Blacking out 'the gay'

Since the carrier stopped being able to get the NYTimes to me in time for me to read it (the last thing I want to do at 7pm is read the morning paper), I only get the Sunday Times anymore. I look at the on-line edition, but I miss things every now and then. But Barry over at Staring at Empty Pages drew my attention to this story about blotting out a gay student - literally.

Andre Jackson, a senior at East Side High School, leaned over his boyfriend’s shoulder one day several months ago and kissed him on the lips. He took a picture of the smooch with his digital camera.

Like other students, Mr. Jackson later paid $150 to have his own special page of photos in the school yearbook. He decided to include the picture of the kiss, to make not a political statement, but a personal one.

“I didn’t intend to say, ‘Oh hey, look at me, I’m gay,’ ” said Mr. Jackson, 18. “It was just a picture showing my emotion, saying that I’m happy, you know, whatever. It was to look back on as a memory.”

On Thursday evening, when the seniors gathered at a restaurant here for the Senior Banquet, students received the yearbooks they had bought for around $85. But the picture of Mr. Jackson kissing his boyfriend was gone. School officials had blacked it out. Roughly 250 yearbooks were distributed, and all of them had a black-marker splotch covering every inch of the photo.

The decision to blot out the photo was made by Marion A. Bolden, the Newark Public Schools superintendent. Ms. Bolden said that an assistant superintendent had alerted her to the picture on Thursday afternoon. “I thought that the photo was suggestive,” Ms. Bolden said.

So, maybe the problem was the kiss, right? Not quite.

She said she made her decision without seeing the entire yearbook, and looked at only the one page.

The thin, hardcover yearbook, titled “Take Another Look,” features many pictures of the Class of 2007, including several of heterosexual couples embracing and kissing. On the page immediately opposite Mr. Jackson’s, a young man and a young woman kiss on a couch, his hand on her leg as she sits on his lap.

The problem was two men kissing. The assistant superintendent suffers from the "I don't want to look at it - ewwww icky" syndrome, and the superintendent jumped the gun. I mean - suggestive? Seriously? Suggestive of what - gays having sex? Straights kiss all over the place - busses (without getting thrown off), streets, parks, corridors, elevators, schoolyards - that yearbook - and the public is supposed to smile and say "awwwwww." Gays get "ewwwwww" - if they're lucky.

The superintendent has an excuse, sort of. She was told they weren't students, and that she'd have been more hesitant to black out students. (More hesitant? Not quite the same thing as "wouldn't have", is it?)

She said she felt that the photo was provocative for a high school yearbook, regardless of whether it showed heterosexual or homosexual kissing. But she said it was a decision that was made too quickly and without taking into consideration other couples’ pictures...

“It looked like two men kissing,” she said. “To me, it looked fairly illicit. It was pointed out as problematic, so maybe I read more into it.”

To her credit, Ms. Bolden understands that she has hurt Mr. Jackson. Sort of understands.

Ms. Bolden said she wanted to meet with Mr. Jackson and apologize if necessary. “He was personally hurt,” she said. “That bothers me very much.”

"If necessary"? “I was upset,” Mr. Jackson said. “I was hurt. I felt embarrassed and abused. ...I didn’t feel right. What I wanted to see wasn’t there.”

He wasn't there.