This spate in suicides

Over the past few weeks the press has been inundated with reports of gay man after gay man taking his own life because it just became too much to bear.

The latest, and perhaps most poignant (and ironic) was the suicide of New York activist Joseph Jefferson.

What is most distressing about this particular suicide, as the cited article highlights, is Jefferson's last status updates on Facebook which read:

"I could not bear the burden of living as a gay man of color in a world grown cold and hateful towards those of us who live and love differently than the so-called 'social mainstream'... Belonging is one of the basic human needs, when people feel isolated and excluded from a sense of communion with others, they suffer. I have been an advocate for my peers and most importantly youth because most have never had a deep emotional attachment to anyone. They don’t know how to love and be loved in return. The need to be loved can sometimes translate to the need to belong to someone or something. Driven by that need….. Most will do anything to belong."

Author and activist Nathan James wrote in response via a note on his Facebook profile:

"As an advocate for LGBT youth, Mr. Jefferson surely made a positive impact on those he met and counseled. But this same nurturing and enrichment he offered to others, was absent in his own life to such a degree, that he felt the only way to deal with the pain of his existence was to end it. "

As I've said before, I cannot rationalize suicide. I cannot empathize, or sympathize because as obsessed as I am with my own legacy, I believe suicide nullifies all aspects of one's achievements up to that point.

There is really something very funky in the air to be causing all these suicides, but I do not believe this is the way to send a message to anyone.

There is little dignity in death, worse at one's own hands. That kind of resignation is not indicative of the strength and power within each of us and for an advocate to give up, which is what I believe his suicide represents in this instance, does not augur well for the movement, especially in precarious environments such as ours in Jamaica.

If first world activists are throwing in the towel just what are the rest of us to do? We often have to deal with worse every day yet we maintain our dignity, heads high, chest forward, fierce and proud.

I'd like to think there were other factors that contributed to this particular suicide and the others preceding it, but at face value it just appears they were all tired of the stress of being gay in a non-supportive social environment.

We must not give up the fight.

Suicide is not the answer.

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