8 Asians

Dharun Ravi, the roommate of a gay Rutgers student who committed suicide after spying on him and tweeting his escapades, has been found guilty of invasion of privacy, witness tampering, and evidence tampering. Ravi now faces five to ten years of prison time as well as possible deportation to India. South Asian blog Sepia Mutiny approaches the story from a lesser seen perspective and laments on his sentencing: “Ravi is an immature, upper middle class kid and a ‘casual homophobe’ … but he is not a perpetrator of a hate crime. To consider him more than marginally complicit in the death of Tyler Clementi hurts two groups: victims of true hate crimes and the mental health community. [...] Ravi’s team will appeal but his life is destroyed now. In America you can be 14 and put away for life. You can be 18 and be jailed for being immature and insensitive. Everyone lost in this episode. Especially justice.”