A Rutgers first-year reportedly committed suicide last week after his roommate used a webcam to secretly capture and broadcast video of him having “a sexual encounter” with another man in their dorm room.
The roommate, Dharun Ravi, is said to have made the video available for others to view online and then bragged about the incident on Twitter:
“Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
“Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it’s happening again.”
On September 23 his roommate, who has not been publicly identified, reportedly jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
Ravi and his alleged accomplice Molly Wei have been charged with multiple counts of invasion of privacy, each of which carries a possible five-year prison term.
While this is tragic, it comes as no surprise. I think it's important that we remember that even though the majority of young people are learning to accept and tolerate homosexuality, there remains a sizable plurality that do not.
ReplyDeleteOne need only look around at the number of instances of bullying to see that we're facing a real crisis and that much work needs to be done.
I suspect that a lot of the bullies are dealing with sexual identity issues of their own, with the abuse of others a manifestation of their own self-loathing. Oft times the perpetrators of anti-gay violence are victims themselves of families and a culture that breeds hatred.
Kids always need to find someone or some group to pick on. That's just the way it is. They need to make themselves feel superior to someone, so they pick on the low man on the totem pole. Natural pecking order. When glbt kids move up one notch on that scale, some other poor suckers will get the abuse. Society is to blame. I wonder if that is the case in other, non-western cultures?
ReplyDeleteThis is why it's so important to be out of the closet.
ReplyDeleteMy heart goes out to this young man's family. I hope the other person in the encounter sues the privacy violators for 10 million dollars (I would).