Did George Takei Just Turn Into a Cyberbully?
I love the internet for a hundred million reasons, but one of the reasons I love the internet most is because people who are kind of weird (me) can find their own kind and stop feeling weird and alone.
I know I’m weird, the internet will not change that fact, but the internet will allow me to find people who are weird like me. So strange, yes. Lonely, no.
This fall the media finally started reporting about some of our most at risk kids, and how vulnerable they are to bullying, cyberbullying, and bullycide. There has been a lot of discussion about how homosexual teens and young adults are alienated, tormented and at an extremely elevated risk for suicide.
This is everyone’s problem.
We do not know who is gay, straight, transgender, bisexual, or just confused. We do not know which child was told their souls are in peril because of the way G-d made them. We do not know who is at risk, therefore we are obligated to be kind.
I cannot imagine what Geoge Takei’s life has been like. He was raised in a Internment Camp for Japanese Americans, and lived with his partner for a full twenty years before they were allowed to legally wed. Just as quickly as the state recognized his union, they took it away with Prop 8.
George Takei has had a lifetime of discrimination in ways that most Americans will never endure.
I simply cannot, will not believe that this is the best he could do. I don’t believe that the folks at the Trevor Project needed him to use his considerable influence to call anyone a douchebag or a closet gay. I worry, because the It Gets Better videos are the most wonderful thing to come to the web in a very long time.
I would say that this is not wonderful.