Research Log #4

Source:

Mulvihill, Geoff, and David Crary. "Jamey Rodemeyer's Suicide Leads To Bullying Spotlight, Caution." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/jamey-rodemeyers-suicide-_n_987054.html>.

Summary:

In this article, it talks about a young 14 year old boy, Jamey Rodemeyer, who committed suicide on September 18, 2011 due to constant bullying from his peers at school because of his sexual orientation. In the article, it is said that Jamey’s parents would monitor his face book account but they did not know that he also had a youtube channel where he would talk about all of the obstacles he had to overcome involving his peers that would ridicule and victimize him on a daily basis for being openly gay. Many times in his videos he would refer to Lady Gaga and her lyrics to help other s who were going through the same things. Rodemeyer was not only a part of the LGBT community but he was also involved in the ‘It Gets Better’ project which was created to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment.

Jamey Rodemeyer was victimized since grade school simply because he hung out with girls but he told his parents that things were beginning to get easier once he entered high school. It was then where he began his youtube channel and spoke about how things were really going for him among his peers. On September 18, 2011, Jamey Rodemeyer hung himself and was found by his sister, Alyssa Rodemeyer. Shortly before he took his own life, he tweeted to Lady Gaga, “Bye mother monster, thank you for all you have done, paws up forever.” Jamey Rodemeyer’s suicide caught quite a bit of attention from activists, journalists and Lady Gaga, herself.

Unfortunately, there were still minor issues that peers had with Jamey. At his school’s homecoming dance, one of Lady Gaga’s songs began to play the day of Jamey’s wake and his sister, along with some of her friends, began to chant “Jamey.” While this was happening, there were still some schoolmates expressing that they were glad that Jamey was dead.  Jamey’s father told school officials about this incident and was told that this event would be under investigation.

Jamey’s parents have spoken to his schoolmates and expressing how horrifying the experience has been and how it has taken a toll on them in hope to try to save anyone else from going through any similar situation.

Response:

This article helped me by being a modern day issue and how it has not ceased to exist and shows that there still needs to be action taken upon this matter. Jamey did his best to fight through this not only for himself but to give hope to others by sharing his experiences and strength with others through his YouTube channel. Jamey was only 14 and no one, especially young teens should stoop down this low and cut their lives short due to the disrespect of uncaring human beings when they have a long life ahead of them.

Next Steps:

After reading this article, I hope to find something a bit more political to gain a different perspective of how politicians or the government views this issue. Too many people fail to change themselves until they see the issue from a global perspective and see that it is diminishing our society’s low acceptance level.