The tragic story of Tyler Clementi, the 18 year old college student that committed suicide, is on everyone’s mind. I doubt there is a person out there that doesn’t feel for him. Well, there is one. Rich Sanchez doesn’t see the perpetrators as bullies.
If you haven’t yet heard the incredibly sad story of 18 year old Tyler Clementi, here’s the gist. Clementi, was a shy freshmen at Rutgers University and an expert violinist. His roommate, Dharun Ravi, apparently uncomfortable with having a gay roommate, decided it would be hilarious to secretly videotape Clementi having sex and then stream it live on the internet, inviting all of his friends to watch through Twitter. Ravi and his accomplice, Molly Wei, have now been arrested but only after Clementi killed himself, jumping off the George Washington Bridge three days after the incident. Meanwhile, on CNN, Rick Sanchez couldn’t be persuaded that this disgusting affair reeeeeally qualified as “bullying.”
While we can respect Sanchez taking some unpopular stances on this story (he makes some good points about the slippery slope of trying to charge Ravi and Wei with Clementi’s death instead of merely invasion of privacy) his opinions on “bullying” are just weird. He doesn’t just believe that this isn’t bullying, he appears to not believe bullying is a real thing to begin with.“‘Bullying?’ How is this bullying? You know, this whole term, it’s a psycho-babble, media term that we’ve made up. A person is mean to another person. How is this bullying?”
Is he competing with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck? Rick Sanchez should now make a quiet exit.
