A few weeks after his suicide, bullies are still degrading Jamey Rodemeyer as if he weren’t a human being. Jamey’s 16-year-old sister was at a school dance, on Sept 22, where she was taunted by one of her brother’s harassers just hours after attending his wake. Then, when the dance played a Lady Gaga song in Jamey’s honour, several students chanted, “Better off dead!”
“Your mind just spins at 100 miles per hour,” says Jamey’s mother, Tracy Rodemeyer. “How can someone do that? I don’t understand how someone could be so cruel.”
Tracy has been campaigning for stricter anti-bullying and anti-homophobia laws, saying, “It’s the only thing that keeps us going, trying to get the word out.”
The school superintendent, Scott Martzloff, posted a message on the school website condemning the dance incident and saying that one student believed to be responsible for the confrontation with Jamey’s sister has been suspended.
Suspended? That little piece of shit helped kill one of your students and even after his death continues unspeakable acts of hatred toward Jamey’s family and memory. His sorry ass should be kicked out of school. The Rodemeyers should press charges against him. Something, anything, a little more severe than a slap on the wrist and a week without class would be more appropriate.
Jamey came out to his mother a year before his death and talked to her about the bullying he was enduring. He said he was called a fag and a girly girl for hanging out with all girls. Jamey’s father, Tim Rodemeyer, claims that Jamey talked to school guidance counsellors on several occasions, receiving little or no help. He says that one counsellor said the solution to his bullying problem was easy: just “stop hanging out with girls.”
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