“Young, Gay and Murdered” – Got Your Attention, Right??

On July 28. 2008, Newsweek printed an article entitled Young, Gay and Murdered by Ramin Setoodeh, the tragic story of 15-year old Larry King’s murder. (As I am not going to fully summarize the piece here, I highly suggest reading it as I found it well written and enlightening.) What most troubles me about this report are the actions, or rather the lack of action, that Larry’s school took in what I believe could have been a preventable tragedy.

Young, Gay and Murdered recounts the tale of Lawrence King, a young, seriously troubled, and flamboyantly gay teenager who was shot and killed point-blank during class by one of his eighth grade classmates. Since his death, he has become an icon for gay-rights activists, yet as the article illuminates, Larry’s murder is too complicated to be simply labeled a hate crime. In his middle school, Larry both harassed other students and was harassed; in response to the anti-gay taunting and persecution, Larry’s “first line of defense” was “his sexuality [and he] wielded it like a weapon.” In today’s rapidly evolving society, I believe it is becoming more and more essential to better educate and prepare schools, especially middle schools, to encourage acceptance and tolerance in response to homosexuality. Yet Larry’s murder only proves that his school (as well as the majority of our national education system) was obviously incapable of dealing with a case such as his, whose sexuality was only one of several important issues that school officials failed to address. The classmate who killed Larry, Brandon McInerney, had serious troubles of his own at home and had been the object of Larry’s affections. The dropping grades and drastically changing moods of both boys, as well as rumors of a confrontation between them just a day before the shooting, should have been critical warning signs to school officials, possible warning enough to have prevented such an awful event. It is obvious to me that school and education today is not always about teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic; it’s not even about preparing students for jobs or college. Sometimes, it’s solely about helping students survive, literally, the long and arduous process of “growing up.” When considering the highly controversial issue of homosexuality, particularly as it affects students of increasingly younger ages, I can honestly say I am concerned for our schools and the similar situations they will inevitably face in the future. Schools will have no choice but to become ready and equipped to handle these issues, yet the difficult question remains as to how. As a teacher in the future, I hope I will remember the story of Larry King and therefore endeavor to promote patience and open-mindedness in my classroom and school, and if necessary, have the fortitude to intervene and stop something tragic like this from happening again.

The Newsweek article asks, “are schools ready to handle the complex issues of identity and sexuality?” Sadly, Larry King’s death provides an emphatic “no” in response to such a question.