Anyone else read recent New Yorker article about gay Rutgers freshman who jumped off GW bridge?

[Anonymous]

What I got from reading the piece was just a lot of confusion.

I didn't pay much attention to the story when it first came out. I was under the impression that Clementi was gay, but not out; and that his roommate had taped him having sex with another male student; and replayed it or posted it on the web or Facebook or wherever; and that Clementi killed himself because he was outed, being bullied and tormented by his roommate, and was very embarassed and distraught at having something so private taped and and shared with the world.

So I was really surprised to see that he was already out to his parents; and even to his friends from high school I think. And that the person he brought back to his room was some 25 year old from the community and a near stranger. I am NOT condoning what his roommate did in spying on Clementi BUT I can really empathize with beeing pissed off (a) at beaing sexiled from your own room and (b) having some 25 year old stranger in your room. I can empathize with him telling his friend "Oh no, it's happening again!" That's not necessarily homophobia or gay bashing. I did the same thing when my freshman roommate brought her boyfriend with her from another state and practically had him move in with us the first week of school. I was annoyed and ticked off! No, I didn't set up a webcam or spy on them; but I did talk about them to others with annoyance.

I was also surprised to see that the roommate Dharun, didn't tape the encounter. he set up his webcam to see what was going on. And then the next time he was horrible in telling everyone it was happening again and inviting them to look in. But I thought it was all about gay bashing and I really didn't get the sense that he was doing that at all -- he was just pissed at his roomate. he's a jerk, no doubt about it. He should have told his roommate to knock it off, stop bringing strangers home to a shared bedroom. The webcam was juvenile and a violatino of privacy BUT I don't know how much privacy you have a right to expect when you tell your roommate to leave your shared bedroom so you can have sex in college.

Finally, I thought Clementi was absolutely devastaed and distraught when he learned that he had been spied on -- but at least from the magazine article, that didn't really seem to be the case. It seemed more like he was upset about whatever was going on with the 25 year old.

Clementi knew that Dharun had a webcam set up for the second "date" with the older man, because he read his twitter account saying that it was set up again. Nevertheless he went ahead with the "date".

[Anonymous]

PP again: here's the part of the article that makes me feel like Clementi wasn't all that distraught over the whole deal. (M.B. is the older guy he invited to his room for sex):

At around eight-thirty, Ravi left Davidson C for Ultimate Frisbee practice. Clementi read Ravi’s “happening again” tweet sometime before mid-evening—and this seems to have ended his doubts about taking action. Just before M.B. was due to arrive, Clementi went to see Raahi Grover, a resident adviser. Grover took him seriously, and asked him to repeat his story in an e-mail. He also offered him a spare bed in his own room for that night. Clementi declined, and returned to his room.

He unplugged Ravi’s computer. In a text sent at 9:41 P.M., he told Yang, “I was afraid he might have hidden another webcam so I also shut down and turned off the power strip.” Prosecutors, pursuing a bias charge, have claimed that “afraid,” in this context, constitutes evidence of fear.

Ravi contends that, by this time, he had changed his mind about the broadcast, and had disabled his webcam. Yet he was still referring to a “viewing party” after leaving the dorm for Frisbee, and, when he texted Huang the next day, he said, “it got messed up and didn’t work LOL.”

M.B. arrived at 10:19 P.M. Clementi did not tell him about what had happened on Sunday. Ravi came back to the dorm, and waited in Agarwal’s room. Just after eleven, he texted Clementi to ask if he was still using the room. At eleven-forty-eight, Clementi replied, “we’re done.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/06/120206fa_fact_parker#ixzz1ljkeDIzZ

[Anonymous]

This is certainly a tragedy, but I don't think that the room mate is guilty of the crimes charged. The room mate was clearly a jerk and probably a bully, but society should be careful before criminalizing being a jerk. For example, John Edwards is certainly a jerk and perhaps dispicable, but the US attorney is NC may be going to far in stretching the campaign finance laws to charge him with a crime. If being an offensive jerk becomes a criminal offense, the prisons would be more overcrowded than they are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I If you build high self esteem in your kids, they will be less likely to pick on someone else. Obviously, Dharun did not have genuinely high self esteem or he would not have felt such a need to get attenion (the lies to Molly Wei about being a soccer star etc in addition to the Tweets about Tyler).

Oh, FFS. I am so tired of the cult of self-esteem. I do not think bullies need to be put more in touch with their own wonderfulness. I think they need to think more of and about other people.

They need to learn what self-respect is and how to earn it.

+1
Bullies don't have low self esteem. That is a long perpetuated myth to excuse their behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually Dahrun's attitude is quite common in guys like him. Have known so many guys like him! I pray he is deported! What an ass.

Great article. I love the New Yorker. I was stunned that Tyler Clementi was out.

Yeah, this type of behavior is very common among the fresh-from-the boat people. Their self-esteem must be low, so they're going out of their way trying to act 'cool'. He hates 'poor people'. What an ass!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I If you build high self esteem in your kids, they will be less likely to pick on someone else. Obviously, Dharun did not have genuinely high self esteem or he would not have felt such a need to get attenion (the lies to Molly Wei about being a soccer star etc in addition to the Tweets about Tyler).

Oh, FFS. I am so tired of the cult of self-esteem. I do not think bullies need to be put more in touch with their own wonderfulness. I think they need to think more of and about other people.

They need to learn what self-respect is and how to earn it.

+1
Bullies don't have low self esteem. That is a long perpetuated myth to excuse their behavior.

Dharun was a first-generation immigrant. That explains a lot.

[Anonymous]

What I find interesting about this story is the fact that while the incident itself took place some time ago, we are having this discussion at around the same time that Facebook is making it's initial IPO. The deeper question is what the effect the social media and technology is having on our social relations. We already know that the internet gathers information about us to turn over to others for whatever reason. One hundred years ago, it would have been impossible to film another person without their knowledge and transmit it all over the world. This is certainly not the first suicide story made public that was assisted if not caused by our ability to share information without discretion. The fact that Dharun was a first generation immigrant is the least salient fact about this case. I know I'm stating the obvious, but the sword cuts both ways when it comes to technological advances that are supposed to enrich our lives.

[Anonymous]

I don't think Clementi was necessarily chronically depressed or in a state of serious depression over what had happened with Ravi. Adolescents are impulsive. That's part of the high rate of teen suicide. That's why it's dangerous to have guns, alcohol and fast cars around adolescents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I If you build high self esteem in your kids, they will be less likely to pick on someone else. Obviously, Dharun did not have genuinely high self esteem or he would not have felt such a need to get attenion (the lies to Molly Wei about being a soccer star etc in addition to the Tweets about Tyler).

Oh, FFS. I am so tired of the cult of self-esteem. I do not think bullies need to be put more in touch with their own wonderfulness. I think they need to think more of and about other people.

They need to learn what self-respect is and how to earn it.

+1
Bullies don't have low self esteem. That is a long perpetuated myth to excuse their behavior.

From reading the article, it appears that Dharun Ravi had dangerously high self-esteem.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that the information which inflamed public opinion is very different from what occurred. Very sad all around. 2 families ruined. Guilty of moral turpitude but not necessarily the crimes charged. Weird how they both used technology but couldn't have a simple conversation with each other.

[Anonymous]

Many teens / young adults kill themselves, many more try. A few are gay, most aren't. About 90% of them have a mental illness. Of course being bullied for anything is bad, being bullied for gay is bad but both bullying and anything directed at someone who is gay are issues people love to get worked up about. Social justice and all. No one cares that the vast majority of males who kill themselves are straight - not going to get publicity for that. Can't sound like you are fighting a cause. Only the gay men's lives matter. Makes national news.

[Anonymous]

I got through a portion of the article and a number of things struck me:
We are a screwed up society. The things we read in that article are likely common to our youth today. It is a shame that these young lives were all ruined in different ways.

We as parents MUST do better to raise our children, give them our time and teach them. We must fight the fight to keep them away from all the cr*p out there, even if we end up being the bad guys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I just wish I knew what was going through his head. He was doing all the right things ... reporting it to school, requesting a room change, not engaging in a huge scene with Dharun, and then he goes and grabs a burger and jumps off a bridge. It's just too hard to fathom that someone can come to such a drastic conclusion when acting so seemingly normal.

While Dharun's behavior was the direct impetus for the suicide, and what he did was absolutely inexcusable, from the article, it sounds like Tyler was depressed beforehand. Not that this in any way excuses the abhorrent behavior of Dharun or Molly, but it helps does help to better understand Tyler's mindset in coming to the decision that he did.

But what's so haunting about this story is that it apparently wasn't all that obvious to a lot of people that he was depressed or suicidal. I mean, my child was suicidal for awhile and it was obvious something was wrong. (We got her help and it passed thank god) But this story makes it sound like Tyler kept his worst feelings completely hidden. I mean he has people he IMs with and is discussing the situation with. Did he let on at all that he was considering suicide?

All I can imagine is that he must have felt that his living situation was impossible. He lived with someone who he barely talked to who was making fun of him to a wide circle of friends and he was worried that contacting the RA made things worse. Maybe he just couldn't see his life at school getting any better and young people are so impulsive -- but then it's hardly impulsive to take a bus to a bridge in order to jump off, is it?

I was hoping I would understand more after some journalist investigated the story. I feel now like I understand less! Poor kid!

I suspect there may be some answers in Tyler's computer files and the note he left. I'm not totally clear on why they have not been released, at least to Tyler's family. It's not like this is a murder mystery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that the information which inflamed public opinion is very different from what occurred. Very sad all around. 2 families ruined. Guilty of moral turpitude but not necessarily the crimes charged. Weird how they both used technology but couldn't have a simple conversation with each other.

This is how I felt. The story originally came out as more of a 'bullying' story, but article portrays both boys differently (not just bully/victim).

Either way, 1 life cut short and 1 life ruined. How senseless.

I was never able to turn to my parents for advice, comfort, and I really hope that I can provide my kids with the knowledge that they can ALWAYS turn to me.

[Anonymous]

So sad, all of it. I feel for both sets of parents. I feel for Tyler. I even feel for Ravi. Teenagers do terrible, stupid things. I am a gung-ho, pro-human/gay rights liberal now, but might I have been squeamish and dramatically horrified by a gay roommate hook up 20 years ago? I don't know.... And now every stupid things these kids do or say is memorialized online.

Tyler seems like he was at-risk already. What Ravi did was disgusting. I don't think it rises to the level of a person committing suicide, however.

My young daughter saw me reading this article. I told her it's a reminder that we have to be kind to everyone; you never know whether an act of unkindness on your own part can be the thing that pushes someone too far into despair