CCSJ Blog

PSA – Say What? – 03.01.10

PSA — FAILURE?! — 03.01.10

CCSJ Youth Council Members come together to comment on diversity and equal opportunity in our education system.

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Tags: Activism, CCSJ, Charlotte Coalition, PSA, Youth
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How Many Children Have to Die ?

How many more children have to die or be forever scarred before we realize that we have a serious problem? Perhaps the story of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, the 11 year-old boy from Springfield, Massachusetts who hanged himself can shine a big enough spotlight to wake us up. His suicide was a result of the devastating and often deadly, twin-consequences of unchecked bullying and our societal attitudes towards issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. According to the reports, Carl was mercilessly targeted and victimized on a daily basis by peers who called him “gay”, “girlie” and “fag” because he did not conform to their gender stereotype. He may or may not have been gay – at 11 years old he may not even have thought about it except for the fact that he was so tormented. And the thing is, his torment was known. Carl’s mother had tried to get his school to address the problem without success. She had another meeting scheduled at Carl’s school on the day he killed himself.

There is a notion that bullying is just some sort of childhood ‘right of passage’ that everyone goes through and gets over. It is not. As someone who is part of an organization working to address this problem I know this from experience. Bullying is at best a threat to a child’s ability to grow into an emotionally, psychologically and intellectually healthy human being. At worst, bullying leads to truancy, poor academic performance, a higher school drop-out rate, increased drug and alcohol use and retaliatory violence. Young people who are bullied are more likely to suffer from depression and attempt or actually commit suicide. And children who are gay, or who are perceived to be gay, are among the most frequent targets of bullies and often victims of the most violent forms of bullying. Such was the case last year of Lawrence King, a California teen who was shot by a classmate who thought he was gay. In this context, the words of Carl’s mother are chilling. “I have been homeless, but Carl and I made it through; I was a victim of domestic violence, and we made it through. The one thing we couldn’t get through was public school.”

When it comes to issues of diversity and inclusion, we as individuals and as a society have to do a much better job for our children of challenging bigotry and modeling respectful behavior. The issues that we struggle with in our community are the ones that inform how our children relate to one another. Race, gender, economic status, religion, sexual orientation and ability status all have deep-rooted stereotypes attached to them and still all too often determine an individual’s lot in life. Beauty and material wealth are the cornerstones of popular culture. And how we process these things, from the dinner table to the boardroom to the electoral platform to the legislature is absorbed by our children. It is no accident that when the societal focus on immigration intensified, the plight of Latino children in our schools worsened, or that when the issue of marriage for same-sex couples made the ‘front page’ it was reflected in the taunts in our school corridors.

The good news is that we can fix this. At CCSJ we do this every day and it works. We have young people in our programs who self-identify as having been bullies. We have the victims, or former victims, and we have the ones who stood by, feeling bad and not knowing what to do. And as a community, we made a start with the passing of the CMS Anti-Bullying Policy. Now we have to enforce it, through both education and sanctions. We cannot afford to wait for the news of our own Carl to surface.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7328091&page=1

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From the Executive Director

As Executive Director of an organization which has a mission to “dismantle all forms of prejudice, discrimination and oppression”, how could I launch this blog otherwise than by recognizing the enormous significance of the election of our first (acknowledged) African American President*. For anyone concerned with promoting inclusion, whatever your political affiliation, the victory of Barack Obama must rank as historic. For people of all races, it has been the realization of a dream, a never-imagined triumph, the dawn of a new age. And it represents all these things and more, so I joined in the celebrations and part of me still wakes up every day in wonder and delight. I wish I could stop right here but there is another aspect to this story – well at least two actually.

Since Barack Obama launched his bid for the Presidency, there has been a growing rise in incidents of racism in general and in the membership and activity of hate groups in particular. Throughout the campaign and beyond, racist cartoons, limericks and commentaries were everyday fodder on the Internet. As recently as the end of last month, the Los Angeles Times reported the resignation of Dean Grose, the mayor of Los Alamitos, after he emailed a co-worker a cartoon depicting the White House lawn covered in watermelons.

Such is the nature of these petty racial slurs that are circulating so abundantly – they cover all the stereotypes, watermelons, fried chicken, ribs, Kool-Aid, welfare, on and on. But that’s the least of our worries. The paradox is that the Obamas have done exactly what we have been being told to do as long as I can remember – get an education, get into a good school, get a job and keep it, raise your children and stay on the right side of the law. And just like every other Black family that has done this (and there are millions at various levels who have survived and thrived in the face of all kinds of adversity), they can’t escape the stereotypes or the anger and hatred. And the hatred has taken very some dangerous and inflammatory forms. Since Barack Obama appeared on the political scene, there has been an incessant chorus which continues to this day designed to cast Obama as “the other”. He’s “foreign”, he’s a Muslim (as Colin Powell stated with such integrity in the face of so many denials from other Obama supporters, why would it matter), he’s a “terrorist”, he’s a “socialist”. According to a number of sources, there has been a significant and documented rise in the number and membership of hate groups. Neo-Nazi leader, David Duke, describes President Obama as a “visual aid” that is helping rekindle the ‘movement’. Not surprisingly, the threats have been flying around the Internet, mostly anonymously, but there have been arrests and serious Secret Service attention to the very real possibility that not all of these folks are just sounding off.

So, as much as we are rightly proud that such an enormous racial barrier haa been dismantled, we must recognize that racism and religious intolerance have not been eliminated for the millions of ‘ordinary’ people who encounter them on a daily basis or for the President of the United States.

The Secret Service will protect the President but there is a job for all of us on the most basic of levels that can help foster a climate that will make it harder for hate and fear to thrive. If you get a cartoon in your inbox, if you overhear a remark, if you see sign outside of a local business, if you hear something in the media that is inflammatory, speak up, write a letter, send a reply to that email. Run a Google search, see what’s out there and add another voice of reason. I know it’s ugly and unpleasant and we would much rather celebrate and focus on the positive than have to deal with this stuff. But to paraphrase a well known saying, “For bigotry, violence and hate to flourish it is only necessary for people who believe in tolerance, inclusion and equality to do nothing”.

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Tags: Barak Obama, Inclusion
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