Beating Up Little Sissies

Okay it’s happened once again, a young preteen boy has hanged himself rather than face the schoolyard taunts of bullies. The papers and social networking pages have been ablaze with sympathy for the family and outrage at this recent tragedy in Georgia, but sorry folks the deed is done. No matter the excuses about knowing he was being teased, but not knowing just how bad. No matter the pleas about why couldn’t he have come to his mother – a boy can always talk to his mother. It just didn’t happen. The blame seems to be falling on the school system for not enforcing bullying restrictions, but there’s lots of blame to pass around.

Why is it that even today, it’s still perfectly acceptable, even condoned in many parts of our society to beat up sissies? This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I’m sure the families of these bullies are going to plead ignorance as to where their little hoodlums picked up this behavior, learned these vile words. Those parents just need to look in the mirror.

We incite young boys every day to be men, to buckle up, to not cry, not be a sissy, anything but a sissy. And then what is the best way to prove you’re not one – point the finger elsewhere and prove your being a true man by brutal enforcement, by joining the no sissies allowed club. Then we express surprise when it ends in relentless bullying and a kid killing himself. Face it – this is one of the earliest and most profound lessons every boy gets when growing up.

I really feel for the family, I don’t know them, but if I can use my own experiences and those of countless others as an example, here’s my guess. The boy probably wanted to talk to his mother but feared rejection or just outright condemnation, children know just what they can talk to their parents about and what they can’t, believe it or not, parents telegraph this to their children every day in ways subtle and sometimes not so subtle. I remember as a young teen asking my Mom if I could see a doctor or psychiatrist cause I thought “something was wrong” and I’ve never seen anyone change the subject faster in my life. Parents don’t want to talk about this stuff. The stepfather, who seems genuinely distraught probably would have reprimanded him, and tried to come up with ways to “man him up”. It’s fine to play the distraught family after the fact, but in many ways it’s easier to play the grieving parents, the victim of a school gone wild, than to face up to their role in this. No where have I read anything about the parents talking to school officials. The claim that they didn’t know just how bad the bullying was, is a smoke screen. Everyone knows that once your kid becomes a punching bag and target of taunts and bullying and no one says anything, it’s open season. How do you not make the first whiff of school bullying a cause to call up the school? It was probably written off as “boys being boys.”

There’s some larger responsibilities here on the school as well as our society as a whole. Why – is it still okay to beat up sissies? Is it that everyone realizes they’re likely to grow up to be gay, to be fags? That was probably the word the bullies used the most – the “f” word. About as brutal a thing you can call an eleven year old boy. Especially one with no gay role models, no counseling, and with a family that is benign at best and surely not supportive. Families of gay teenagers have this remarkable ability to go into denial and somehow claim that they love their children but at the same time condemning them. I’ve been there, but most people can only imagine, the world of a “different” preteen has to be one of the loneliest most self-incriminating, self-hating lives you can lead. I’ve often told my black friends, to imagine growing up in a white household and actually being white, then sometime around adolescent, you find the white skin starting to rub off, to discover to your surprise you’re actually black. The very thing you’ve always heard referred to in denigrating, brutal, loutish terms, something you’ve been taught to hate. You’d be putting on makeup, wearing long sleeve shirts, you’d be doing anything at all to not be discovered – you just wouldn’t know any better – how could you?

I’d implore parents before they started ranting to the TV during the evening news, ranting about all the damn homos trying to get married, about how it was so unnatural, disgusting -- that they take a good look around in their own living room. Even passing jokes, the casual use of “that’s so gay” it’s all like a dagger through a young gay or lesbian teenager. And it’s not just the “sissies” it’s often the football jock, the cheerleader, the debate team captain – believe me if a young gay or lesbian can pass, they probably will do so at all costs, and at great cost to their own self-esteem and self-worth.

But just think what this says about our society, what barbarians we are that we as a society are somehow “okay” with the bullying and name calling that drives young teenagers to kill themselves. That they just weren’t tough enough, not emotionally stable enough to handle it, were just too weak, too fragile. That they just couldn’t muster or man up to the challenge.

This is an outrage, and the rabid leadership of the religious right should be looking long and hard at hateful attacks on the “day of silence” to bring attention to this very topic in schools. They should be looking long and hard at their actions and what they’re teaching their children. They need to look long and hard at the demonizing and vilification of gays and lesbians. That they’re not destroying their own children. That religious groups can sit idly by and help promote this atmosphere, can help build the hostile environment in which this takes place – is beyond the pale.

Please parents, if you think your kid may be dealing with these issues, dealing with these problems at school – get help – all of you.