Sirdeaner Walker, who
has survived domestic violence, homelessness, and
breast cancer, knew death could come suddenly -- but
she could not have predicted it would find her 11-year-old son
first.
Carl Joseph
Walker-Hoover was a sixth-grader at New Leadership Charter
School in Springfield, Mass. There, many of his classmates were
initially strangers, as few of his friends from Alfred Glickman
Elementary followed him.
On April 6, Sirdeaner
Walker came home, walked up the stairs to the second floor of
her home, and saw her son suspended from a support beam in the
stairwell, swaying slightly in the air, an extension cord
wrapped around his neck, according to police. He apologized in
a suicide note, told his mother that he loved her, and
left his video games to his brother.
Walker said her son had
been the victim of bullying since the beginning of the school
year, and that she had been calling the school since September,
complaining that her son was mercilessly teased. He played
football, baseball, and was a boy scout, but a group of
classmates called him gay and teased him about the way he
dressed. They ridiculed him for going to church with his mother
and for volunteering locally.
"It's not just
a gay issue," Walker said. "It's bigger. He was 11
years old, and he wasn't aware of his sexuality. These
homophobic people attach derogatory terms to a child who's 11
years old, who goes to church, school, and the library, and he
becomes confused. He thinks,
Maybe I'm like this. Maybe I'm not. What do I
do?
"
His birthday, April 17,
falls this year on the 13th National Day of Silence, a day on
which individuals observe vows of silence for students
bullied at school.
But instead of silence,
Walker wants action from the school, which she said
continuously ignored her, chalking the situation up to student
immaturity. She said that every day her son left for school, he
walked into a "combat zone" assigned to him because
of his inner-city address. But he would not point a finger at
specific classmates for fear he'd be called a
"snitch."
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