steve's notebook

(Sept. 30, 2010)

The recent avalanche of gay teen suicides and the ensuing conversation it’s sparked reminded me of an incident from freshman year of high school, which I had completely forgotten.

Football practice after school. Early September, still very hot. We’re warming up. The soccer team is doing the same the next field over. While running past them, one kid on our team calls the soccer players fags. Cause, you know, this is high school and, soccer players. One of our coaches overhears. Next thing we know, the team’s taking a knee. Yelled at for ten minutes. Running laps for the next hour. Every single one of us is sent to individually apologize to the soccer team. And then, asses kicked, a full-on practice. At the end of the day, a simple way to teach a bunch of idiot kids a lesson in respect.

They didn’t have to do that. I’m sure the same slur is tossed between teams somewhere every day without anyone speaking up. But our coaches knew that part of their job was to train us for on and off the field. Sports cliché, but these guys took it seriously and put it toward some good.

My memory of high school is that it was a pretty decent place. I had the normal teenage gripes: classes, hating the intermediateness of adolescence. And it certainly wasn’t perfect; there were some assholes, including a few who were there for that practice. But as an environment—and this is speaking solely to my experience and, as far as I could tell, almost none of this assholery was directed toward me— things were good. This was the kind of place where I remember friends casually criticizing other friends for using “gay” to mean “lame.” A couple of out kids who were, if not “popular,” widely-liked. There were probably several factors playing into this; southwestern Connecticut, I’m guessing, is going to tend, at least on a surface level, to be a lot more tolerant than a small town in the Bible Belt.

I have to think, though, that chief among our influences was the presence a voice from the top that was willing to speak up for respect in a resonant way. Those coaches as prime example. But also institutionalized programs like Diversity Day, an annual day-long assembly about tolerance. Did anyone leave it suddenly changed? Probably not. It was pretty corny. But it was one more time the school as an entity made a point of drilling respect into our heads. Another day of setting a tone. And those add up.

I realize I was lucky. To hear about the nightmare that school was for so many others has had me punching walls this week. What makes me angriest is to hear about teachers who look the other way. Teachers who fail to recognize that their responsibilities extend beyond the textbook. Schools that don’t take seriously the protection of the children entrusted to them. Changing hearts and minds is goddam tricky business. I don’t know the solution. But my experience at least gives me hope that it doesn’t have to be this way.