Scott Schmeltzer, Thanks for Listening

Tyler Clementi was an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His roommate Dharun Ravi filmed Clementi with a webcam in his dorm room kissing a man. Ravi and another student Molly Wei then broadcast this encounter over the Internet.

Clementi, who was a talented violinist, went to the George Washington Bridge and jumped into the Hudson River, killing himself. Prior to jumping, Clementi posted a note on his Facebook page that said “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.”

As I read the articles and watched the news briefs about this incident, I thought to myself, “What a tragedy. Eighteen years old and a whole world ahead of him and because of one act of bullying, a person is driven to end his life.”

Now let the debate begin — and, believe me, it has — about whether his homosexuality played a part in the bullying or whether it was just a prank gone wrong. But make no mistake, either way a child of 18 is dead.

Bullying is wrong, and now with the sophistication and broad range of the Internet, it is worse than at any time in our history. If you thought being teased about something in front of one or two kids was bad, well, welcome to the World Wide Web of millions of viewers who can now take any mistake or stumble you may have had and turn it into a YouTube sensation. The harassment and turmoil that people can put upon others now has a fast lane to embarrass at the speed of light.

The fact that maybe Clementi was gay does not change this tragedy in my eyes at all. It is always going to be something with bullies. Too fat, too short, not good enough at sports, a different color, a person’s sexual orientation, a speech impediment, whatever the reason, it is a shame and a waste of life when someone commits suicide because of the pressure or teasing another person or people.

If a homosexual person cured cancer, would you really care what sexual orientation they were? If someone of a different race pulled your daughter from a fire and saved her life, would you think less of the heroics? Grow up, people. We need to make sure that bullying stops and quits driving our loved ones into seclusion, therapy and even death. Enough is enough.

The Tribune will be coming out with a series of bullying articles aimed at helping to stop this terrible situation. If you have been bullied yourself or know of how a bullying situation was successfully stopped please contact either myself at scott.schmeltzer@albertleatribune.com or kelli.lageson@albertleatribune.com to help us with this series.

Thank you.

Go Twins!

Congrats to our Twinkies for making the playoffs! Let’s knock these darn Yankees off for once and bring the American League Championship Series and, hopefully, the World Series to Target Field.

Go Tigers!

It is Homecoming this week, so make sure you are attending all the sports festivities and supporting all of our hard working Albert Lea Tigers!

A special message

Happy birthday, Mom! I love you!

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer’s column appears every Thursday.