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Beyond the sheer brutality of the recent hate crimes in San Diego, there is another fact in this case that is equally disturbing. Two of the four suspects in the Pride weekend bashings are age 18 and under. All four of those in custody are under the age of 25.
I find myself wondering, How much time did those young men spend in school learning about diversity? How many hours in the classroom--in high school, middle school, and even elementary school--did they hear their teachers talk specifically about gay people? Read a book that acknowledged the historical contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender leaders? Engage in schoolwide programs that tackled the prejudice behind the national epidemic of bullying and youth violence? Make it clear that antigay harassment would not be tolerated?
I bet the answer is close to zero.
It shouldn't take hate crimes as ugly as these to bring our community together to demand that schools get real with kids about all kinds of prejudice. Schools are under enormous pressure today to raise test scores. Why don't they face the same level of pressure to help young people cultivate values where all people are treated with dignity and respect?
The National Mental Health association has found that LGBT students hear antigay slurs such as "homo," "faggot," and "sissy" about 26 times a day, or once every 14 minutes. More than 30% of LGBT youth are threatened or injured at school in any given year. And for every LGBT student who reports being harassed, four straight students said they were harassed just because they were perceived to be gay or lesbian.
We can no longer sit back and dismiss bullying as a rite of passage that all kids just have to live through. Unchecked bullying compromises student performance, damages physical and mental health, and perpetuates a cycle that can escalate to even greater, more brutal forms of violence, including hate crimes.
If we want to stop hate-based violence, we must first work to prevent prejudice-based bullying. One of the ways to do that is to incorporate comprehensive antibias education programs into our schools and communities--programs aimed at cultivating empathy and encouraging appreciation of difference among young people.
The Respect for All Project has a strong track record of going into schools and doing exactly that. We believe that the way to change the climate in schools is not just to suspend kids who break the rules, but to find ways for students to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is really different than they are, even someone who is gay.
With our film Let's Get Real, for example, we give young audiences a chance to hear from all kinds of kids who are targeted because of their race, their religion, their weight, because they are in special ed, because they are female, and yes, because someone thinks they are gay. And we get to hear from the kids who do the bullying about why they slammed another kid into a locker and called him a fag, and what made them realize that that was actually not a very cool thing to do after all.
In classroom after classroom, kids have opened up and started to talk about the antigay bashing that goes on in their own schools after watching the students in Let's Get Real tell the truth about what has happened to them. Faculties have pulled together to find ways to make their schools safer for all kids after participating in the Respect for All Project's professional development workshops.
It is possible to reach young people and help them rethink their assumptions about what is and is not acceptable behavior. As students in San Diego and across the nation prepare to return to school this month, we must ensure that discussion of all kinds of difference, and respect for all, are as much a part of the curriculum as improving reading and math scores.
