Comments on: The bullying epidemic

by: Sandy

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:28:00 +0100

Here is a great site to check out and also a sneak preview of May’s “People Who Care” page with a Christina Ricci interview about her work with RAINN (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network): http://nonprofitshoppingmall.com/people-who-care/christina-ricci

Go to the site and shop and a percent of your sale will go to RAINN!

Pass this on to everyone!!!

by: jose

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:52:28 +0100

As an educator, I have to say this is truly disturbing. I’ve seen it happen personally, but in my school, it’s really hard to tell who’s the bully and who’s the bullied, because they start taking on each other’s behavior in this weird dance of power. It’s almost like what’s happening in this country. Anyways, we try our best to deal with bullying, but you can’t believe the tons of loopholes we have to overcome to handle the bully effectively. Some just need a little counseling and a lot of love, but some need to be ripped from their current environment and brought somewhere where they’ve lost that power. Hmm.

by: dejah

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:59:48 +0100

I saw that kid’s picture and read about those bullies and thought the same as everybody else — he is the poster boy for the punching bag George Bush has turned our country into. Sad. And we will be paying for George Bush and his mouth-breathing ilk for decades to come.

Many of us probably went through some form of bullying by other kids at school — some worse than others. Why the parents of these little wastes of DNA cannot see the evil their children bestow on others is beyond me.

I chose not to have children, but if I had, and someone had done to my child what they have done to this child, heads would roll.

by: grendelkhan

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:29:06 +0000

I’m in London at the moment. (First trip out of North America. Fascinating stuff.) I picked up a random free newspaper, and what did I find? I hadn’t heard of (extraordinarily depressing pictures warning) Sophie Lancaster before, but it’s all too damned relevant.

“During the police interview Harris and his mother were taking the matter very lightly and there was sniggering during some of the evidence.

“It was as if they didn’t care, they were almost laughing and joking about what they had done.

“Their attitude seemed to be that the only thing their sons had done wrong was get caught.”

Ugh. A plague upon them all, y’know?

by: grendelkhan

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:26:25 +0000

the matthew show: I’m not ashamed to admit that I laughed out loud when I found out the bastard was crippled and would be miserable for the rest of his life.

I know exactly what you mean. A year or so after I graduated, one of the kids who bullied me in high school died in a car accident. I laughed for about ten minutes straight when I found out, I was so happy.

Then, of course, I hated him just a little bit more, for making me realize I had it in me to take joy in someone else’s death. Things got much better once I finished high school. (Things had been much worse in middle school.)

by: delishka

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:13:43 +0000

I’m coming to this topic rather late with my story, but here it is.
When I was in 6th grade, a friend of mine lived withing walking distance of the school. I was going to visit her after school, and so we took were still on campus after most of the kids had left on the busses. We were walking across the campus courtyard when a group of three boys confronted us and started harassing us and preventing us from leaving, in full view of the windows to the administration section. One of them finally worked up the courage and got a little physical, grabbed my friend’s skirt and yanked it up. I didn’t have any defense training, and my brother had always sheltered me from bullying behavior. I’m not sure what happened, I shoved him he shoved back. All I know is that it ended with me biting the hell out of his arm. Didn’t break the skin, he was wearing a denim jacket, but left a hell of a bruise.
Anyway, point of the story is that when the administrators (finally) came to see what all the fuss was about, I was considered to be most in the wrong, and they wanted to send me to juvy. After all, biting is unacceptable in a 6 year old, let alone a sixth grader! I was a sociopathic savage, too dangerous to be allowed around the other kids, even though I had no previous disciplinary issues, was on the honor roll, a favorite of the teachers, bright and articulate, one of those artsy kids in orchestra and extra art classes. Besides, I would have given him AIDS if I had broken the skin, didn’t I learn anything in health class? The message was, If some boy wants to push you down or yank up your skirt, you may defend yourself only in a civilized, ladylike manner. (Like my friend did…I jumped in, so she wasn’t even involved in the fight, and his two friends, I believe, ran away) So I’m sobbing in the vice principle’s office while she tells me how they’re going to lock me up like the criminal scum I was, when my dad comes blowing in the room. My parents backed me up one hundred percent, and so did my friends mom. Where were the adults when this group of boys were sexually assaulting their little girls? How exactly would they prefer I respond? I suppose I was supposed to start screaming or something. I wish someone had told me about kicking guys in the nads, but I had never really thought about hurting someone intentionally before that time, and I went with instinct.
So, no juvy for me, but he and I spent several uncomfortable saturdays in detention. Then I was put in a special extra class for troubled kids. He was not. After the heat of it died down, I apologized for biting him. But I told him if he ever grabbed someone like that again I would do something more civilized, but still quite socially unacceptable to him.
I can’t help but wonder, if my parents had somehow agreed with the school, would I really have gone to kiddy jail for that? The vice principle wanted to expell me and press charges. I also think it’s quite interesting that I ended up on the special ‘needs more attention’ list and he didn’t.
Also interesting is that while her mother took me aside to thank me for defending and helping her daugter, my friend just didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. ^_^

by: the matthew show

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:50:04 +0000

Rumblelizard,

There may well be. I’m so unplugged from the teen scene these days I have absolutely no idea of the options available. But I find that even among adults who consider themselves nonconformist, there are still ingroup/outgroup dynamics at play. Of course, I used to work in book & music stores, where snobbery rules, so maybe my scale is tilted a bit.

by: Rumblelizard

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:04:33 +0000

@ the matthew show March 27, 2008 at 2:34 pm: Things are different now than they used to be, or at least I’m assuming so, since I no longer frequent the punk scene or any scene (other than the one in my own living room. And the only one stage-diving off the couch is my dog.)

The punk scene that I grew up in was about as eclectic and anti-conformity as possible, with basically no rules of dress, politics, or social skills. It certainly wasn’t “hip” to be punk at that time; punks at that time were viewed by straight folk with universal fear and loathing. And we liked it like that.

I realize that the punk scene of my early adulthood is long dead, which is why I expressed hope that there was some other similarly family-like and creative subculture that nurtures smart and creative young outsiders these days. I don’t know if there is, but I hope so.

by: the matthew show

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:15:49 +0000

Rhus,

These threads make me so sad. Is my classmates’ and my story so rare?

Sounds like a completely different planet than the one I spent my teenage years on. Can we switch?

by: somegirls

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:32:55 +0000

@Halfmad
That blog post was so interesting. A couple of years ago I got an e-mail from a girl from high school. She had never directly bullied me, but she was a hanger-on of the mean girl clique that did bully me. Her e-mail said “I’ll never forget how you treated me so kindly when my so called ‘friends’ were so nasty to me.”

The funny thing is that I never remember saying a single nice thing to her. I didn’t hate her as much as the others because even at 15 I realized that the popular clique hanger-ons were just trying to save their own skin. But apparently at some point I must have been nice to her and it meant alot.