Posted on 09/27/2011 2:05:06 PM PDT by presidio9
You may have heard the story of Jamey Rodemeyer, Buffalo, NY, who was 14-years-old when he committed suicide, after being bullied online for over a year.
Now, people all over the world are coming together to fight for Jamey, to end bullying.
Jamey was an openly gay student at his middle school and was repeatedly bullied and harassed by peers who told him “JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND (sic) UGLY. HE MUST DIE!” one post said, according to local reports. Another read, “I wouldn’t care if you died. No one would. So just do it It would make everyone WAY more happier!”
When Jamey entered North High School this year, things became harder for him and the bullying increased.
Although the constant bullying affected him, Jamey, with the support of his family, friends, and Lady Gaga, his idol, had maintained a positive outlook over the past few years. He was feeling so loved he even made his own YouTube video, for the It Get’s Better Campaign for LGBT youth.
When Jamey did start to feel the pressure of being bullied, no one was there to listen. On his own blog, he posted, “I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens.”
Minutes before Jamey’s death, he tweeted, “@ladygaga bye mother monster, thank you for all you have done, paws up forever”
A letter was sent out with students Monday informing the school of his death.
As the media caught hold of Jamey’s death, Sunday, Gaga expressed her grief through tweets that stated:
“The past days I’ve spent reflecting, crying, and yelling. I have so much anger. It is hard to feel love when cruelty takes someone’s life. ”
“Jamey Rodemeyer, 14 yrs old, took his life because of bullying. Bullying must become be illegal. It is a hate crime.”
“I am meeting with our President. I will not stop fighting. This must end. Our generation has the power to end it. Trend it #MakeALawForJamey”
Gaga recently attended President Obama’s political fundraiser on Sunday, Sept. 25 and asked the president a question during the Q&A, and thanked him for what he’s accomplished (hosting for his anti-bullying conference with Michelle Obama earlier this year). Lady Gaga also made a tribute to Jamey at the iHeartRadio music festival in Las Vegas on Saturday, where the pop star sang a moving version of her song “Hair.”.
Lady Gaga is fighting for Jamey, but other little monsters have taken the fight into their own hands.
150 little monsters worldwide have come together with the help of Tumblr and made a video dedicated to Jamey Rodemeyer and the fight to stop bullying and suicide among LGBT youth. This project, called the paws up forever project, started with three Boston College students, Sara Nazeman, Jason Bring, and Ines Mitchell, Jamey’s online friends. ‘Paws up’ is a sign that little monsters use, to salute Gaga or mother monster.
Since the video was posted Thursday, it has gained nearly 50,000 views.
For more about preventing bullying, you can visit The Friendfactor Blog.
When my daughter was in 8th grade she was incessantly picked on by three so called mean girls.My wife and I constantly told her that words from morons should be ignored. One day she came home and said one of the girls had thrown a punch that stopped short of her face. I immediately wrote the principal that my daughter was under instructions not to allow anyone to lay hands upon her and not only would she defend herself but she knew how, and that i would hold the school accountable if they chose equal consequences for any altercation. Those girls spent the next 8 weeks having their lunch with the class guidance counselor, not their friends. Very often it’s up to parents to demand action.
Of course we also teach our kids that bullying is wrong, whether the bullied is short, skinny, wears thick glasses, is buck-toothed, is effete, or whatever. But thats an entirely different subject.
Jamey took his life because he embraced faggotry. Period.
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There’s more to it than that. If you add in the fact his parents actively endorsed and supported his mental instability, and look at what they are doing now....
I blame his idiot parents more than I blame any so called bullies.
People say things on the internet all the time that they would rarely or never say to your face. Some of these forums are dreadfully artificial.
Jamie should have turned his back on those losers and become a FReeper. He’d get more sympathy for his confusion here than at the hands of so called liberals.
Even certain things that are permitted in America — e.g. smoking — we frown upon. Somehow homosexual relationships aren’t in the list of things you can frown upon without being harassed within an inch of your life by liberals. Speaking of which, even these misguided liberals, where were they when Jamie was in this pickle? Having told him it’s fine to be gay, they then go hide and giggle their fool heads off while Jamie digs himself into a suicidal mood? They don’t even take responsibility for what they have incited?
Gee, you’d think any competent psychologist would want Jamie to shut the chaos of adolescents on the internet out of his life — especially when they hear over and over again that he’s suffering grief from what he reads there.
But I wonder if even his parents really had a basis upon which to live life, to share with him. Some kind of spiritual sense that transcends the self and the fickle sentiments of the crowd.
I'd bet a million to one the kid wasn't gay.
Why won't they say how he committed suicide?
Yes, I overlooked that - very important that he be “straight” as well.
Whatever the means, supposedly he did intend to kill himself, writing a note about it beforehand — this wasn’t an accident incurred in pursuing somebody’s freaky sex suggestions. Males are more likely to choose outwardly violent means of suicide — maybe Jamie jumped off of a cliff (a girl might be more likely to take poison).
I live in the area and I am sick to death of this story..THERE WAS NO NOTE there is no way of knowing why this young man killed himself.. we have never heard how this young man died.. last I heard an autopsy was going to be preformed ...
He left NO NOTE that he was doing this because he was bullied or any other reason..
But the liberals and gay rights folk are using this to further their agenda ...the latest is legislation stopping bulling... imagine enforcing that ...and never mind we do have a constitutional right to free speech..
There are many extremely ignorant, bigoted and cruel comments on this thread, but yours is not one of them.
It's very true.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Lady Gag-me wants to blame it on bullying and demand it be illegal, but it sounds like this poor child had other demons in his closet.
Gaga must be the new Liza Minelli.
You have been here long enough to understand that on threads like this, where liberal overkill is trying to present itself as the only moral alternative the conservative reaction ends up being harsh, because people are so frustrated with the way things are portrayed in the clown car media. That, and they're using an anonymous feelings to vent. That being said, why post this to me? If somebody gets out of line, you should be responding to them, or alerting the moderator. I'm upset that a young man is dead, but there are some holes in this story.
One Gay kid goes to the school dance and none of the other boys will dance with him. He feels isolated and claims he’s a victim. When will the schools MAKE THEM dance with him? Of course this will be the end of boys going to the school dance.
At our last prom, we had a Prom King and a Prom Queen. All the black candidates for Prom King were disqualified. No blacks were allowed to be Prom King. Racism? Nope. The Prom Queen was going to be a gay guy and they couldn’t charge a black guy with a hate crime if he punched out the Prom Queen.
Hate crimes, well, last time I heard, any time a person intentionally harms someone with some sort of malice beforehand, that person hated their target. I heard someone claim that corporate-motivated crimes weren’t hate, well yes, even those crimes involve malice beforehand in order to commit them.
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