What currently seems to be popular on facebook is the event to wear purple to support the gays that commit suicide. I frankly don't support that cause. I'm all for gay rights but what I have a problem with is that tonnes of students experience trauma in high school and have to deal with the issue of not fitting in. A lot of students kill themselves, not just gays. I don't think it's an issue with being gay, although gays are at risk. It's a mental/emotional health issue.
I think if young gays are killing themselves, there's got to be more to the story. It's symptomatic of a deeper issue. No one just goes and kills themselves because they aren't fitting in. They do it either because they are in deep pain that may or may not be related to their sexuality or they don't really understand the consequence of taking their own life and do so to hurt others.
The fact is there are a lot of young people who hate themselves. Who hate life. Who hate their peers. They are gay and straight.
Maybe these gay teens have an unsupportive home life and their parents are the ones who have a problem with homosexuality.
Or maybe they have an undiagnosed mental illness and were already mentally/emotionally unstable
Here's one incident I read about that was one of the students that spawned this purple campaign:
The recent attention comes in the wake of nine recent suicides stemming from bullying, including Tyler Clementi, a Rudgers University freshman who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his freshman roommate filmed him without permission having a "sexual encounter" in his dorm room and broadcast it over the Internet.
My take on this, is that this is certainly an ignorant way to handle this. I can imagine how humiliating this would feel but I wouldn't take my life over this. This incident probably has happened to straight students but maybe it's not as newsworthy as a gay person killing themself. Frankly this student could have sued them. It certainly makes me wonder why they thought killing themself would be a solution. Again, was this person stressed from school and this was just the last straw? It's not fair to assume the suicide is related to their sexuality.
I think I just don't support this cause because it doesn't talk about why this is going on. It's a fact that lots of teenagers commit suicide. It's not just gays.
Is this campaign about suicide? What is it really about?
Of course this is unfortunate that teens kill themselves and I sympathize, but why are they doing this? Is it the environment? Is it a mental/emotional problem they have?
Is this what we teach our children? That everytime there is a problem, we choose a colour and then get people to rally behind us? This isn't teaching anything.
As well, since I think this is more a mental health issue, what does wearing purple teach people? We should be educating people on how to handle their problems and how to deal with their anxiety, fear, anger and pain. Telling people to wear purple just lets them know that gays are dying but it's not a real solution
Gays are more at risk for committing suicide but it would make sense to educate them on dealing with their sexuality and what the social discrimination they will experience so that they can be prepared. I think it would be more practical to launch a campaign for this then some lame fashion campaign that really isn't going to empower the gay community.
I just think people support this campaign blindly and don't really think about the overall social pressures teens and young college/university students experience. As well we just don't teach people to be strong. We teach people to seek acceptance from material things and we don't teach them to love themselves. Maybe because we still don't know how.
As well there are plenty of gays that learn to deal with not fitting in and are happy and secure. Why don't we start focusing on the behaviours and mental attitudes of gays that succeed in life and are happy? I'm sure there are plenty who have faced social difficulties but they chose to make the best of things.
My final point is it doesn't matter if you are gay or straight or have a mental illness, you have to learn to stand up for yourself. You have to grow some balls in life and learn how to fight for yourself. Instead of getting people to change their clothes, why don't schools and parents teach their children empowerment classes? People need to learn that you're not always going to fit in, so it's more important to love yourself and not care what people think. Not everyone will like you and it doesn't matter your sexual orientation.
PS
Don't tell me that that I've proven this purple campaign succeeded because I've written about them. I'm just pointing out how short sighted I think it is. It certainly has some work if they want to take their work seriously.
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