True Colors: It Gets Better

At least twice during the last couple of weeks, youngsters from Iowa have taken their own lives, driven to despair by one cause or another. In the instance of a 16-year-old boy from our neighbor to the west, Creston, the family made clear in his obituary that suicide was the cause of death and that bullying by his peers was a contributing factor.

We haven't been told why young Dan was being bullied, and that's fine. But it most likely involved a perception among the bullies that their victim was somehow "the other" and therefore vulnerable. Bullies always target those whom they perceive of as pacifist, unwilling or unable to fight back.

I was reminded of this 2010 performance by the Gay Mens Chorus of Los Angeles of Billy Steinberg's and Tom Kelly's 1986 "True Colors" --- introduced that year by Cyndi Lauper. This was adopted as something of a theme song by the LGBTQ+ community back in '86, then revitalized during 2010 as the "It Gets Better" campaign gained momentum. 

"It Gets Better" was and is a movement designed to reassure gay kids who find themselves in crisis situations that, given time and supportive friends, situations change and --- get better. But everything about that campaign applies to kids of all varieties in crisis for any reason.

Much of this begins at home, I think. Every parent needs to recognize that youngsters, too, are prone to despair --- no matter how "well adjusted" or "normal" they may appear to be. And every parent needs to be aware, too, that his or her child is a potential bully, perhaps expressing in other places behaviors learned at home.

But that doesn't absolve the rest of us of the responsibility to share in any way we can and in whatever situations we find ourselves that it does, indeed, get better.