The visible impact of bullying is often delayed, because
the emotional impact can take months or years before it becomes visible. Depression, loneliness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, learned helplessness and victim status can combine to cause
youth to drop out of school and to settle for low-paying, dead-end jobs and to enter relationships that are abusive. Bullying is an unwanted gift that, like the Energizer bunny rabbit, just keeps going and going.
Bullying caught the attention of the media again this
month, with the suicide of Jamie
Hubley, a gay 15 year old gay, Ontario youth, who
experienced bullying. Watching Jamie's You Tube gave the sense that he was
comfortable in his own skin. In one
of his videos, Jamie sings a Lady Gaga song. Touched by Jamie Hubley's
suicide, gay Canadian television personality Rick
Mercer, made one of his famous rants, in which he makes the call to "Make
it Better Now." Rick Mercer's "Make it Better Now" rant can
be read online at RickMercer.Com.
Links to videos of Rick Mercer's rants, including his rant about gay teen
suicides, can also be found on RickMercer.Com.
* * *
October marked National Coming Out Day, a day when gay and
bisexual people celebrate coming out.
Some members of sexual minorities wait until Coming Out Day to come
out. Many gay and bisexual You
Tubers created videos in honor of Coming Out Day. In some cases, Coming Out Day videos
relate their personal coming out stories, sharing the painful and the affirming
experiences of coming out.
Matthew Shepard was murdered in October. This month saw an increase in videos
about Matthew Shepard, as people remembered one of the queer community's many
victims of hate crimes. Because
Matthew Shepard's murder brought many queer people out of the closet and
because Matthew's murder helped the gay community obtain protection in hate
crimes legislation, it seems appropriate that National Coming Out Month and Gay
History Month are the same month as Matthew's murder. Well over a decade after Matthew
Shepard's death, he is still remembered in by gay, bisexual and trans people
around the world.
* * *
United
Kingdom News
An article on The
Independent, a United Kingdom news website, "Homophobia Exacts a
Chilling Price as Hate Crimes Climb," discusses trends in homophobia in
the Britain. According to the article, hate crimes against gay and trans people
increased, with an increase of about 14% for hate crimes targeting members of
the trans community in 2010. In
some locations in Britain, bias crimes against sexual minorities increased by
up to 170 percent.
A British Broadcasting
Corporation article informs us that Kevin Thakrar,
a prisoner in Frankland Prison who has been charged
for assaulting three guards, claims there is a climate of racism and tensions
between Islamic and non-Islamic inmates and between Islamic inmates and
non-Islamic guards.
* * *
An online article on The
Jewish Post states the number of anti-Semetic
incidents reported in the United States increased slightly in 2010. Additional information can be found on
The Jewish Post website.
* * *
A CNN
news article informs us that 19 year old Deryl Dedmon was charged with murder and a hate crime in connection
with the murder of James Craig Anderson, a Black man. We gather authorities believe James
Anderson was beaten and driven over by an automobile. Seven white youth are thought to been
involved in Anderson's murder.
* * *
A Rueters article states two Arkansas men were sentenced
under hate crimes provisions in connection with an assault on a group of Latino
men, who were told they should return to Mexico.
* * *
The University of California, Berkeley experienced an
increase in hate crimes in 2010. An
article in The
Daily Californian provides details about the increases in hate crimes. According to charts in The Daily
Californian, there were increases in hate crimes on the basis of race or
ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation. The most significant numerical increase
in hate crimes was hate crimes based on religion. In total, the number of hate crimes at
University of California, Berkeley increased three-fold in 2010.
* * *
Canadian
News
Several news reports from Canada relate to racism and hate
crimes. An article on the Canadian
Television Corporation website indicates an arrest was made of a man who
might have engaged in a hate crime.
According to the article, a suspect is thought to have uttered racist
comments when attacking Vancouver, British Columbia security guard.
The
Toronto Sun carries an article about Paris Dipersico,
an author who wrote Wake Up Call, a book that is critical of some elements within
Islam. According to the article, Dipersico was beaten by people who are reported to have
called him Jewish and to have accused Jewish people of wanting Dipersico to write the book.
A Canadian
National Post article about an Arab engineer, Abdullah Almalki,
who spent over a year and a half incarcerated in Syria, due to the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) informing Syrian officials that he was a threat,
provides information that gives the impression the RCMP had no real evidence on
Almalki. The article gives the sense that internal documents show the only thing
the RCMP had on Almalki was his Arab heritage. While the RCMP may have had suspicions
about what was doing, the internal document appears to be racist.