A Time for Silence

By Albert H. Cho

When I started at Harvard in the fall of 1998, I never imagined that I would end up as the co-chair of Harvard’s Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender (BGLT) and Supporters Alliance. I found BGLT activism confusing and scary, and I certainly had no intention of becoming publicly involved in an organization whose members were generally assumed to be politically radical homosexuals. After all, queer politics weren’t my problem—they only applied to people who didn’t know how to fit in.

That myopic perspective exploded on Feb. 7, 1999, when queer politics suddenly became a lot more personal. “Did you hear about that crazy kid at MIT who killed himself yesterday?” asked a friend on the way to Annenberg that evening. “He was from your town, so I thought you might have known him.”

It turns out I did. “That crazy kid” was my friend Mike Manley from Tempe, Arizona. Though Mike and I went to different high schools, we met on the local speech and debate circuit, and we started bumping into each other everywhere we went. Mike and I volunteered together at the city museum, served on youth commissions together, talked on the phone and crank-called random Tempeans together. These experiences forged a friendship I valued highly during a period of my life when good friends were hard to find.

Mike was intense and brilliant; he had a persistent devotion to excellence that was unusual by even the most stringent criterion. At the debate camp we attended in Colorado, he worked harder than anyone else and earned its highest recognition, the pretentiously-titled Philosopher King award. Nothing made Mike prouder than to see his efforts rewarded with recognition; he set high standards for himself and usually exceeded them triumphantly.

As a junior in high school, Mike was accepted to MIT and chose there to enroll there the following year, just as I was about to enter Harvard. The summer before we left for Cambridge, Mike and I met several times to talk about what it would be like to leave our homes in Arizona for the gray and distant lands of Harvard and MIT. We swore to stay in touch and help each other handle the pretentious snobs we were sure we’d find.

As the summer ended, we embarked for our new homes. As the general chaos of the first week subsided, I found myself comfortably ensconced within the iron gates of Harvard Yard. Suddenly, everyone I knew—everyone who counted, at least—seemed to live within Harvard’s walls, and my contact with the outside world, including Mike, dwindled to an increasingly intermittent trickle of e-mails.

Then, on Feb. 7, 1999, I heard the news. The day before, Mike had thrown himself from the 15th floor of his MIT dormitory, leaving no note or explanation. After rushing to his room at MIT and meeting some of his friends there, I learned for the first time that Mike was gay.

Though suicide is an incredibly complex phenomenon that defies linear explanations, homosexuality almost certainly played a role in Mike’s death. Essays and writings that Mike left behind express profound turmoil about his sexual identity and personal goals. Even though we can only guess speculatively at Mike’s motives, we do know that suicide is an act of desperation. Statistics show that gay teens are over three times more likely than their straight peers to attempt suicide because they experience greater marginalization and loneliness. For someone like Mike who grew up craving success, praise and recognition, the prospect of living with homosexuality and the hatred it provokes must have seemed like an intolerable burden to bear.

I keep Mike’s writings in a folder in my desk, and every so often I pull them out and flip through their now-tattered and dog-eared pages. Each time, I am impressed by the brilliance and clarity of his voice and saddened by his premature demise. We have lost Mike and the great things he would undoubtedly have achieved. This is the incalculable, incomprehensible cost of a world that teaches people to be normal or to be silent.

Homophobia and discrimination touch everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. With this in mind, I would like to invite all of you to join me tomorrow in Harvard’s Day of Silence 2001. We need a day of silence to remind ourselves of the costs of intolerance. When you hear the silence around you on Wednesday, think of all the voices you do not hear. In a world where some lovers dare not speak their name, silence will continue to kill. Let us join together in silence and break its hold on us forever.

Albert H. Cho ’02 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. He is co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance.