The suicide of Tyler Clementi, an ordinary kid, college student, and young member of the LGBT community, shook my week up tremendously, so much that I couldn’t even tweet or blog on the situation until I cleared my head. The tragic story goes: Clementi’s roommate (and his roommate’s friend) secretly broadcasted Clementi having sex with his male lover over Skype and Twitter. As a result of the humiliation and obvious “outing” of his homosexuality, Clementi ended his life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge, creating an international conversation about sexuality, privacy, and technology. It is not sufficient to say that this is a tragedy because indeed the actions of Clementi’s roommate and friend go beyond the moment of their “prank.”  Above everything, it is the insensitivity to Clementi’s sexuality, lifestyle, and reputation that hit me in the gut and caused me to ask the following:

Do onlookers to this tragedy really understand what happened, why it happened, and what we need to do on a long term trajectory to prevent incidents like this from occurring again?

For one, I cannot understand why LGBT issues truly aren’t a topic of discussion until adulthood. During high school, how many of young students are challenged on heteronormativity? Required to learn about sexualities outside of heterosexuality? Encouraged to change their ideological biases toward the LGBT community?

Moreover, what about the impact of these environments on LGBT youth? How do you deal with the constant rejection of your sexuality as valid? The atmosphere that often requires you hide it? The family that won’t acknowledge the way you love? Well, most of these young people struggle and don’t feel acceptance until later adult years, if ever. It’s NOT OKAY.

Let me paint a typical high school setting. As an LGBT student, you sit in a class about sex education, heterosexual sex education that is, year after year that doesn’t acknowledge the way you love. As a queer young man, you kiss your boyfriend in the school hallway, displaying the same affection as many young heterosexual couples, and, at the very least, you get stares, if not derogatory comments. Or even worse, you decide not to kiss your boyfriend or display any affection in fear of your high school community’s reaction. Young queer women go through similar dilemmas. It’s NOT OKAY.

In high school, I was one of those students who would stare, even if I never vocalized my discomfort with LGBT students. In my mind, LGBT students were abnormal, even though I befriended many of them and never said anything that revealed my prejudice. It wasn’t until I reached college that my beliefs were challenged and I was forced to acknowledge my ignorance. Perhaps, if I had been challenged earlier, my eyeballs would not have shot darts at queer students likely still coming into their homosexuality. It’s high school students like me, and worse, who remain ignorant and insensitive to our actions. It’s NOT OKAY.

When will this country’s education system and parents start debunking the prejudices of our children? While not every LGBT young person has the described challenges, it is fair to say that these students have a rougher experience of youth than most heterosexual young people. It is no wonder that the overwhelming majority of homeless youth in the U.S. are LGBT. Shocked? It’s a fact, look it up. If this doesn’t speak volumes about our society’s level of tolerance for homosexuality, I don’t know what else will.

We have to view this tragedy’s many layers as a reflection of who we are as a society. Like many heterosexual youth, Clementi’s perpetrators were not educated about the difficulties that face LGBT youth; thus, leading to their insensitivity. On the flip side, if Clementi had sex with a girl, it still would have been a horrid invasion of privacy. But, the contemporary LGBT struggle adds a significant layer, making it far worse, and a new question that this society has to ask itself. These students were wrong, but we foster and breed these types of kids. What are we going to do about it? All I can say is that I hope Tyler Clementi’s suicide will be a wake up call to students, administrators, faculty, and communities nationwide.

After 469 pages, I had this somewhat epiphany that went something like “Arielle, remember when you used to blog about the random thoughts that popped into your head before you moved to Spain?” Admittedly, not having 24 hour internet access and having to pay a drink price at café just to use their wifi, has kind of disconnected me from the online world. Yes, it’s true. I manage to check my email still just about everyday and mostly the same for my Facebook. I try to blog after I travel. But up to date devices such as Twitter (and yes, ladies and gentlemen thanks to Undercurrent, the social media think-tank, aka my former employer that introduced me to the blogosphere/social media world from a business perspective, I had Twitter way before CNN or any other major media brand made it extremely popular follow me at ariellep for updates when I return back to NYC) unfortunately, I don’t have the opportunity to use it that much here in Spain, nor do I have the desire to. I really enjoyed being in New York, walking down the street and seeing something funny and putting a comment through a text message to have it update my Twitter feed. But that luxury is no longer there thanks to Verizon not being able to service an affordable international plan through my LG touch screen phone (you would think something decently technologically advanced would have such capabilities), but these days I guess the only way people get things done is through a Blackberry, right?

Well to that I say, damn the masses and after reading Candace Bushnell’s One Fifth Avenue after one of my nostalgic moments where I started to think, “hey, maybe I do miss New York,” and rushed to Casa del Libro where I remembered seeing the book on sale in English, I realized that I simply don’t. I do not miss New York. Although once and always considered a suburban Jersey girl, after a year at New York University, New York has become home. It is my home. It’s a part of me and gives me the same feeling that every student feels when they return home to see their parents in their hometown, extremely excited at first to have a great home cooked meal and family attention, only a week later to find out, OMG I am ready to move back into my little dorm and reclaim my freedom. I think my return to New York will be somewhat like that. I’ll be so excited to be back in the hustle and bustle, and then after about a week and the reality of senior year facing me, I’ll be ready to fly back over to Europe, back to my little room I am renting in this old house in Sevilla, Spain.

I guess the pursuit of happiness never really ends, and it is somewhat bothersome that it’s penned so clearly in American capitalism and symbolism. Although I am not a continuous Bushnell reader, what she did do with quite grace was point out the ridiculousness of New York society, money, wealth, and how everyone moving to New York has this goal to “make it” in the big city. I was there almost 2 years ago, a 17 year old senior high school graduate, who just had to move to New York and attend New York University to make her dreams of becoming a writer and magazine editor come true. And I started blazing that path and accomplished a lot, but right when you think you have it all planned out, a fast ball hits you in the chest. After losing my wind and coughing up what seemed to be a refreshing revelation, I realized that I probably will not be living in New York after next year. I also realize that I could be taking that back with the proper job opportunity presenting itself, because New York has this thing where it sucks in any type of humble or peaceful mentality you arrive with and spits back out this hungry monster that wants to ball all types of potential success into the quickest route possible. Bushnell points that out so vividly, and I encourage all aspiring New York socialites or future professionals to read her book and realize what you are getting into. Admittedly, I didn’t see the light until I moved to Spain because even in London, I was obsessed with getting back to New York and spent the majority of my winter break there instead of in Jersey. Not saying that will change when I return, because I really do like having my space as a young woman, but now New York has just become a temporary skyline. It will always be there but never a permanent fixture in my brain. I like being in Sevilla and being able to repeat the same pair of jeans 3 times in a week or having to hang my laundry on clothing lines because we don’t use dryers. Also, I love washing dishes without a dishwasher, and that I could literally sit in my cozy bedroom and read six novels consecutively in a week, manage my homework, travel, and learn from so many people just because you have made a point to learn and speak their language. New York doesn’t have that; it is the most relevant microcosm of America and our consumer heel in the ground style. I’m out of the bubble now and it will never be reconstructed. STICK ME IN A HOUSE IN BRASIL SOMEWHERE AND LET ME WRITE MY NOVELS! (after I manage to learn Portuguese lol)

Link to Candace Bushnell’s website

Much love,

Ari