WINFREY: We have here today two mothers walking
through the same nightmare.
Carl's mother and Jaheem's mother are
meeting for the first time today on
this stage and despite their own pain,
they are standing up and speaking out
for millions of children, your children
across America, who are being bullied.
Please welcome Sirdeaner and Masika.
[APPLAUSE]
WINFREY: Hello. Welcome. Welcome.
Welcome. Welcome to you both.
SIRDEANER: Thank you.
WINFREY: Hi. So we wanted to start the conversation,
but nobody can even imagine the kind
of pain and sorrow that you are feeling,
because you just buried your boy Tuesday?
MASIKA: Yes. Yes.
WINFREY: Yeah. Tuesday. And you buried your son?
SIRDEANER: Two weeks ago.
WINFREY: Two weeks ago.
What happened at school, do you know,
the day he killed himself?
Was it like any other day,
or did something particularly happen that day?
SIRDEANER: Something happened that day.
This is what Carl told me.
He said that his backpack had hit
the TV stand and that the TV stand hit a girl.
WINFREY: In a classroom?
SIRDEANER: I don't know if it was in a classroom.
It was somewhere in the building.
WINFREY: Yeah.
SIRDEANER: And that the girl got really
upset and threatened to beat him.
And then he said that he was facing
a five-day suspension.
And I tried to reassure Carl that there's no
way you could receive a five-day suspension
without the school calling me
and contacting me.
And I thought that I had reassured him.
He just went quietly up to his room,
and I continued making dinner.
WINFREY: Okay. And you thought he was upstairs doing ...?
SIRDEANER: Well, I knew he was upset, and ...
WINFREY: Was he crying? Was he...
SIRDEANER: No, he wasn't crying.
He was just really quiet.
And I called his name, and he didn't answer.
And normally sometimes my daughter,
my son, they live on the third floor,
and normally they don't always
answer, so I called again, and he didn't answer.
WINFREY: And when did you know something had gone very wrong?
SIRDEANER: I went upstairs to get Carl.
WINFREY: And he had hung ...
SIRDEANER: And that's when I found him. Yeah. That's when I found him.
WINFREY: So in the case of your son, Jaheem,
was he having problems with
bullies before this year?
MASIKA: No.
WINFREY: He was not having problems before this year.
MASIKA: No. Because he was back home in the Virgin Islands,
St. Croix. He was happy. He never had
problems like that back home.
WINFREY: So this was a new school for him.
MASIKA: Yeah. He went to that school
and it just started.
At first he was telling me about it.
WINFREY: What was he telling you?
MASIKA: That they're calling him gay, you know.
They saying, "You're from the Virgin Islands, you're a virgin.
You know, you ugly.
You can't do this, you can't do that."
Like, he likes to draw, he likes to dance.
He used to, you know?
And they used to bother him with all that.
And at first he used to tell me everything, everything.
But then he just stopped.
WINFREY: Stopped talking about it.
Was this the case with Carl also?
SIRDEANER: Yes.
WINFREY: Mm-hmm. So on the day that your son
took his life, he came home.
MASIKA: Yes. He was happy.
WINFREY: He was happy.
MASIKA: He showed me his report card.
I high-five him, you know.
And when his sister brought up the topic
again that the one boy called him
gay that day, he got upset, you know,
because maybe he didn't want me to know
about it so I can't go back to school again,
because he knows I've been there several times.
So when I sent him upstairs, he usually go upstairs
and play with his toys,
you know, and get over it.
I told my daughter to go get
him to eat dinner, and she called out on him,
and he never answered.
So when I went upstairs and I unlocked the door,
I saw my baby there hanging.
WINFREY: Oh. Had he indicated how miserable,
how disturbing this was?
Did you have any idea that this was troubling
him to this degree?
MASIKA: Well, for the Easter weekend,
when he was at home, he was happy.
He was playing with his sisters.
He was with me and my boyfriend.
Everything was good, but when he went
back Monday to school, he just started dragging, you know?
He don't want to eat. He don't want to brush his hair.
He don't want to brush his teeth, and that was weird, to me.
You know, I thought he was sick.
He was the first one on the table and the first one off.
You know? And when I noticed that, you know,
I thought he was sick, but I didn't know it was all this.
WINFREY: So he did seem depressed to you
when he had to go back to school.
MASIKA: Yeah, he was dragging.
WINFREY: Did you notice that from Carl,
any sign of depression or ...?
SIRDEANER: Well, I noticed that Carl had started
eating a lot and, you know, we just thought
that, "Oh, he's on a growth spurt,"
you know, because he plays a lot of sports,
so we just thought that he's on a growth spurt.
But he did start eating a lot towards the end.
WINFREY: Do you think that this was something
that he had planned for a long time, or do you
think that he just became upset that day
and suddenly this is the decision that he made?
SIRDEANER: I don't really think that he planned it,
but I know on that day, part of everything that happened,
the girl did end up telling him that,
"You act like you're feminine."
I know she said that.
WINFREY: Those were her words?
SIRDEANER: During the fight.
WINFREY: Yeah. Did he leave a note?
SIRDEANER: Yes, he did. He did leave a note.
WINFREY: Can you share with us part of what he said?
SIRDEANER: He told everybody that, you know,
he loved them very much.
He said he was very sorry.
He was looking out for his younger brother Charles,
and he didn't want him to have a difficult time.
WINFREY: Did he say why he was doing it?
SIRDEANER: No, he did not say why he was doing it.
And that he loved -- he named everyone that
he loved and, you know, and he said, p.s.,
he's leaving his Nintendo DS and platinum,
that was his favorite toy,
to his sister, for her.
WINFREY: Did your son leave a note?
MASIKA: No, ma'am. No. Didn't. He just did it.
WINFREY: He just did it.