I agree with Dan Savage and Bryan Lowder about the Rutgers webcam trial.

[pnwmom]

What Ravi did was the straw that broke the camel's back. Turning him into a scapegoat is a way of relieving society of its collective guilt for Clementi's death, and all the other suicides of gay people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/nyregion/Some-Gay-Rights-Advocates-Question-Rutgers-Sentencing.html

Dan Savage, a gay columnist whose video campaign, “It Gets Better,” began in response to other suicides of gay teenagers just before Mr. Clementi, 18, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, argued that simply locking up Mr. Ravi was a lost opportunity to talk about the other institutions and people “complicit” in Mr. Clementi’s death.

“What was he told about being gay growing up, by his faith leaders, by the media, by the culture?” Mr. Savage said. “Ravi may have been the last person who made him feel unsafe and abused and worthless, but he couldn’t have been the first.

“The rush to pin all the responsibility on Ravi and then wash our hands and walk away means we’re not going to learn the lessons of these kids.”

In an essay, J. Bryan Lowder, a columnist at Slate, urged against a prison sentence: “Unfortunately, we can’t lock the bully up, because the bully is in all of us.”

[RKP5637]

1. K&R !!! n/t

[Laf.La.Dem.]

5. Sad to say - but I think you are right!!

[KurtNYC]

10. and to all criminals: Aren't we all guilty? so how can we punish all of us?

we can't therefore punish no one.

What a bunch of crap.

Ravi would have gotten more time if he had caused injury to the spine of a real camel than he did for torturing his roommate to suicide.

Dan Savage is an exhibitionist so I don't think his perspective favors the victim here.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

13. Yes, because a very public trial and 30 days in jail is like a reward

[Bluenorthwest]

3. So bullies know they can get off because society is to blame?

That does seem to be the case here and in the world. Hate gets a pass. I fail to see how the arguments these men are making could not apply to any and all crimes and criminals.

[pnwmom]

6. The judge said he didn't think hate was involved.

And Ravi was never charged with being a cause of Clementi's death.

To understand the sentence, you have to look at what he was actually charged with, and what he actually did.

Some of the stories that were widely spread in the media -- that there was a video streamed on the internet, for example -- turned out not to be true. He did set up the camera, and he did view the room from Molly's room, with Molly, for a matter of seconds. But he didn't stream it anywhere. And there wasn't evidence presented at trial that he was anti-gay or did this because he disliked Clementi.

[KurtNYC]

11. if there was no hate then how are Savage's comment relevant? n/t

[Zorra]

4. Thought provoking. Thanks.

“What was he told about being gay growing up, by his faith leaders, by the media, by the culture?” Mr. Savage said. “Ravi may have been the last person who made him feel unsafe and abused and worthless, but he couldn’t have been the first."

But Ravi needs to be made an example of, to a reasonable degree.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. He could be a better example by telling students about the costs of what he did. n/t

[pnwmom]

9. I hope his community service will take that form.

The judge didn't say anything about what it should be though -- just that it would be 300 hours.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. I agree with this.

Attributing Mr Clementi's death to one bad apple is primarily a mechanism to help us feel smug.

[LadyHawkAZ]

12. Hard call

I agree that there's an opportunity there to make a point about bullying and its cumulative effects. Which is a point we should be making anyway, really.

But that doesn't erase the fact that what Ravi did was, for whatever reason, the event that pushed an 18 year old gay man to suicide. He did something that he KNEW was wrong. Too much talk about cumulative effects can easily begin to erase the magnitude of Ravi's actions and also begin to sound like excusing. I think there's a very delicate balance there that needs to be recognized.

For what it's worth, I think the sentence was too light, but that's just me. YMMV

[closeupready]

14. If you agree that you are a bully pnwmom, then

that's just you. I am not a bully.