• In 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
  
• In February he spoke at Drew University (I would attend 23 years later).
  
• You can hear his speech here: http://www.drew.edu/about/history/celebrating-dr-king%E2%80%99s-legacy
  
• An interesting point about the speech: it was given 5 days before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. The speech ends with a call to action similar to what we hear today ("call your congressperson").
  
• I heard a recording of that speech when I was working on the New Jersey LGBT civil rights bill in 1991. It changed my life.
  
• A few months later, in July 1964, protests broke out in the town because of a racist barbershop. Soon after NJ passed a law saying that barber's could not discriminate.
  

It was not housing, however, but haircuts that brought Madison to national attention in the spring of 1964. When a black man was refused service in a local barbershop (on the grounds that the white barber did not know how to cut black hair), Drew [University] students and others began picketing the barbershop. It was not long before national television networks sent their cameras and the "barbershop incident" was in full bloom. There was pressure exerted on Grace Church to take some official stance, but action came from Drew students. The Drew civil rights group which had been using meeting rooms in Grace was the subject of an extensive discussion at a vestry meeting

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He sextupled the number of stem cell lines available to researchers whose work may one day save your child’s life, appointed the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer, averted depression, saved the auto industry, cut taxes for small businesses, cut taxes for the middle class, signed Dodd-Frank, signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, lifted the Global Gag Rule on family planning, removed the co-pay for contraception, appointed two progressive women to the Supreme Court, extended health insurance to tens of millions of Americans an estimated 45,000 of whom were dying each year for lack of it, paid for that additional coverage with a surtax on high-income individuals, doubled the CAFE standard, kick-started alternative energy technology, promulgated the first mercury/arsenic air pollution regulations; launched an educational ‘race to the top,’ ended the college-loan bank boondoggle, extended college affordability, launched the serve.gov national database of volunteer opportunities, launched recovery.gov to disclose Recovery Act outlays and accept public reports of fraud or waste, advanced LGBT equality 71 different ways, has us poised to cut the military budget, ramped up regulation of credit cards, ramped up FDA authority over tobacco, launched the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, opened the White House visitor log to public scrutiny, refused all federal lobbyist and PAC money . . . all this, and more, in the face of the most truculent opposition in living memory that kept us from accomplishing even more with less compromise.

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I was in high school in the 1980s. If you recall, there were some highly visible suicide attempts and it was a hot topic in educational circles. One high school had a circle of friends attempt suicide the same week and rumors of "suicide pacts" among students were blown out of proportion. If you said "I couldn't live without my best friend" you were rushed to the school shrink.

In reaction to all this, school across the country adopted "suicide education" programs. I know my high school did. Heath class added a 2-week segment where we learned all about suicide. Why people do it. How many people do it. How people do it. The 5 most common ways to do it (in graphic detail... including facts like which techniques don't work and are just "a way to get attention" vs. the techniques that really, really work!) Intense stuff!

And what happened? The number of suicides skyrocketed! Yes, it back-fired. Being in high school sucks for most people but it's just "a bad day" and you move on. Unless, of course, you've just gone through half a month of instruction on that includes graphic details of which direction to slice your wrist for the greatest dammage (yes, Ms. Lally my teacher gave us that detail).

As you can imagine, schools panicked but eventually changed the curriculum. The new curriculum focused on teaching kids to identify the signs that a friend might be suicidal, how to talk with them about getting help, and where those sources of help are. That's what finally reduced the suicide rate.

So....

When you are being bullied you don't believe it will ever end and you believe it has no solution. I'm not a shrink but shrinks have told me that people in that situation talk about suicide but don't do it because they are so depressed that they don't believe they will be successful. Nothing else is going right, why would that? It's ironic but people tend to commit suicide when things get a little better, they feel empowered, and that empowerment lets them do something they've been wanting to do for ages. Sad but true.

The videos were saying, "you're right... but it gets better if you wait it out". If I had been told that when I was being bullied I would not be here today. It just re-enforces the futility of it all. "You're saying I'm right that it really doesn't have a solution?? OMG! I have to wait until I'm an adult? That's centuries from now!" Remember when you were 15-16 and it felt like adulthood was a million years away?

Luckily when I was bullied I was given different advice. My next door neighbor was a police officer. I don't know if my parents arranged this or if he decided to do it on his own, but he took me aside and gave me two bits of advice. First, bullies only respect other bullies. Second, a punch to the nose doesn't damage a person permanently but a nosebleed is super dramatic and everyone will remember it. It's red and messy and looks really impressive. As a kid that got a lot of nosebleeds I totally understood what he was saying. He gave me a quick lesson on how to throw a punch, instructing me that every punch should be aimed at the nose, anything else is a waste of energy. One good hit, a little blood, and nobody will ever pick on your again.

So the next week at the bus stop when Keith and Landon came to pick on me I was ready. I "put up my dukes" and started hopping side to side. I saw an opening and threw a punch. I didn't connect, but my fist in his face shocked the hell out of him. "That kids CRAZY!" Keith said. "You could have hurt someone! Daaaaamn! We were just kidding!" said Landon. Oh yeah, "kidding"... months of picking on and hitting me was "kidding". Nice rationalization, guys.

For the rest of the year Keith and Landon, two of the biggest bullies in the neighborhood, stayed on the opposite side of the bus stop each morning and never came near me.

Four years later I got picked on again. Locker room. Swing and connect. Nosebleed. Principle's office. He looked at the two of us, assumed the effeminate kid (me) couldn't possibly have been the trouble maker so I was off the hook.

So, here's why I never made my own "it gets better" video. I didn't want to say "it gets better... just wait for it". I didn't want to be Ms. Lally with the well-intentioned but back-firing advice. I wanted to explain how to throw a good punch. Let some blood splatter. Make a statement.

But in the middle of seeing all those videos with the happy adults I figured... well... maybe I should wait 6 months and then make my video.

Oh, and by the way... the next town over from where I live a gay teen committed suicide on Thursday. She was head of her school's Gay/Straight Alliance. No exactly the bullied, down-trodden, lacking-for-support kid you'd think would end it all.

I didn't know her but I wish I could have taught her to throw a punch.

Tom Limoncelli, Nov 21, 2011

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