A couple of weeks ago on my children’s writing email loops and in the kidlitosphere we were urged to wear purple to honor the young homosexual people who killed themselves recently after being bullied. This is not about characters in children’s books but it is an issue that is important to children’s book writers. We love teens. That’s why we write for them. If they are killing themselves, it hurts us. We want to help them.
So there was a campaign to wear purple and to make videos telling the kids that things will get better. I join with the nation in grieving over those young lives lost. But grieving and honoring are two different things.
I have lost friends and relatives to suicide. I know how painful it is. I know that people who kill themselves are loved and missed. I know they were talented and thoughtful and bright and worthy of love. I know that they have done many honorable things in their lives.
Still, I think to call the nation to honor people who have committed suicide as if they are some kind of martyrs in the war against bullying is the wrong thing to do. To kill yourself is not honorable. It is not courageous.
I don’t mean to blame these poor young people or stand in judgement on them. If I had been bullied the way they were, I may have killed myself, too. I’m not saying I could have done better. I’m not saying their suffering wasn’t awful or that they should have been able to bear up under it. I am only saying we should not honor someone who takes his own life as if he is a fallen hero. Suicide is not heroic. It’s horrible. It’s hopeless.
Even if I didn’t believe we have a Creator who alone has the right to number our days, I don’t think I’d want to honor suicide victims. Suicide shouldn’t be glamorized. I wonder if all the love poured out over those young men in the media will encourage other confused, hurting boys, who are hungering for love and acceptance, to kill themselves.
Whether it will or not, I can’t say, but either way, it doesn’t change my feelings. I want to show sympathy to the families and I want to express hatred for bullying. I will pray for the families and for the nation. But I can’t honor suicide victims, no matter how humiliated or scarred they were.
I do sympathize and weep, though. I hate to have people think that because I didn’t wear purple, that means I don’t care about children killing themselves. If the call had been for us to wear purple to tell the world that we find suicide to be an unacceptable way to try to solve problems, or if we were wearing purple to say that we would no longer tolerate bullies, I could have joined in.
So I wonder if we can’t close the gap between warring sides by using language that we all can embrace. Some won’t be able to pray for the families with me. I am not able to honor the victims with others. But we can all sympathize, can’t we? People on both sides of the “is homosexuality a sin, or are people who say that just homophobic bigots?” question can weep for the young people who died and for their families. Next time (if there is a next time) maybe we can have a campaign to wear purple to show our sorrow for the injured and our hatred of bullying.
Is that possible?
I think it’s significant that in the “Similar Posts” feature above, WordPress came up with “none found.”
Excellent thoughts, Sally. I’d wear purple as a sign of grief or as a statement against bullying. Would that such would be our focus.
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last [type] ..Clinging To Wilting Flowers
That similar posts plug-in is new. It just searches my own blog for similar posts. I don’t know why it didn’t come back with the post I did two days ago. I have to play around with it and see if I can refine it.
thanks for your comment. Of course if you and I snuggled into our purple sweats as we wrote, it might not matter much.
Maybe we should dress our blogs up with purple stuff next time.
Ah…it matches tags.
Sally, what a well-articulated, thoughtful piece. It’s interesting, since I write about the ancient world, how the perception of suicide has changed. At one point, it was indeed considered heroic. But not now. And I think your point about making sure that we don’t glamorize suicide is an important one to make.
Vicky Alvear Shecter´s last [type] ..On Inadvertently Embarrassing Teens or Why I Changed my Blog Pic
I wonder under what circumstances it was considered heroic in the past, Vicky.
Well, even now, in some places suicide is considered heroic. Suicide bombers, I think, are considered heroes by their families and friends. And probably the Kamikaze pilots were in WWII were, too. I guess if you are at war and you give up your life to take down the enemy, it would be heroic to your side and barbaric to the other side.
I have a real problem with the “suicide to save face” idea, though. Maybe if I was raised in Far Eastern culture, I’d get it. I know they are trying to spare not only their own feelings, but also their family honor. If they don’t kill themselves, their families suffer. I think it’s a bad way to live. Not being able to forgive and be forgiven for your screw-ups.
And suicide because you’re a kid and you feel powerless and you’re depressed, scared, ashamed, and worn out from being bullied…that should never, ever be. We need to love and protect our children.
Sally, I love that you take a stand and tackle the tough issues. And I, too, feel that we need to be very careful in discussion of teen suicide, for fear of romanticizing an act that’s anything but.
I also have to question this idea of bringing attention to teen suicide as relating to the homosexual community. I mean, the teen suicide rate has climbed for lots of reasons. I think we need to bring attention to bullying, drug use, alcohol abuse, mental health disorders, anorexia…well, sadly, there’s a long list, all contributing to teen suicide or teen mortality. I’d gladly wear purple every day if it would force us to do something for our teens!
[...] So…continuing the homosexuality in children’s books discussion that I started here and continued here…. [...]
[...] Honoring Suicide Victims [...]
[...] Honoring Suicide Victims [...]