely NSFW (not safe for work), unless you have a preternatural ability to conceal your reaction to others’ distress, and liable to be what therapists call ‘triggering‘ for those of us who still can’t recall our high-school days without flinching. Well worth watching, but in privacy and with one finger on the pause button. Just remember, it does get better.
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(h/t commentor BDeevDad)
asiangrrlMN
I saw this when it was linked here. It’s beautiful and amazing, and I applaud Joel Burn for making such a public stand. I hope more LGBT politicians will do so.
ETA: Although, I would like to add that I liked the guy who did the vid and said, “It gets better, but it’s gonna get worse first. You’re gonna have to do a lot of work, but it will get better.” This is so true.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I’m not sure if I even have an adequate response for this. For some bizarre reason all I could think about was the Dawg while watching this.
I have to go to sleep now. But my brain is going in too many directions after seeing that.
MagicPanda
Am I naive for thinking that this gives me hope for our country?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: This is from the ‘It Gets Better’ Series that Dan Savage started with his partner. There are some really beautiful ones. Get some sleep, hon. You need it.
asiangrrlMN
@MagicPanda: No, not naive. If you watch more of the series, it’s very affecting.
NobodySpecial
As a straight male, school was a pit of snakes. I can’t even begin to fathom being gay in school.
Stan
Thank you Anne, that was beautiful.
Yutsano
@NobodySpecial: Not. Fucking. Easy. I got off light: I was a total band geek and was totally immersed in that world in both high school and college. Even when I didn’t quite fit in, I had at least a something to belong to. I think it explains the appeal of the arts to so many gay youths: it’s a place outside of the norm just enough that they can make a mark more on their terms. You can also be an artist and be different and no one mocks you for that, at least in your group. A lot of these suicides are exactly because these kids have pretty much nowhere to go.
suzanne
@NobodySpecial: Concur. I was a straight feminist WASP girl in a school that was 45% LDS/white, 45% Catholic/Mexican. My best friend was the only out gay dude on campus. High school was utter torture. And for him, it was ten times worse.
Steve
I went to a suburban high school with about 1500 students. I was class president and knew the vast majority of students in my class, and an awful lot of them in other years. To this day – even though I have excellent gaydar as an adult – I cannot name one gay kid I went to school with.
Obviously I had gay classmates, like everyone else did. I bet I was the only one who didn’t realize, too.
asiangrrlMN
@NobodySpecial: High school fucking sucked. And, that was before I realized I was attracted to females as well as males. When I discovered that in college, I put it on the back-burner because I had just discovered race issues and feminism. Selfishly, I didn’t want to grapple with sexual orientation, too.
Still, even without it, as a fat, awkward Asian girl (before we became all exotic), high school was hell.
Yelli
Some have it worse than others but everyone can find comfort in his message. I also found this blog post about bullying especially moving.
Arclite
That’s some powerful shit.
I am trying to raise my kids right, to accept people of all creeds and protect and support the weakest among us. They’re too young to understand this now, but I’ll save this and show this to them in a few years.
Ruckus
@Steve:
I believe that most high school aged people are struggling so hard just to find their way in the world that we didn’t notice those things we could hide, if not easily, at least they could be hidden somewhat. People who have little self esteem, like most teenagers, can easily be bullied by those whose limited self esteem comes from standing on top of others. On posts like this one we hear any number of stories about being bullied and I have to wonder if the people bullied in middle and high school is the majority? People get bullied for being overweight, short, requiring glasses, clumsy, just not athletic, too smart, I’m sure there are more. And these are the things that can be seen. What about those things that can’t be seen, only imagined, like wondering if or being gay?
I wonder if this is an american thing, more usual in our culture? Then I think, well we actually have a number of cultures in this country and it doesn’t seem to be limited to any one area. How about people from other countries/cultures, does bulling exist at similar levels?
If it is pretty universal then I have to ask did this fulfill some need at some point in human development, that has way passed it’s time and whatever usefulness it may have had? And how do we go about changing the attitudes that allow/cause this in the first place?
A lot of questions, and I don’t have answers.
Warren Terra
I note that your post links to the Wikipedia pages of the other Texans it names, but not that of the late, lamented Molly Ivins, whose writing I devoured and adored. I worried that you might have omitted the link because the slugs of the Internet might have edited some slime into her Wikipedia entry, but it seems fairly anodyne and includes a few of her more enjoyable quotes.
Anyone who is interested in politics, in justice, and in America and who hasn’t already done so really ought to read them some Ivins, especially her first two essay collections Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? and Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead; indeed, I envy anyone who gets to read them for the first time. You can pick up both of those books for under $7 used (through Abebooks, for example); indeed, you can get practically her entire ouvre (a word Ivins enjoyed using) for about $25. You can also get them on Kindle or Nook, but my one big gripe with e-book retailers is that old titles aren’t discounted to compete with used books. Of course, if e-books really catch on there will be no used books …
Zuzu's Petals
Whew. Tears in the ol’ eyes here.
JWL
There are Willie Nelson Texans, and Tom Armey Texans.
There are no in-between.
donnah
I watched this yesterday before going to a meeting; big mistake. I cried through the entire thing and was still teary-eyed afterwards. I will never understand the cruelty and hatred, but I am glad there are those who fight back, stay strong, and offer their help to others who are suffering.
chicago dyke
the thing is, it doesn’t always “get better.” sorry to rain on the soblol parade, but it doesn’t, not for everyone. not everyone can escape a bible-constipated environment. not everyone has the money to go from being a geeky queer kid to a fabulous fashion designer in NYC. not everyone can even do so little as make a youtube. certainly not everyone is elected to public office as an out gay person.
i love this series. but i tend to think of it as a tad disingenuous. for some, it doesn’t “get better” so much as you grow a thicker skin and make a few friends with power or money who can protect you, and you’re comfortably out when you can be, and in the closet when you can’t. i don’t live in homophobialand, but if i did? i’d be making the hard choices too, which may or may not include not being out and proud. lucky for me, i can be all that. but i don’t live in MS or AL. i hate lying to those kids. unless they have the ability or money to get out, their world may never change. i wish we wouldn’t shy away from that harsh truth. it’s the same thing internationally. how many ugandan or iranian gay teens can we honestly predict: “it will get better.” no, it won’t.
bago
@Ruckus: Hey now, re-enforcing the notion that detractors with only a seventh grade education will soon become obsolete is a good thing. Yeah, sure I got teased in school for reading the dictionary cover to cover. (Learned the word queach that way), but yeah, who is the (occasional) mofo building the software you will be using in 5 years, and who pressed their “leadership skills” into a management job at your local Wal-Mart?
(No disrespect to the engineers at walmart who came up with the graph traversal optimizations that revolutionized the supply chain)
(Disrespect to the hometown heroes selling Rascal scooters)
Karen S.
@Yutsano:
I was a band geek in high school, too, and band kept me sane. I had the double whammy of knowing I was a lesbian then and of being one of maybe a half dozen black kids in a mostly white school. Any bullying I encountered, and I did encounter some, but it was racist in nature more than homophobic because it was more obvious I was black than gay.
What got me through it was I had an unshakeable faith that it would get better, and it did.
Donut
My wife and I were both in tears after watching this last night. Goes to show that most GLBT folks are 10x as tough as the rest of us boring old straight folks. Though I’m now 6ft tall and topping 240 lbs, up until high school, I was actually fairly small and skinny for my age, and I was a pretty sensitive kid, to boot – I wore coke-bottle-glasses and was a band geek and theatre kid, etc. I heard a lot of the “faggot” and “queer” taunts and teases, but the difference is, I knew I wasn’t gay, so in the end, it didn’t hurt me. If I had been GLBT and confused about all the mixed and negative messages in our culture about what that means, I don’t know how I would have reacted. I probably would have been one of those kids who had suicidal thoughts.
These seemingly small actions, just speaking out about one’s experiences, have an amazing ripple effect. They are good for all of us to hear, regardless of where we prefer to put our genitals…
Michael D.
@Arclite:
Show them the entire “It Gets Better” Project site.
And Anne, thank you for posting this. But why do you consider it NSFW? Or are you kinda just saying, NSFW unless you want to explode in tears in front of everyone. :-)
Donut
Chicago Dyke – thank you for the perspective and reminder that not everyone has the resources and tools to make it better for themselves. You’re not raining the parade, just being realistic. The thing is, I hope that the InterTubes are giving those kids in MS and AL a chance to connect with others in ways they couldn’t have before. Just knowing that there are millions who have similar feelings as they do, that what they are is normal and natural, they are not freaks or headed for Hell…that has to have some power. Even 20 years ago, those kids would have been completely isolated from hearing the stories in this project. Technology has changed that for the better…I hope.
WereBear
After so many years of the right wing indulging their literal demonization of their enemies, and encouraging others to do so, is it any wonder bullying continues to be a serious problem?
I was nearly thrown off a bridge by a bully in sixth grade. It was a 2 or 3 story drop, onto jagged rocks; it wouldn’t have been good. After ignoring, negotiating, and appealing to reason and mercy, I finally said, I would tell.
And someone had frightened the bully about consequences, and he ran away.
It can be that simple. Having some freakin’ consequences for your bad behavior.
We, as a nation, used to believe in that.
Michael D.
I wanted to respond to this comment from the perspective of a gay person who understands the sentiment, but disagrees a little.
@chicago dyke:
I take your point on this, but it’s like the flu. 99% of people will be better off after awhile. And there are others who won’t. The point though is, for the very vast majority, it always gets better than what it was like in high school. And, today’s young person stands a pretty good chance of living in a world where the bullying they’re experiencing now in high school will NOT be tolerated when they’re in their mid-twenties. They don’t have to be NYC fashion designers or hold public office. They don’t even have to have a good job.
I know this because I am acquainted with many hundreds of gay people all over the US and Canada from my social life, my travels, and my work with gay rights issues. I know almost no one who would go back to the life they led before they became adults. Yes, there are people who don’t have the means to get out of the rut they’ve been born into. That is sad and they are, for a large part, outliers. But it doesn’t mean things don’t get better. Just being an adult gives you more power to make things better. For me, and most of the people I know around the country, being gay is never the source of their unhappiness. It’s paying bills, not getting that promotion, breaking up with someone, etc.
I haven’t read the statistics, so I don’t know if bullying is on the rise, if we’re just seeing a statistical spike, or if we’re just starting to pay more attention. I would say it’s that we’re paying more attention. And because we are, we’re moving the bar to “bullying is not fucking cool.” And that’s going to make a HUGE difference.
So, while there are gay kids out there who might think it’s a lie and things won’t get better, we’ve got to make them believe it will. We’ve got to turn it around and make bullies believe THEY’RE the freaks – not the gay kid. Then we’ve achieved something. When we make it completely un-cool for teachers and principals to turn a blind eye and do nothing, then we’ve achieved something. When we, as gay and straight people, make politicians fear – and I mean fear – for their re-election chances when they say something offensive about ANY minority, we’ve achieved something.
My point, and I have one, is that this whole campaign – the “It Gets Better” project, combined with all the publicity and noise, is going to accomplish two things. It’s going to give gay kids (and those perceived as gay or different) hope. But more importantly, it’s going to make the people who are causing the problem realize that the spotlight is now on them – and it’s not going to be a fucking fun spotlight to be in. It’s going to be the most uncomfortable attention they’ve ever received unless they change THEIR behavior. And the only refuge they’ll have will be to run and hide with Tony Perkins and the editors of the “On Faith” section of WaPo.
It will get better – for everyone.
Like a lot of people, I might be irritated that policies aren’t changing as fast as I like, but I’ve never felt, in the nearly 12 years I’ve been here, that things are changing as fast as they are right now. Today, “gay” is in the news all the time – mostly in positive ways where people are defending us. Can you imagine that even 3 years ago? If you don’t think Obama has changed the tone in Washington, just by being there, then you haven’t paid much attention. DADT will go away (despite my irritation and impatience, I actually do believe it will happen on Obama’s watch.) I actually believe DOMA will be gone sooner than a lot of people believe.
You know, I live in Atlanta now, but I am from a very small town >3000 in eastern Canada. I grew up in a far worse environment than kids do today (I’m almost 41). I come from a family where my brother even called me a faggot (he is now one of the most supportive people). I also come from a family where, when I came out, my parents sent me ex-gay shit. Now, I’m not sure they’ve changed their mind about gay stuff. But I will tell you this, they know that if they want to have a relationship with me, they will say only good things or nothing at all. My parents know this, and their friends do, too. It got better for me when I left home and my parents couldn’t tell me what to do anymore and when I got to decide the rules of the parent-child relationship.
Sorry for the long-winded stuff…
Yeah, there are outliers, but in much of the country, it’s already true. And in others, it’s permeating:
It’s not cool to pick on the gay kid.
jomo
We live in a Suburban neighborhood in NJ. Daughter came out in middle school. Worst year of her life by far – though she’ll concede that a boy would have had it much worse. Now she’s in high school there’s a Gay Straight Alliance, there’s a larger pool of kids and more diversity – she’s actually fine. (There are actually straight kids in the GSA). It gets better. It already has.
swalker
I am a transplanted Texan. This was, of course, great to watch. I grew up in suburban Houston, and like someone else who was here, didn’t know of a single gay kid in my large high school. But I wrote this on Dan Savage’s blog as well – what touched me as much as Joel’s talk was the never-shown-guy near him, who at a few points gently encouraged him in that deep male southern drawl. I grew up with that archetype – big daddy types (my dad was one) who were easily able to give love and support as much as discipline and hard-ass parenting.
What I’m saying is that after seeing Joel, and seeing the response of his neighbor, I have renewed faith that the tide is turning. There are plenty of asshole fundies in Texas left, but this is a good start.
Anya
This is so heartbreaking. I am not sure I will recover from this (stop crying). I enjoyed high school so I have no reference point to fully understand this kind of experience. I went to a private academic high school in Toronto and I was too busy with my little world to notice anything else. Since it was a laboratory school, it’s very liberal but I am sure there were many students who were living the same hell described in this video.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Fix’t. Bullies don’t really care who they hurt. Kids should not be picking on other kids, period. If their parents gave a shit they would teach them that.
HRA
I did see the video last night on MSNBC. It was very moving and on the spot. It should be presented in schools everywhere.
Being bullied is very scary. I was bullied in the 7th grade when I came to the US from Canada. I was afraid to tell my parents. I was not gay. I was different. It was my accent, my clothes, etc.
It came down to where a gang was waiting for me after school right outside the gate. I waited till everyone left, took a deep breath and began to walk down the sidewalk. Suddenly I had 2 Black girls walking with me on each side. By the time we got to the gate, most of the crowd left or was leaving. The leader was told “She is one of us.” I lived in the predominantly Black neighborhood then. I have never forgotten what these 2 girls did for me. We continued our schooling, finished high school and lost touch with each other.
Ed in NJ
I’ve been a fan of Dan Savage for awhile now, reading his column and listening to his weekly podcast. He’s been advising gay youth “it gets better” for awhile now, and it’s great to see his advice reach a much wider audience through this project. It’s just a shame that these suicides had to occur to bring it to light.
In his most recent column, he absolutely excoriates a religious fanatic who tries to lecture Dan on not judging those that discriminate against gays due to their religious beliefs.
Savage Love
HRA
What kind of religion is it that does not “love thy neighbor”?
I get so disgusted at the use of religion by these hate mongers.
Michael D.
@HRA:
For most religions, the nutcases within them see that phrase and think “Change thy neighbor.”
Steve
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I don’t really agree with this McArdle schtick. No one disputes that bullying is a bad thing, but we don’t have to pretend that gay teens don’t face special problems and that we’re giving special privileges to gays if we focus on addressing their concerns. Don’t be the guy who’s like “well, technically, it’s bad to burn a cross on ANYONE’S lawn.”
D. Sidhe
It almost always does get better, I have to say, but only if you stick around. I was bi and genderqueer and schizophrenic in high school, along with other mental health and family issues, and if I hadn’t been able to believe it would someday get better, I’d have checked out. As it is, borderline suicidal is pretty much my base state when improperly medicated, which I am most of the time. But even then, I know it absolutely *has* gotten better. I have a partner who loves me, and a couple of cats who will purr for me anytime I need it, and an online group of friends I can talk to, and a couple of shrinks, and decent if not perfect medications. I’ve had a lot of good lovers since high school, and a lot of even better friends, and I would have missed all that.
It doesn’t always get better, and we have to keep working on it for those people. Maybe someday we’ll be able to promise everybody it will get better. But as Michael D. says, we have to make the kids believe it will, or they won’t even be able to try for better. They need that hope, if only so they can grow up and help make it better for others, but it really does get better for most of us. Better may be a relative term, and a thicker skin may well contribute to the feeling that it is better, but both of those are a safer place than where some of those kids are now.
Steve
@chicago dyke: Even if it is true that it only gets better if you move to a big, gay-friendly city, most people can manage to do that if they make it a priority in their life. It’s important for kids to understand that it ought to be a priority for them.
Lee
I made the mistake of watching that at work yesterday. It was many minutes before I safely get out of my cube. I’m 45 and a Marine.
@JWL:
I have never heard this before even having grown up in Texas. But I am going to steal it like a use it like a rented mule.
WereBear
There’s no question that LBTG kids have it really bad; the fact that such bullies use derogatory slurs about them on anyone they don’t like shows how they get their mere existence belittled and devalued.
But I will add that being a teenager can easily be the most dangerous part of someone’s life, even without that added challenge. You are far less likely to be removed from a dangerous home, or even have your dangerous home recognized as such. Mental illness can appear, especially if stressed. And teenagers in even a good home are stressed.
Teenagers have no autonomy and no protection. And if they are placed somewhere else, that is likely to be just as dangerous and indifferent.
Sending every teen the message that “it gets better” is, I think, a valuable one. Telling them that “Eventually your own mental disorders are the only ones you have to deal with” is actually an uplifting message, and why I hungered for adulthood as long as I can remember.
I’ve had my challenges; but everything is better when you have some small say over yourself.
Lee
Waaaaay back when I was a kid, there was a effort to put these green hands in windows of homes that people volunteered to be safe harbors for kids.
Anyone else remember that?
kay eye
Please add Ralph Yarborough to your list of Texas progressives. And Sissy Farenthold. These men and women have helped keep us sane down here in Texas.
And thank you for the link to the Joel Burns video.
Phoebe
@chicago dyke: It gets better than high school. They’re not saying it gets absolutely fabulous [though it very well might, and they and you have no way of knowing it won’t], just that it gets better than high school.
Felonious Wench
Thank you for posting this, Anne Laurie.
My two sons, Texans to the core, have been taught since Kindergarten that bullies are very bad, and they are not to tolerate them or be one. It’s taught as part of their school curriculum. They’ve learned songs about it. We also live next door to a lesbian couple with twin boys that are the same age as my youngest. The four of them are always together. They have been told by my husband and I that if anyone ever gives those twins grief or picks on them about their moms, we expect them to defend those kids with everything they have, including fists if necessary. And that applies for ANY kid who is being bullied.
We are not in Austin. We are in one of the most conservative parts of this state. And there are plenty of other kids being taught the same things mine are.
It WILL get better.
Tattoosydney
@HRA:
@Michael D.:
I’m reading Robert Alter’s “The Five Books of Moses” which is a translation of the first five books of the Bible. It’s a fascinating book – an attempt to accurately translate the texts, including the literary style of the original, into modern English, without falling into the trap of what he calls the “heresy of explanation” – “the use of translation as a vehicle for explaining the Bible instead of representing it in another language.”
As I am reading it, I am particularly stuck by the bits which people who call themselves Christian or Jew but who are full of hate must never read, or ignore, or explain away – things about respect for the weak and the poor that are there in black and white at the very start of the book that they are supposed to be living their lives by.
An example, all from the first 12 verses of Exodus 23 (which is where I am up to):
I just a half a page, I count honesty, charity, protection of minorities, condemnation of political corruption, animal rights, liberal immigration and welfare policies and environmental responsibility, none of which seem to be Christian values for many “Christians”.
Perhaps the King James translation is a bit more caveated.
daveNYC
Oh that stuff is in there, it’s just that for certain people, the only bits that count are about how gays are icky.
RalfW
As a former Ft. Worthian, I was amazed by the video.
Last night I was at a candlelight vigil in solidarity with bullied youth in the Twin Cities. One of the speakers talked about the It Gets Better campaign, quite favorably.
But he had an excellent point, too. That kids should not have to wait till they’re 18 and away from an awful high school to have life get better.
It needs to get better now in all our schools.
As a stop-gap, Dan Savage’s campaign is doing a lot of good. As you Balooners said yesterday, if People magazine is asking “how can we fix this?” then change is happening, at least in public opinion.
But school administrators are bureaucrats practiced at slow change. And elected school boards are still going to hear form the rabid 10-20% of their voters who are haters.
But It Gets Better needs to be both about supporting gay youth (and gay-perceived youth) to live through the worst years — and about getting schools and social service agencies to do better ASAP.
mfbjr
I watched this at home last night and could barely get through the first few minutes of photos of the boys who have died. I have two small sons and I can’t bear to think of what the parents of those boys have gone through. I’m sure Joel’s inbox is flooded but I’m sending him an email anyway.
Chicago Todd
Yesterday early afternoon, I was standing on a fairly crowded Brownline EL train. Sitting across from me was a middle-teen kid with a skate board. An elderly couple got on at the Sedgwick stop, and without hesitation, the kid stood and offered up his seat as did a 30 year old man with a suitcase heading to Midway Airport. I immediately text my friend that my faith in humanity had been restored — not one, but two people offered up their seats.
Watching this last night on The Last Word on MSNBC — my first time sampling the show — also restored my faith in humanity. Twice in one day —
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.” Willy Wonka, 1971.
Bubba Dave
@JWL:
Bullshit. Texans are humans; they come in all flavors of contradictory and confused and muddling through. I wish we had more Molly Ivins Texans around (and for the record, much as I love Mr. Nelson neither do I forget that he and Toby Keith collaborated on a pro-lynching song), but I know a lot of folks who ain’t exactly liberal but would have to sink a lot lower before I’d put them in the Armey camp.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Thank you so much for posting this. I saw it alluded to yesterday, but it somehow didn’t catch my attention enough for me to find out what people we’re talking about.
This is just an astonishing piece of tape.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Steve:
It ain’t a “McArdle schtick”, it’s the truth. Kids should not be bullying other kids. At all. Period. There is absolutely no excuse for it other than parents who don’t give a shit or were/are bullies themselves. We have two kids and they have never bullied other kids and both have stood up for kids who were being bullied. They are this way because they were raised by parents who cared enough to make them understand life from a POV other than their own. We made them think of others when they were very young and it stuck with them.
I do not dispute that gay kids have more problems when it comes to bullies. What I don’t like is the focus on one specific group of people who are the targets of bullies. I believe the focus needs to be on the bullies themselves, not the victim. Instead we seem to focus on what was ‘wrong’ with the victim that attracted the bully and not the fact that the bully IS the problem.
Too often the victim is the focus of the attention and unless the situation is particularly newsworthy, the bully seems to quickly fade from public attention. Everybody remembers the victim and almost nobody remembers the bully.
beergoggles
Since we’re talking about schools, I figured I’d share the case of this student-teacher’s experience.
It’s pretty recent too.
RalfW
@Tattoosydney:
Another speaker at last nights vigil is a Lutheran minister. She said, in effect, nowhere in the Bible does God condemn same-sex love.
It’s an interesting take. Skip the man-lie-with-man and go to love, ’cause that’s what it’s about.
More significant to me is the respected Lutheran biblical scholar (and our local Lutheran seminary is ELCA but hardly loony left) who has studied the bible in Aramaic and Greek.
He makes a convincing argument that contextually, the story of Lot/Sodom is about decrying rape, about waylaying travelers and basically being evil people. The people of Sodom were no more gay than the prison rapists in 21st century American prisons.
Angela
@Tattoosydney:
Thanks for this info; I just ordered it for my Kindle.
I am the mother of three sons. 20, 18 and 16. All three were raised to get involved and stop bullying. The oldest and the youngest have made a habit of doing just that. And offering friendship to those who are bullied. My middle son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, must feel a bit too vulnerable himself to get involved in stopping situations that involve bullying. He will call his brothers but he will not step into anything where the heat might get turned on him. I can’t imagine what his life might be like if he wasn’t book ended by brothers who are not vulnerable to bullying.
This video has brought me to tears numerous times. Having lived close to Fort Worth many years ago, I am amazed at the courage and the reaction of his peers. Yeah, there is something that feels a bit like hope rising.
Steve
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Sounds exactly like the McArdle schtick to me. It’s wrong to talk about gay kids getting bullied, you have to talk about everyone who’s getting bullied all at once.
If black people are getting lynched, I don’t think anyone would say “don’t talk about the race of the people being lynched, it makes it sound like they’re doing something wrong by being black.”
Chris G.
Is the “It Gets Better” project doing things like giving kids concrete steps they can take on how to deal with the issues they’re facing? How to get teachers involved when students are bullying them, how to get police involved when teachers won’t act, how to call a lawyer then police won’t act?
Tattoosydney
@RalfW:
I tend to just take the view that it doesn’t matter if a book written several thousand years ago says that gay sex is icky.
Felonious Wench
@Bubba Dave:
And it’s Dick Armey, not Tom. :)
asiangrrlMN
@chicago dyke: I had a similar reaction to yours when I first saw Savage’s video. As I have said, I was not aware of my attraction to women in high school, but I had plenty of other problems. I was picked on every day, and quite simply, I wanted to die. Or rather, I just wanted it to stop. If that meant dying, so be it. Life did not get better after–not for a very long time. In fact, it got worse. A hell of a lot worse. It’s only been in the last five years or so (I’m thirty-nine) that I can say life has gotten better. And, I still have my shaky days when I don’t believe that’s true. That’s why I commented that I liked the one guy who said, “It gets worse before it gets better. You have to do a lot of hard work for it to get better.”
However, with that said, kids in high school do need to know that things won’t always be the way they are in school. They need to know that there is a chance it will get better after high school. That’s the best part of this series in my opinion. It gives the kids a little hope and even the knowledge that they are not alone.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I say we do both. Right now, there is a rash of LGBT boys killing themselves. It’s necessary to have messages directed at them specifically that their situations need to be changed.
In the broader sense, I agree. Bullying is systematic and endemic in our society. We even approve of it in subtle ways such as egging on competition and dismissing bad behavior as pranks and whatnot.
Tattoosydney
@Angela:
Happy to have been of help.
I think it’s just that the 82% of the population who aren’t nasty blithering idiots are fundamentally decent people.
As more and more of their gay children and relatives and co workers come out, more and more of them work out that 82% of gay people are fundamentally decent people as well.
After a while it just doesn’t make sense any more to care about what they do in the bedroom, or to think that two men or women in love should not be allowed to have a wedding just like everyone else.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Hi, hubby, you still there? Yeah, I would agree with you, but then again, I am a heathen.
ETA: Or threesomes. Nothing wrong with a good threesome now and then.
@Chris G.: The Trevor Project is a suicide hotline for LGBT teens. They did one of the “It Gets Better” videos.
Remember November
Gives me new hope for Texans.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Hello. It’s late, cold and windy, and I’m trying to get a character out of a room and finding it hard.
I had a fondness for fivesomes there for a while. Ah, the good old days.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Steve:
I think you view some forms of bullying as worse than others while I find all forms of bullying reprehensible. At least we agree that we don’t like bullies, right? You can believe I’m saying whatever the hell you want to think I am saying but you can take your labels for your boxes and shove them up your ass.
But do it nicely.
Remember November
@RalfW:
Word.
Bullies, regardless of targets, are still bullies. It just seems more tacitly condoned against LGBT nowadays as opposed to the garden variety pick on the nerdy kid/drama kid/artsy kid bullying. A tactic used as a political wedge by the Moron Tavern ankle Choir.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: I haz a jelus now.
HRA
@Steve:
“Sounds exactly like the McArdle schtick to me. It’s wrong to talk about gay kids getting bullied, you have to talk about everyone who’s getting bullied all at once.”
I don’t read or follow McArdle.
The truth is there are other reasons bullies use to target kids. It’s no less a trauma if you are not gay. You hate getting up in the morning and having to go face what awaits you in school. You can’t understand why it has to happen to you. You can barely concentrate in class. You flinch at every sudden movement near you in the hallways as you change class. You are always looking around for that gang of bullies. It’s a hell on earth.
I do understand the recent focus is on the gay kids and why it is there. Yet, there have also been the same results of kids who are not gay. Bullying has to be addressed.
Bill H
I never did much good as a kid, I was a drinker and something of a bum. I was also a football player; first string but not really all that outstanding.
I did break up a fight one time. Several guys were bullying a little guy, I don’t know if he was gay or not, but he was a small guy and pretty wimpy. My dad had taught me that me being big and strong imposed an obligation on me to protect the weak so I tended to do that, and I remember taking on these three guys to make them stop bullying this one kid. It wasn’t a big deal, they backed down pretty fast, but I felt good about it.
I recalled that watching that on Last Word last night. It was a serious moment. I thought really good thoughts about my father, who has been dead about thirty years now. He had it right.
ricky
@JWL: @Lee: @Bubba Dave: @Felonious Wench:
If I could make Anne change anything it would be to delete the first paragraph and divorce anything geographic about this incredibly moving video of an incredibly caring piece of personal testimony on behalf of very vulnerable youth.
She chose to interject Texas into the equation, and you folks elected to respond in part.
There has been a lot of wrenching within the liberal community in the last day over remarks about gays and lifestyle choices. That is why JWL’s comment struck me as odd.
My guess from that is that JWL is a white male. If so, he had no choice about that. Willie Nelson and “Tom” Armey did not either.
Willie Nelson is a Texan who had no choice in that matter either. He was born and raised there. Dick Armey became a Texan because he was offered a teaching job in Denton. My guess is he would have become a resident of any state if he had been offered a better job than the one at North Texas State University.
Texas is an incredibly diverse state. The vast majority of the people who have made the lifestyle choice to become Texans recently are Mexicans.
Remember November
@Donut:
Same here. orchestra nerd. Didn’t play the “macho” instrument like the trumpet. My response was , “hey you like it so much, blow me.” That got me a lot of punches – but I survived on my wits and by knowing that their epithets were completely false. These kids are going through the double- dungeon of doom with puberty and gender identity. their psyches are cracked to begin with.
Cris
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You’re missing the power of concreteness. We humans are pretty good at making exceptions to our general principles. It really helps to point out what those specific exceptions are.
If I am nice to 98% of the people I know (who happen to be people a lot like me), I feel satisfied that I’m a nice person. So when I throw around terms like “faggot” and “queer” as an insult, I don’t notice that it hurts anybody, so I’m still not a bad person. That 2% who feel hurt by my words are just statistical noise, you know?
I’m not saying this very well. My point is, when you say “Don’t bully ANY kids, bullying is bad mkay” the would-be-bully who hears that and tries not to bully “normal” kids still unconsciously makes a special category for gay kids. They’re not like other kids. So we have to explicitly remind him that they are still people, still have feelings that matter.
The Other Chuck
@chicago dyke:
On average, it generally does get better than high school. Assuming one doesn’t go into politics, which appears to be largely dominated by high school mentalities.
Short Bus Bully
@HRA:
Thanks for that story, very inspiring.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
The gays, we have it easy when it comes to the organising of the sex.
BDeevDad
As someone who is always questioning my relatives in Texas about the politics in their state, this video touched me.
As someone who lives in a neighborhood where we were one of only two houses with No on 8 signs among the many houses with Yes, I know the bullying and name calling is not just the red states.
I just hope speeches like this make a difference and is not a cause of the week.
Jack
It’s earnest and heartfelt and very touching. But CD is still right. It never got better for Matthew Shepard. It didn’t get better for a gay nineteen year old in a small NH city who, walking home after a twelve hour shift waiting tables, trying to put himself through college after his parents threw him out, was beaten near to death by friends of a coworker – and who never went to the police because it would end up in the newspaper, and worse, and would have cost him far more than his silence did.
Hope is no reason to abandon a sober view of the facts on the ground. For a lot of people, life just gets worse after high school. Especially if they aren’t fortunate enough to have the right test prep, the right college admissions review boards and the right accident of birth.
BDeevDad
@Jack: But that’s the truth whether your gay, African American, a woman, …. It’s about hope, and the possibility of the future. If you kill yourself, there is no future to get better.
Jack
And I wonder, in the predictable rush to “deal with” bullies and bullying, if our less than savvy and rather utterly untrustworthy policy makers – especially those swooning advocates of lawn order and theatrical overreaction – won’t lose sight of the fact that punishment rarely gives the punished cause for reflection. Prisons don’t produce many pacifists, for a reason.
And while I don’t have the figures right in front of me, even my right wing, Jesusy, Beck and Limbaugh listening mother recently confirmed to me (she runs a very successful remediation program that keeps kids out of the court system and prisons by focusing its treatment and training through non-hierarchical relationships of trust and self-control) that punishment does not address the personality fracture and weakness which underlies the majority of bullying, because punishment instead reinforces the domination-humiliation parental regimes which provide the initial conditions in which future thugs, abusers and assholes develop.
Punishment and zero tolerance (which I imagine will be the local, state and national response to recent press attention to bullying) cannot and do not address the almost staggeringly common adult-to-child violence and domination which produces insecure, fragmented, rage corroded bullies in the first.
Until people – regardless of the direction that the panjandrums take, with their press conferences and legislative dickering – are willing to embrace and love the broken person who is the bully, as well – this doesn’t end. At least, that’s how I see it. I could be wrong.
Jack
@BDeevDad:
Hope was the last disease out of Pandora’s box.
And while I don’t really want to shit on hope – it’s never enough, on its own. It might work for a white kid from the suburbs – one with prospects, understanding parents, a religious environment that doesn’t automatically ostracize, and loyal friends. Hope might be enough, if luck has laid the groundwork elsewhere.
But, is hope alone going to get a poor kid through, in some shit hole Utah village, with no prospects but a packing plant or McDonald’s, with a mega church run by a guy just this side of Mussolini, in a moral and cultural environment that crushes doctrinal and political deviations from the norm, never mind sexual or gender-role ones?
Mnemosyne
@Jack:
Wow did you miss the point of that story.
Mnemosyne
@Jack:
It never got better for James Byrd Jr. Should we tell African-Americans to give up on fighting for equality?
Kilkee
Not good with the linkies, but if you search “Jeff Zarzynski” on Youtube you’ll find what is apparently an actual TV ad in which Mr. Zarzynski, a Wisconsin attorney, explains that HE is that bully that used to intimidate kids and shake them down for lunch money, and now he’d be happy to apply those same skills for you! Perverse doesn’t begin to do it justice.
I wonder if the WI Bar Association cares?
HyperIon
@Chris G. asked:
I think it’s mostly about having lots of people who are not famous and maybe even not completely out acknowledge what gay kids face from bullies. It’s a “you are not alone” message. Because that’s what a lot of kids think. “Nobody is like me” can be a very depressing thought to some.
Larkspur
“It gets better” means please don’t leave, please step back from the edge, please don’t check out early. It means please know that you might come to believe it will get better – maybe not now, but sometime, and maybe sometime soon – so don’t go, please stay. The possibility of believing that it might get better is a huge achievement, especially for a very young person who lacks years of experience in surviving this existence. It buys time. If the kid is 13, I want him to live till he’s 14, 15…until he finds his people. Until she gets it that not only is she entitled to carve out a place for herself, there are also people who will help.
We’re talking about teenagers here. Their brains aren’t even done growing yet. I’m in favor of anything that will keep them here, that will buy them some time. I’m going to tell them to keep swimming, because there is a raft. Even if I don’t see it. Because what do I know. Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. There could be a raft.
Also, Matthew Shepard was murdered. He did not kill himself.
futzinfarb
GTFOOTMYS
GlenInBrooklyn
Thank you for the link.
I’ve been a fan of Dan Savage’s “It gets better” campaign since I became aware of it. I’ve watched many of the the teen-created YouTube videos (singly or in groups). I’ve watched many celebs’ YouTubes. Now, it’s time for the politicians to do the same.
I will thank Mr. Burns via e-mail.