Posted on 09/30/2010 8:27:50 AM PDT by aic4ever
ABC News has the written story and the video from their broadcast. The stories are dramatically different. The print story is a reporting of the news, using facts and interview quotes to convey what just happened. ABC's broadcast, on the other hand, tells another story altogether.
ABC's broadcast team decided to make this an issue on two fronts. First, they lightly touch on the callousness of kids, and then they go into a much more in depth discussion on persecution of homosexuals resulting from that callousness. But is this really the issue at hand in this story?
(Excerpt) Read more at organizedexploitation.blogspot.com ...
It’s Matthew Shepard all over again.
I'm sorry but it's not the fault of the webcam
ABC is the worst. I can’t watch more than a few minutes.
Kids have no ethics or empathy these days. It doesn’t matter what technology they have.
As a parent, I can’t fathom the loss and the pain. The despair and loneliness of suicide is incomprehensible to me. Now, it is left to his family to come to terms with it.
They never will.
ABC News has the written story and the video from their broadcast. The stories are dramatically different. The print story is a reporting of the news, using facts and interview quotes to convey what just happened. ABC’s broadcast, on the other hand, tells another story altogether.
ABC’s broadcast team decided to make this an issue on two fronts. First, they lightly touch on the callousness of kids, and then they go into a much more in depth discussion on persecution of homosexuals resulting from that callousness. But is this really the issue at hand in this story?
While certainly it will be argued that our general cultural anti-gay sentiment was a driving factor in creating such a level of shame in Tyler Clementi’s mind over having his encounter broadcast live online that he would decide to jump to his death from the George Washington Bridge, I don’t really feel like this was the proper topic of discussion in ABC’s broadcast. At least not quite so immediately anyway.
Following the facts in the story, it looks much more like Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, intended to watch him on webcam no matter what was happening. Ravi has a count against him for attempting to spy on Clementi several days before September 19th in the same manner during a different encounter. This, to me, points much more to the “callousness of kids” discussion, accompanied by a discussion on invasion of privacy and how our ever-more-interconnected electronic lives are eroding our cultural expectations of privacy.
The facts here are that a stupid kid pulled a stupid stunt with his stupid friend and hurt his roommate tremendously. The fact that Clementi was having a homosexual encounter, while very likely a leading factor in Clementi ending his life due to much much higher level emotional and cultural issues, was not the immediate issue at hand here. General respect for other people was. The discussion of acceptance of homosexuality was going to take place around this event, no matter what. But by making it the lead topic, ABC really overshadowed what needs to be discussed here.
It is an interesting time that we live in right now. Daily we become more and more connected at a more and more immediate rate. For people like Dharun Ravi, a young man who has been raised in this culture of interconnectivity, rather than adjusting to it, this interconnectivity culturally means that the people around him have no expectation of privacy. He likely felt little to no remorse for the act of invading his roommate’s privacy, and was acting to invade that privacy no matter the result. In this time of an ever eroding expectation of privacy, and an ever eroding respect for one another, we should learn from what has happened here that we need to begin working at showing each other that respect. It’s something that used to be a person’s default position in life; to respect the privacy of those around him. It wasn’t something we needed to try so hard for. It seems we need to begin trying just a little bit harder.
This college kid got outed and felt such shame that he killed himself?
He knew it was wrong. He was told his whole life that it was Right -- but he understood that it was Wrong.
Homosexuality is a mental illness. We've got to stop telling people that it's OK. We've got to encourage people to get help. With counseling, this kid would probably still be alive.
Exactly right.
Ravi and Wei will be charged and hung out to dry.
This I can understand.
But that’s not all. What will really be at the forefront of this matter is that Ravi and Wei committed a HATE CRIME.
That was to be expected.
this is simply evil...period.....
Whats the big deal? The President did it with Larry Sinclair,right???? /
The victim was appalled to see postings on line from other students asking the taper whether we wanted a gay roommate and how he could go into that room again.
There was no support at all for the boy who was taped. I guess that was the final push into despair.
My heart goes out to his family and all the teachers at his high school who nurtured his talent and loved the boy all these years.
They indoctrinate these teens at the most confused point in their lives, the kids "experiment", realize what they did was wrong and hate themselves for the rest of their lives. Pat Buchanan said it best, "The love that dare not speak it's name won't shut up now." or something like that.
I'm not sure where homosexual attraction is on the scale of mental health, partly because I'm convinced that it doesn't matter. For a married person to feel attracted to a person other than the spouse also happens, but that doesn't mean it's okay to act on that attraction. Other than that, I agree with you.
Just as Matthew Shepard was just a regular robbery/murder, it turned out his homosexuality had nothing to do with the crime.
I posted the story yesterday and said it was not a gay issue. I just thought it was really mean. If it had been a guy and a girl it would have still been mean....and illegal. I also said the dorms should not be brothels.
I knew the media would turn it into a gay bullying issue. I also point out that Ravi and Molly Wei will be treated with kid gloves because they are “multicultural.”
If it had been the (white) boys lacrosse team at Duke - they would be hanging from the Geo Wash Bridge.
Ravi and Molly are getting a bit of a pass.
It is morphing into an evil soceity of homophobes when it should be two evil s**t students committing a felony. And also why are college dorms so out of control.
We struggle to draw some lesson from it.
All I can think of is to struggle to understand the truth of what's happening around us, and, contrary to the misconceptions of many, truth cannot be improved upon. I think that I can handle truth, and if I can understand it I may be able to think of some solution to a problem. If I don't know the truth and understand it, it's certain that I can't find a solution.
The biggest problem is that truth is elusive and denial a constant threat.
Of course every parent weeps--everyone's nightmare is the thought of committing an act with terrible unexpected consequences--everyone trembles at the thought of secret vices becoming public knowledge--everyone rages against the barriers that prevent us from knowing those around us as they really are--to do so is to discover the truth and the pathway to loving people--and ourselves--
There was a time when the wild west was so-called because it epitomized Libertarianism and Darwinism. If you were fast with your gun, knife or hands, if you had the right personal connections (alpha dog mentality), if you could out-wit the next guy, if you were stronger than the next guy - you survived and even thrived. Citizens in these territories eventually got tired of the fly-by hangings, whore-houses, gunfights and the general lawlessness. They demanded the constant imposition of law. The fact is that unabridged liberty is chaos. I’m afraid that our beloved Internet, in some ways, has become a reflection of the Wild West. When we have a technology and mediums (Internet) that so-easily allow us to infringe on another’s privacy, it’s time to reign in that technology through the law. Before you flame me, let’s remember that at one time network television programming was required to be approved through a board that included a Rabbi, Priest and Protestant Minister. Those were the days when you could watch TV and TV ads without fear of being molested. I greatly miss those days. We need to impose, yes impose, a sense of Judaeo-Christian morality on to the Internet, TV and any oather public medium. The idiots who “bugged” this kid’s room should be held for more than invasion of privacy - they contributed to this kid’s suicide and should pay a heavy price for that crime. Flame on folks!
There was a time when the wild west was so-called because it epitomized Libertarianism and Darwinism. If you were fast with your gun, knife or hands, if you had the right personal connections (alpha dog mentality), if you could out-wit the next guy, if you were stronger than the next guy - you survived and even thrived. Citizens in these territories eventually got tired of the fly-by hangings, whore-houses, gunfights and the general lawlessness. They demanded the constant imposition of law. The fact is that unabridged liberty is chaos. I’m afraid that our beloved Internet, in some ways, has become a reflection of the Wild West. When we have a technology and mediums (Internet) that so-easily allow us to infringe on another’s privacy, it’s time to reign in that technology through the law. Before you flame me, let’s remember that at one time network television programming was required to be approved through a board that included a Rabbi, Priest and Protestant Minister. Those were the days when you could watch TV and TV ads without fear of being molested. I greatly miss those days. We need to impose, yes impose, a sense of Judaeo-Christian morality on to the Internet, TV and any oather public medium. The idiots who “bugged” this kid’s room should be held for more than invasion of privacy - they contributed to this kid’s suicide and should pay a heavy price for that crime. Flame on folks!
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