Until now, I’ve tried to keep these blog posts focused on UX, product design, and startups.
I’ve kept them free from politics, from personal stories, and from anything overtly controversial, aside from a few arguments about various design minutiae.
But this article, written by a gay former student who attended the school Karen Pence now teaches at, reminded me so much of my own experiences attending various Catholic schools outside of Chicago that I felt compelled to speak out. For whatever it’s worth, I wanted to share some of those experiences, both for those who are pondering the fairness of various sides of this controversy, and for current students at these types of schools, who might feel, as I often did, that they’re alone in this experience.
For those of you who don’t know me, this is probably the point where I should make it clear that I’m not gay. I’m happily engaged to a brilliant, beautiful, talented woman; we live together outside of Boston and, for the most part, we love our lives working as technologists. Though I have gay friends, I can’t pretend to have lived their experiences. I’m writing with the perspective of a straight, white male who grew up in an affluent household in North Shore Chicago. Take that as you will.
My family moved to Chicago in 1991, and I started attending a Catholic school as a first grader shortly thereafter. To say my experience was rough significantly undersells the ongoing torture I experienced.
I don’t remember much from my first few years, but what I do remember is still painful today. I remember nights I would cry for hours after being teased so mercilessly that I was convinced I would never have friends. I remember afternoons when I would try, with varying degrees of success, to hide bruises, skinned hands and knees, and other souvenirs earned on the playground. I remember days spent hoping I just wouldn’t be noticed.
It would be easy to dismiss these experiences as the typical, albeit profoundly troubling, bullying that many kids across America experience. But even after changing schools in 6th grade, these types of experiences continued, and I had the opportunity to watch them inflicted on others as well.
Ian Cronkhite notes in his article that it “has to be said” that the school he attended was a good one. My school offered an excellent education as well, but I’m not convinced that needs to be said. The quality of the education doesn’t excuse the quality of the culture.
What does need to be said? My high school, and schools like it, are frequently hotbeds of racism, sexism, homophobia, and fairly overt hatred of anybody who wasn’t white, male, and Catholic.
What do I mean? Here’s just a handful of what unfolded on a typical day:
- The school’s priest described, on many occasions, his belief homosexuals were perverts and rapists hellbent on destroying the Catholic church. At least two gay students I know of, and likely more I don’t, had to sit silently during these speeches; there was no way they were coming out to more than a handful of trusted friends, and none of those friends felt comfortable risking the punishment and ridicule they’d receive by saying something.
- Students and teachers alike frequently described women as less capable and less intelligent.
- The small handful of Black students in my school were frequent subjects of racial slurs. Many of these were creative enough that they stick in my memory to this day. When teachers heard these taunts, if they deigned to respond at all, they typically gave perpetrators warnings or, at worst, detention. As far as I could tell, nobody ever bothered to check on the wellbeing of the victims of this hate speech.
- “Fag” and “queer” were common insults. “That’s gay” was an accepted rebuke for any idea you didn’t like.
- Students regularly blamed a particular Muslim student for 9/11.
- My classmates frequently stole books, food, and other possessions from a student they considered overweight.
- Several teachers considered students ridiculing and bullying each other as a right of passage. “Toughen up” was a common response to victims.
- Cheating on tests and lying to teachers were blatant and commonplace. Don’t get caught was the only real lesson.
I wish I could say that I didn’t join in on any of the activities I just listed. My only excuse is that these behaviors were so common that I got swept up in them. Even today, after the perspective that years of living as an adult have brought me, that still sounds like a weak excuse. I feel profoundly ashamed for my participation in those activities.
So when I hear the parents of students at Catholic and Evangelical schools decry criticism of Karen Pence in particular, and these schools more broadly, as profoundly unfair, I have to wonder if they really know what actually goes on at these schools. When I read their outrage on Twitter, I have to wonder if they’re really sure their child isn’t subjected to this type of behavior.
While I suspect many of these parents are completely aware of the culture and environment they’re putting their kids in, I have to believe at least some of them aren’t. If they were, I suspect at least some of them would move their kids to other schools in a heartbeat.