Homo High? Is Segregation the Answer?

It should come as no surprise that LGBT students are much more susceptible to harassment, bullying and discrimination than just about any other group, with the exception of possibly obese students [which unfortunately may become the norm in the near future, considering one in three children/teens in the US are overweight or obese].

The GLSEN National School Climate Survey study found that 86.2 percent of  LGBT students reported varying degrees of bullicide during school hours due to their sexual orientation. And 61%  who identified as LGBT indicated they felt unsafe at school.  The hostile environment leads to a high dropout rate for these kids.

No federal laws currently exist that specifically protects young LGBTs.  But Minnesota Democratic senator Al Franken has introduced a bill,  the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA),  that would make anti-gay bullying in schools a federal offense. (Click here and here and here to support)

"Our nation’s civil rights laws protect our children from bullying due to race, sex, religion, disability and national origin. My proposal corrects a glaring injustice and extends these protections to our gay and lesbian students who need them just as badly." - Al Franken

So, are exclusive  LGBT schools the answer?

Well, the issue at hand is whether the creation of separate schools will become an excuse for those in public administration to avoid implementing reforms that will protect LGBT students from discrimination and bullying regarding their sexual orientation. Moreover, there is the issue that segregation might prolong the existence of homophobia by bolstering the average homophobe's belief that gay people are unlike "regular" people.

“If we create ‘Homo High,’ we don’t have to prohibit this behavior in other schools.  The reality is, we have to live as neighbors. We have to learn to tolerate one another, if not accept one another. All our kids should be safe in all our schools; segregation is not the answer.” - Rick Garcia, political director for the LGBT advocacy group Equality Illinois

Kevin Jennings, the founder of the GLSEN network, and now the "Safe Schools Czar" , or Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools that President Obama appointed in 2009,  who has been the target of right-winged witch hunts ever since, disagrees. He said, "We can continue to do nothing, and we know the results, or we can save young people’s lives and offer them an education and a future.”

There is no question that there should be alternatives to mainstream education for some LGBT students.  However, as more than ever before, young Americans are choosing to live openly as LGBT, which challenges the deep-seated societal bias toward homosexuality, segregating gay students at this time may halt any progression that has already occurred.  And then there are the students who will never enroll in these schools, either who may need the most protection due to hostile family situations, or who are not yet ready to confront the possible consequences that identifying as gay may present.

Links:

Antibullying Bill Passes N.Y. State Senate According to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the statewide LGBT advocacy group, “The bill creates tools for school administrators, teachers, parents. and students to address bullying and bias-related behavior of all kinds that interfere with student safety and learning. Key provisions include developing rules to prevent and respond to discriminatory harassment and hate violence; establishing teacher, staff, and administrative training guidelines; incorporating discrimination awareness into civility and character education curricula; and required reporting of incidents of bias harassment to the state education department.”

Gay and Lesbian Rights/Sexual Orientation Discrimination

Your Rights Against Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation

Strategies to Prevent Homelessness, Strengthen Services and Build Support for LGBTQ Youth - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's final report of recommendations from the City’s Commission for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Runaway and Homeless Youth. The Commission began its work in October 2009 and was charged with developing strategies to address the unique needs of LGBTQ youth.

Massachusetts Rights of LGBT Public School Students

If you or someone you know is a victim of a hate crime, or if you have direct knowledge of such a crime, please contact your local FBI office . The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 protects all persons equally regardless of immigration status. Reporting the incident to the FBI is a necessary step to ensuring justice for all victims of violent hate crimes.

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A Matter of Honor

Captain Ian Fishback eloquently stated, in a letter he wrote to Senator John McCain, his reasons why consistent and clearly defined standards are needed to eliminate confusion for soldiers on what is considered acceptable and non-acceptable behavior during war time. He believes the wide range of abuses that occurred in Iraq would not have happened if standards morally consistent with the Constitution and justice in war were understandable and free from ambiguity.

I believe this is a good follow up to my post on bullying because children need a strong moral foundation built on the "golden rule" of respecting others as you respect yourself. This is one area where we can't afford the luxury of ambiguity or thinking in the gray as that will only confuse children. Clear lines must be drawn and appropriate discipline is required so that our children understand how they should treat others.

"Give them a clear standard that is in accordance with the bedrock principles of our nation." -- Captain Ian Fishbeck, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

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Bullies Are Cowards

Normal everyday seemingly boring events often lead me to post what most would consider a boring rant. I just hope that no one reads my blog and recognizes themselves in one of these boring events. Considering that all of one or two people read this blog, I'll say my chances are pretty good that won't happen.

A few days ago I was jogging across the school parking lot I ran into an old acquaintance and his 10-year old son. I hadn't seen him in years so I decided to do a "stop and chat" as Larry David calls it, and catch up on his life. While we were talking his son starts laughing and pointing toward an unusually short man walking along the edge of the parking lot. My friend casually told the boy,

"Cut it out, we're trying to talk."

The boy continued to mock this man so my friend turns to me and jokingly says,

"He is really short, isn't he?"

As if the fact that this man was unusual in some way was justification for his son's behavior. Since it was obvious that this kid's father wasn't going to intervene and the man could probably hear and see what the boy was doing I leaned over and told the kid,

"You do know that the man you're laughing at is Sammy "the stub" Luciano, descendant of Lucky Luciano. He specializes in taking out people under 5' tall."

I was hoping this kid was less than 5' tall and would get the message to back off. He must've understood because he looked at me like I was psycho and quickly walked over to his father's side for protection from me or Sammy "the stub" Luciano, I don't know which.

Unfortunately, often times, danger must be present, real or imagined, as Sammy "the stub" Luciano was for that boy, for an issue to be taken seriously; the fact that the matter at hand is hurting others is not enough.

Now that school shootings seem to occur more often than ever before and children or teenagers who have been severely bullied are the shooters, schoolyard bullying is being taken a little more seriously but I'm afraid it's going to take a few more "Columbines" before teachers, parents, politicians and administrators make eliminating or decreasing bullying a priority.

The other end of the spectrum and far more common and much less reported on, are those victims of bullying that turn on themselves. We'll never know how many people end up committing suicide because they are being bullied and see no way out or the bullying they've experienced in the past has resulted in taking their own life. Most of the time the cause will be blamed on something else such as mental illness, or an abusive home situation, which is more than likely true but I'm sure there are many cases where bullying plays a large part.

It's reported that teachers notice and intervene in only one out of 25 episodes of verbal or emotional bullying behavior. There is no excuse for teachers and/or parents to ignore such behavior for that type of conduct usually escalates. In addition to intervening, adults should take a proactive approach and create role-playing situations to teach empathy to children starting in pre-school and continue teaching the importance of empathy throughout the child's educational process. If we combine intervention, teaching empathy with a no tolerance for schoolyard terrorism policy, I think we would see a radical decrease in such behavior.

Bullies intimidate smaller or weaker people that they know won't fight back...bully is just another word for coward.

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Islamophobia

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After years of being taunted as "bin Laden" and "terrorist" at school, Osama Al-Najjar attempted suicide last July at the age of 15.

Now 16, he is an extreme example of the difficulties facing some Arabs in New York, the city hit hardest by the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"They destroyed everything nice in our life with what they did to him," said Suad Abuhasna, Osama's mother, referring to racist abuse she said was heaped on her son while he was a student at Tottenville High School in Staten Island.

Osama is now officially known as Sammy. He changed his name in December to escape the stigma attached to the name he shares with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"I just wanted to make his life easier," said Suad, who immigrated from Jordan with her husband and four children in December 1999. Her eldest son has served in the U.S. Navy in the Iraq war.

Leaders of the Muslim community -- which numbers about 600,000 in New York City and is among the fastest growing groups in the city, according to a Columbia University study -- say Osama's case highlights an increasing distrust and fear of Islam among Americans since 9/11.

"There's become this culture of Islamophobia in American society," said Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Unfortunately, kids are not immune."

Among the efforts in New York to bridge the gap between Americans and the Arab world is a new bilingual Arab-English school. But that too has faced opposition.

Fear of Islam and Arab culture has been evident in the divisiveness over the founding of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a publicly funded Arab studies school scheduled to open in Brooklyn this fall.

"BREAK OUT THE TORCHES"
Alicia Colon, a columnist for the conservative New York Sun newspaper, denounced the school as a madrassa, or Muslim religious school. Evoking images of racially motivated lynchings in the U.S. South of bygone generations, she urged opponents to "break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity."

Parents of students at its original location -- a building that houses an elementary school in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood -- successfully lobbied to have it moved, complaining of overcrowding.

It's not having an easier ride at its new location in the Boerum Hill neighborhood, which already houses two other schools.

"There are a number of parents that are concerned about (the fact that it is an Arabic studies school), but the majority is concerned about whether there's adequate space," said Tom McMahon of the parent teacher association at Boerum Hill's Math and Science Exploratory School.

The controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran school is nothing compared to what Osama Al-Najjar went through.

INCESSANT JEERING

His mother says Osama became increasingly depressed under the incessant anti-Muslim jeering by teachers after entering Tottenville in the fall of 2004. The former junior high school honor student began to fail classes, got into fights, and ran away from home on a number of occasions.

"I didn't want to stay in school after that," Osama, a thin teenager with piercing green eyes, said while nervously chewing his thumb. He said his classmates were more tolerant than his teachers.

The school failed to halt the abuse despite repeated requests, his mother said. The school principal declined to comment.

"Harassment and bullying for any reason is not something we tolerate," said New York City Department of Education spokeswoman Dina Paul Parks. She declined to discuss specifics of the case because of a lawsuit filed by Osama's family.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York charges the city and the school with racial and religious harassment, which it says led to the boy's suicide attempt.

Fearing for her son's wellbeing, Suad withdrew him from school in March 2006 and kept him home. Still, the problems didn't go away so easily, and on July 3, he tried to kill himself with an overdose of an anti-anxiety drug and later the same day tried to hang himself with a bathrobe sash.

"I was just sick. I wasn't thinking straight. I had nothing else to take the pain away," said Osama, who speaks Arabic but can't read or write the language.

Despite the abuse, he is fiercely proud of his Arab heritage and insists that his family still call him Osama.

The Khalil Gibran school, which plans to admit about 60 sixth graders this fall, opens too late for Osama.

He now attends a program for kids with school phobias at a high school in Brooklyn and tolerates, if not enjoys, school.

"What I wish is that the same experience doesn't happen to any other family," Suad said.

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