This summer, a brown-skinned 20 year old man of South Asian descent was nationally ostracized. He faced immense scrutiny for his actions ever since September 2010; recently, he was found guilty and sent to jail. He has been called out for his actions by President Obama as well as various prominent members of the White House and federal government. The public has shown little to no mercy or understanding of his actions. But, Dharun Ravi is not a terrorist.

Ravi, like so many other students beginning their collegiate careers in the fall of 2010, was enthused about becoming a part of the Rutgers community. He recalls moving into his dorm with help from his mother and meeting his homosexual roommate Tyler Clementi who later committed suicide. There are a lot of details in this unfortunate incident: Ravi’s alleged spying, Clementi’s mother “totally rejecting” her son when he came out to them before he went off to school, Ravi’s light-hearted text message to friends about getting alcohol a few hours after Clementi jumped, Clementi’s text messages to a friend expressing stereotypes about Ravi’s parents, Dharun’s text to Tyler the night of the suicide saying he was sorry about the camera. In the end, this was not a case of homophobia or even cyber-bullying, Notice how there is not one instance of a face to face conversation between the two during this entire ordeal. It was simply a lack of communication facilitated by an initial lack of understanding and, most importantly, technology.

Before this goes any further, a few things need to be duly noted. Are our (by our, I mean the American born generation of Indian and Pakistani children) parents at fault for this misconception? If you’re a American born child of Indian or Pakistani immigrants, chances are you grew up in this country learning all the different ways humans behaved at school, at your friends’ houses, etc. Rarely at home. This raises another issue: are our parents the ones who need to be held responsible for Dharun’s seemingly lack of insensitivity. The point has been beaten to death: 9/11 sent ‘brown’ America into a spiral. It alienated us, exiled us, etc. With so much concern about overcoming the stereotype of something as absurd as terrorism, did the elders drop the ball on basic human values in place of ensuring their children excelled in the top fields in the nation?

A glimpse of humanity shimmered in Ravi’s mother’s final testament in court. She struggled through a thorough account of how they came to America, how Ravi’s ten year old brother is constantly asking why everyone is after his brother, how Ravi has been in total mental and social lockdown every day since the incident. These are all fine and expected coming from a mother but at what point are the perpetrator’s parents accountable? Was there not a teaching of love, of ways people love, of how Americans interact in the Ravi household?

What Dharun Ravi represents for brown America is its stubborn attitude towards anything which they could not find in the year they left their home country. In 2012, if one brown person does something, he or she speaks for all of us. Well, as far as the media is concerned. If a brown citizen wins the spelling bee, we are all capable of winning the spelling bee. If a brown citizen kills somebody, we are all capable of killing somebody. If a brown kid pulls a prank and the victim commits suicide because of it, we are all capable of pulling pranks and being blamed for the victim committing suicide because of it. One of the most common problems about brown America in general is that nobody wants to be a voice. We are so desensitized to everything that talking about things will only make it worse. We are encouraged to keep everything bottled inside, to take over-the-counter pills which will keep us focused on tasks at hand and therefore, limited. Nobody wants to be the one who will speak on issues, will address them clearly and find a solution for it.

Most parents of these children are still stuck in the year they decided they would venture to America and begin a life. They go to work, they interact with Americans, they might go out with their co-workers once in a while but for the most part, the home life of most brown Americans is very tight knit. Family is stressed in nearly all cultures stemming from the sub-continent of Asia and rightfully so. But, there needs to be a more direct approach to these tactics rather than letting these kids find out on their own. Hearing Ravi’s parents’ testaments, you could hear in their voices they felt helpless. They do not have any clue of what it means to love somebody of your own gender, somebody who goes through the same behavioral patterns as you do. For this, I pity them and hope that there is a stronger sense of humanity in these parents across the country rather than worrying if their children will become a physician or not. With all the spotlight on terrorism, these parents have made the main goal for their children to succeed and study hard in school without regard for the qualities which make them lovable. In that aspect, we are forced to rely on our friends, our schools, our clubs, our sports teams, etc. There is an entire gap between those who immigrated from the sub-continent and those who they gave birth to, possibly one of the most prominent gaps between generations in the world’s history.

I realize that when a child kills themselves, somebody has to be blamed. But, where is the direct correlation between Ravi’s camera and Tyler’s decision? Nobody knows how long he had been planning this, what his genuine motives were, if he even cared about the camera. If you were in Clementi’s position, you would most likely be more off-put by your mother’s blatant rejection of your identity than a stranger pulling a prank. Thus, with all of the external factors in this case, it is not Dharun Ravi who needs to be the scapegoat. Instead, it is a flawed attempt of comprehension amongst all parties involved which was increased via technology and growing homosexual-relation tensions in the United States. So, while Ravi is in the midst of a 30-day jail sentence, while he most likely will find it near impossible to attend a college campus again, while his brother will grow up confused as to what happened during this year and a half, the lone solace can be found in knowing the guilt should not be on anybody’s shoulders. Instead, it perpetuated itself from the age we live, what we learn from our parents and how we communicate with each other. This case is the prime indicator of what the late Ray Bradbury feared: technology interfering with the basic human instinct to communicate. The Internet has prevented stable relationships amongst ourselves to be as strong as they once were. Unfortunately, this coincided with a suicide and a married couple’s skewed perception of love. In the future, when this case is reflected upon, it can be only be hoped Ravi expresses an understanding of equality. If not for his sake or his parents’ sake, then for every other brown American’s sake.