A number of years ago, my mother asked me how she should respond to the giggling rumormongering of adolescent houseguests who were talking about a friend of theirs who might be “gay.” The typical middle-school “ewww”s followed, and then more giggles. They weren’t mean-spirited kids (and, inevitably enough, the best friend of one of them would soon begin to display signs that made us all suspect he’d come rushing out of the closet as soon as he got to college.) They were just behaving as they’d been socialized to behave.
I suggested that she could point out to them that, statistically, at least one of their friends was likely to be gay, or to at least be thinking about the possibility that he might be. Hearing the derision of classmates, that kid might keep to himself, never tell anyone, feel afraid to talk to his own friends. Some kids try to kill themselves because of that kind of loneliness. And some of them succeed.
I never thought to tell her that some kids might learn to be so embarassed by the very idea of “gayness” that they would grant themselves agency to murder each other.
Eighth-grader Lawrence King was killed on February 12th by a classmate. Lawrence had said he was gay. And had asked the other boy to be his valentine.
From the New York Times story:
“They teased him because he was different,” said Marissa Moreno, 13, also in the eighth grade. “But he wasn’t afraid to show himself.”
Lawrence wore his favorite high-heeled boots most days, riding the bus to school from Casa Pacifica, a center for abused and neglected children in the foster care system, where he began living last fall. Officials would not say anything about his family background other than that his parents, Greg and Dawn King, were living and that he had four siblings. Lawrence started attending E. O. Green last winter, said Steven Elson, the center’s chief executive. “He had made connections here,” Dr. Elson said. “It’s just a huge trauma here. It’s emotionally very charged.”
[...]
“He had a character that was bubbly,” Marissa said. “We would just laugh together. He would smile, then I would smile and then we couldn’t stop.”
On the morning of Feb. 12, Lawrence was in the school’s computer lab with 24 other students, said Mr. Keith, the police spokesman. Brandon walked into the room with a gun and shot Lawrence in the head, the police said, then ran from the building. Police officers caught him a few blocks away.
Unconscious when he arrived at the hospital, Lawrence was declared brain dead the next day but kept on a ventilator to preserve his organs for donation, said the Ventura County medical examiner, Armando Chavez. He was taken off life support on Feb. 14
[...]
At a vigil for Lawrence last week in Ventura, 200 people carried glow sticks and candles in paper cups as they walked down a boardwalk at the beach and stood under the stars. Melissa Castillo, 13, recalled the last time she had seen Lawrence. “He was walking through the lunch room, wearing these awesome boots,” she said. “I ran over to him and said, ‘Your boots are so cute!’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ ”
She raised her chin and arched an eyebrow in imitation. “ ‘If you want cute boots,’ ” Lawrence had told her, “ ‘you have to buy the expensive kind.’ ” His boots had cost $30.
Full story here.
I don’t have much to say about this story that hasn’t already been said. I continue to believe, though, that we are all responsible for the well-being of those around us. We, as a nation, killed Lawrence King just as surely as we have killed untold thousands of Iraqis in recent years. We killed him in a Junior High classroom.
Ellen DeGeneres talked about it on her show recently. Preaching to the choir, I suspect, but we have to start somewhere:
Here’s an interview from MTV News in which one of the girls mentioned in the Times story talks about Larry.
MTVRest in peace, kid. I’m so sorry.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 r.i.p. Simmie Williams, 17 years old // Mar 1, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[...] for further information on Lawrence King, about whom I posted earlier, I came across the story of Simmie Williams, another openly gay teen who was shot to death in [...]
2 Takahito Torimoto // Mar 2, 2008 at 3:45 pm
That’s a difficult task - to make the younger kids understand. But explaining it to them, using analogies would probably help. Trying to teach them individuality, and the fact that we each have our own favorites/choices, but yet others having different ones, I think is important. It’s no different than liking a hot-dog over a hamburger. Just because the other person likes something different, it doesn’t make them wrong. It makes them a unique individual. Again, as long as that difference is not harming you, why should you care? Reverse the roles - do others have a right to think differently (”eww”) of you because you like something different? No. They (kids) would feel sad if that were the case. Don’t worry - my kid(s) will understand that - because I want them to feel unique - that they CAN make their own decisions/choices - and not have to “follow the crowd” on everything. That’s what makes a leader.
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