More developments on the shameful and so-called internal "review" by the DeKalb County (Georgia) School District that found "no evidence" of the relentless bullying of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera, who hung himself after months of anti-gay taunts and violence. Southern Voice reports experts, gay activists and community leaders are outraged the school system is attempting to downplay taunts of the word "gay" with its historic definition as "happy."
When Jaheem Herrera carried a pink backpack to Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County one day, classmates taunted him and called him "gay." "The children use ‘gay’ for anything and everything. The clothing is gay, the gesture is gay, what they say is gay, and that is a term they use," Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore said at a press conference last week. :Now with these students we asked them, ‘Well, what does gay mean?’ They said ‘gay means happy,’ and this is many of the students."
Both Moore and Superintendent Crawford Lewis have said multiple times that the students at Dunaire didn’t understand what the word "gay" meant, and that they didn’t mean it in a sexual context. "Some students did tell us they had asked their teacher what gay meant and their teachers are the ones who told them gay means happy," Moore said at the conference to detail the internal findings.
The "review" comes at the same time Jaheem Herrera's mother Masika Bermudez and other parents file suit against the DeKalb County School District. The "investigation" is in response to a possible criminal investigation as other parents say their sons were bullied, harassed, "called gay" and beaten with belt buckles at the same school.
Rev. Dennis Meredith of the LGBT-inclusive Tabernacle Baptist Church, who has been acting as an unofficial liaison between the gay community and Herrera’s parents, was astonished with Moore’s claims of the students’ innocence. "Please, those kids know what that word means. At 11-years old? Please! They know, they know."
David Schutten, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators, says sexual orientation is such a politically sensitive topic, some teachers are afraid to approach it. "Teachers are so afraid that if they say something that some parent is going to call up and say you’re promoting homosexuality, that’s the fear in Georgia. If it were a place like California it would be different."
Gay Does Not Mean Happy [SoVo]
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This is just awful. That school system is determined to try to make a mockery of little Jaheem's death. I hope those teachers are sued too.
It won't bring Jaheem back but it will teach them a lesson.,..and try to ensure there are no repeats.
Posted by: Carlos | 01 June 2009 at 12:43
Oh and the best part...the schools refuse to provide a written copy of the report.
Posted by: Earl FF | 01 June 2009 at 12:51
Who do these ignorant wanna be ghetto (but they really ain't)negroes who run the dekalb county schools think they're trying to fool with that gay = happy bullsh*t?
Posted by: Chitown Kev | 01 June 2009 at 13:06
I've said before, and some thought I was crazy: I'd rather be a child, black & labeled gay (a sissy/faggot) in the 1960s than now. I don't believe people were as cruel. I don't think people could get away with torturing children the way they do now. Well, maybe it was more hidden....but kids weren't as mean to each other.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | 01 June 2009 at 13:28
This whole story is so fishy.
Moore and Superintendent Crawford I don't trust either one of these skanks.
I would of laughed in there faces when they said an 11-year old didn't know what 'Gay' means. yeah oh-kay, I'll remind my nephew that when kids call him gay.
Posted by: Giselle | 01 June 2009 at 13:53
this is BS!
they actually think those students used the term "gay" as happy??? Come on. Stop the bs!
Those students knew it was sexual term.
Posted by: Kmark | 01 June 2009 at 14:13
Give me a break, this isn't a 1935 Hollywood movie with gay as a word for being carefree and happy, its real life and we all know what gay means, even kids, which is just too much for me to get as I didn't know what a homosexual was until I was in high school and even then, not sure then, other than I liked guys over women.
More disgusting nonsense from people who refuse to see their own homophobia.
Posted by: Luther | 01 June 2009 at 14:49
Yeah, gay hasn't meant happy since "The Flintstones." They need to go somewhere with that. Gay is used, by many, as pejorative term -- not a superlative one.
Posted by: Dex123ter | 01 June 2009 at 23:04
"Teachers are so afraid that if they say something that some parent is going to call up and say you’re promoting homosexuality, that’s the fear in Georgia."
I think this David Schutten fellow may have a good point here. The churchgoers and the right wingers have accomplished what they really want: Everyone is cowering in fear of the them. That is what puts a smile on every bully’s face.
Posted by: Jim | 01 June 2009 at 23:47
R they F-ing serious. See i would have just burn the school down. after hour and and maybe a few teachers cars
Posted by: say | 02 June 2009 at 14:17