Greg Pratt on the Khush List posted this thoughtful response to the link I'd sent to this story:
I'm surprised that no one offered a response to this article. It's a bit long, but worth the read. It fills in a lot of the details about both the people and the particulars of how Ravi ended up turning Clementi's very private moments into something so salaciously public. The story took on a life of its own, often ignoring or even creating âfactsâ. The queer communities of the United States latched onto this, too, because it was just the latest, and perhaps most public, example of gay teen suicide that has wounded so many of us, yet has been so callously ignored for so long. The piece in the New Yorker is much more introspective in a way that could only happen after the story began to fade from the headlines of mainstream media. Vikram's description of Dharun Ravi hits most of important points that I concluded on my own: he had grown into the body of a man, but was actually a boy with a lack of maturity in just the wrong places. I would submit that his entire motivation came not from a fear of gay people, but a fear of what people would try to surmise about Ravi's own sexual orientation because his roommate was gay. He feared guilt by association, probably because he was not completely comfortable with his own sexuality. It doesn't matter if Ravi is heterosexual or not; it was his fear of what people might think that motivated his public homophobia and attempts to, in essence, bully Clementi. Recall that bullying is not about the victim; it is about the insecurities of the person who takes the offensive position, trying desperately to make people not question them. Dharun Ravi also seemed to be in an insular world and was inexperienced at dealing with people outside of his own circle. You could see it in numerous comments he made about Clementi being âpoorâ. The Clementi family was not economically disadvantaged; they simply didn't have as much money as Ravi did (or thought he did), and didn't live in a supposedly nicer town. They were âotherâ â" people not like him. Ravi represents why I most fear moving to a wealthy town: a fear of sameness, a fear of people who are never challenged. Would Ravi feel remorse for what he did? Possibly, but we will never know. As soon as he was fingered by the press and the legal system as one of the people behind the activity that probably pushed Clementi to suicide, he went into âdefenseâ mode. He couldn't say a thing without having it picked apart in the press, and the press was certainly watching him. As soon as it became a legal matter, the attorneys took over, and they spoke on his behalf. His only occupation now is to work a defense through the legal system, and he has probably had little time to think of what happened in any terms but the ones which will get him his life back. Ironically, he is not being given a chance to feel bad or find remorse. Perhaps not even for himself. We also got to see a much more human Tyler Clementi, a teenager who saw his life flashing before his eyes in the most vulnerable period of his life. He was becoming comfortable with himself, more self-assured as an 18-year-old than his older brother (who is also gay) ever was at the same age. But this was also a new world for him, one in which he was emotionally inexperienced. He was suddenly trying to shed off his shy, self-protective self, but was still learning how to do it when he was made naked and vulnerable â" literally â" by his numbingly stupid roommate. He had not yet learned to cope with emotional trauma in this context and, try as he may, it overwhelmed and consumed him. Clementi was not exactly a loner, but he was often alone in his thoughts â" shy, as most people who knew him would later reflect. I can't help but wonder if this was his nature as a young child, or if he, as many of us do, start to close off to others when we first sense that unnameable difference in ourselves. In the year before his death, he was, I think, experiencing an awakening. There is a very old adage, âThat which does not kill you, makes you stronger.â That is especially true for LGBT people. Those of us which survive are much stronger, much more confident for the experience. But we sometimes forget that some people do not make it that far. I visited Ridgewood, NJ, for the first time about a month ago. It was Tyler Clementi's hometown, Purvesh and I were looking for a Thai restaurant that we had heard about, but unexpectedly stumbled into a brand new branch of Brick Lane Curry House, whose flagship restaurant in Manhattan makes an infamous phaal curry. Afterwards, we drove around the town, checking out the houses and seeing what sort of town it was. Looking back, I can't help but wonder what Clementi's death did to the people he left behind: not only his family, but everyone in that town who knew him. We now have one more voice to tell us who Tyler Clementi was. James Clementi, Tyler's older brother, wrote a series of letters to his deceased brother, a form of catharsis. http://www.out.com/news-commentary/2012/02/01/tyler-clementi-james-letters-my-br\ other As much as they helped him work through his grief, they also give us an intimate portrait of a young man who has largely been known only through sound bites and angry media pundits calling for someone's head. Tyler was not a symbol or a martyr. He was also someone's brother. -- Gregory Pratt --- In gay_bombay@yahoogroups.com, "vgd67" <vgd67@...> wrote: > > An absolutely must read story from the New Yorker that goes in depth into the > tragic story of Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi: > > http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/02/06/120206fa_fact_parker > > People may remember this story from about a year and a half back. Tyler > Clementi was a freshman student at Rutgers in New Jersey who was sharing a > room with another freshman Dharun Ravi. Ravi discovered that Clementi was gay > and when he requested use of their room to have sex with another guy, Ravi > set up his webcam to capture them and tweeted about it like it was a joke. > Clementi found out and committed suicide. > > The story provoked huge sorrow and outrage at what people saw was misuse of > techonology by uncaring and unfeeling young people to out someone closeted. > As it happened the suicide happened just when Dan Savage was launching his It > Gets Better video campaign aimed at persuading gay kids not to commit > suicide, and the campaign got a huge boost from this. > > Ian Parker from the New Yorker goes into the story to show that it was a bit > more complex than it seemed, though none the less tragic. Clementi wasn't > quite closeted, but he was socially awkward and shy, especially compared to > the much more outgoing and confident Ravi. But Ravi wasn't entirely the > homophobic jock he was made out to be, though certainly rather stupidly > unthinking and brash. > > At the time there was also something of a racial subtext to the story since > Ravi, and the friend he roped into this, were both fairly privileged Asian > 'model minority' kids, while Clementi was from a not that well off white > family. Again here Parker shows that this was a simplification, though some > class angle probably did play in - he shows that Ravi had a rather ugly > prejudice against 'poor' people. (Ravi, incidentally, has Indian citizenship, > so one reason why he is refusing to accept a guilty plea bargain is probably > because that would lead to deportation). > > But overall what comes out of this story is how shockingly normal so much of > it us, but also how normality can so easily spin out of control. You can > easily identify with Clementi, the shy gay boy who struggled to make friends > (though, interestingly, he seems to have been more sexually confident than > Ravi). > > But you can, if not exactly identify, you can see where someone like Ravi is > coming from - confident, brash, self centred, but also young and with so much > to learn. Can everyone here say unequivocally they were never in a position > where they bullied someone a bit? I can remember I was and I'm not proud of > it, but I grew out of it without, I hope, causing much harm. Ravi wasn't so > lucky. > > All this really makes the story worth reading, and I'm curious what people > feel about it. Where do your sympathies lie - obviously with Clementi, but is > any due at all for Ravi? What sort of punishment would be fit? And what does > the story say about the role technology now plays in our lives? > > Vikram >
