Start Young

Carl Walker-Hoover, age 11, committed suicide on 6 April of this year. According to reports from his mother, Sirdeaner Walker, local news groups and Carl’s school, he was the victim of bullying. Specifically, Carl was the target of anti-gay jokes and teasing.

There are several problems with this premise. First, that Carl Walker-Hoover may or may not have been gay at all. Second, that kids can be so relentlessly horrible to one another that they can drive another to take his own life. Third, that the school did nothing to really address the situation. Despite attending the New Leadership Charter School, leadership was not taken in this case and the endgame was not favorable for Carl or his mother.

Cruelty is included standard in most humans. Compassion takes real effort. The fact that none of Carl’s classmates could curtail the abuse he was experiencing proves our classrooms are not teaching empathy or understanding. The educational system is a necessary evil in this country. Attendance is mandated by law and no one is going to dispute Carl should have been removed from this environment. However, some old-school philosophers will be quoted as saying the experience would serve to “toughen him up.” Well, Carl is dead. That is a flawed philosophy. More proactively arranging an escape could have gone a long way in this case.

This story highlights the need for massive reforms in the way we educate children. If elementary and middle school students are experiencing this kind of bullying, they’re obviously old enough to deal with the realities of the situation, so open a dialogue, get them talking. Society can’t adopt the belief that some states have about sexual education (i.e., that talking about it will sanction it and thereby make kids go out behind the middle school and get pregnant). Talking about homosexuality in a positive, meaningful way will not turn schoolboys or schoolgirls gay, but it could go a long way in proving that there is a bigger, more complicated world than the cafeteria.

Based on pure empirical observation, kids are coming out earlier and earlier (thank you, internet). Cases like this make us absolutely question whether or not this is a good thing, but we still don’t know if Carl Walker-Hoover was in fact gay. With years come sobriety and better coping mechanisms; bullying eventually softens in the mind’s eye... If you can survive it. It’s a bleak note and coming out only enhances the dangers. But I say that it is a good thing. It proves that some corners of society are more ready to deal with reality, that homosexuality is inborn and not a choice. If being gay were a choice, I highly doubt 8-12 year olds could make it.

So start the dialogue young to match the coming out process for some of them. Don’t leave a tiny segment of kids exposed to intolerance. That is the biggest disservice the compulsory education system could possibly give these kids. It is important to remember, as rightwing advocacy groups often whine about, that children are our future. Don’t put strings on that phrase by implying only the heterosexual ones. Gay or not, Carl was bullied with homosexual-based jokes and ridiculing. This is a major hot button issue that needs a forum in the school systems.