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Grex > Agora46 > #131: New York City to open nation's first all-gay public high school in the fall | |
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| 25 new of 241 responses total. |
tod
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response 130 of 241:
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Aug 22 17:22 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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jep
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response 131 of 241:
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Aug 22 17:27 UTC 2003 |
If novomit tried to get help, and couldn't, and couldn't come up with
another way to deal with his situation, what was he supposed to do?
Just suck it up?
For me it was 8th grade, too. I took a pen knife (hidden in a fake
looking wooden cigar) to school. I showed one of the kids who wouldn't
leave me alone that I had a knife. Later that day I was called to the
principal's office. He heard my story, and I was sent home for the
day. I was never again bothered by another kid in school.
The solution worked for me; it was the first effective thing I'd ever
done to end the harrassment that followed me through school up to that
point.
I don't think I should have taken a knife to school, and I don't think
novomit should have taken a gun. But then, I don't think either of us
should have been pushed to the point where we thought we needed a
weapon to just be left alone. I think school administrators, teachers
and parents need to step in to help kids like novomit and me to deal
with these types of problems.
I don't think novomit was responsible for someone who used to beat him
up, winding up in jail. Todd, are you nuts?
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novomit
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response 132 of 241:
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Aug 22 17:32 UTC 2003 |
Yes, I DO see something is wrong with pulling a deadly weapon. However, I
still am not hearing anything from you except impractical suggestions for what
I could have done to avoid it other than submit myself to abuse over and over
again. And no, I never told anyone it was a good idea to carry a gun to
school. the exact opposite is the case. Nonetheless, if you sense you are in
danger, you do something to avoid it. If a woman who carries a gun with her
for protection pulls a gun on a man who tries to rape her, who is most wrong?
The woman or the rapist? While an attack is occuring, filing a complain is
not an option. If someone broke into your house and began threatening you,
would you take steps to defend yourself, or tell the robber to hold on while
you call the cops? Got news for you . . . while you are busy calling the cops,
he will be busy kicking your arse. No, I didn't go to the cops. I doubt if
there are mahy other 14-year olds who would have done so either. And what
gives you the notion that they would have thought any different about it than
anyone else. They would have came, asked a few questions, wrote it off as a
playground dispute, left, and i would have got it even worse next time. You
have a great way of taking the victim and making them out to be the agressor.
THEY started it, not me. if they would have left me alone, there would have
been no need for any of this. but then again, I must have asked for it.
Minding your own business has a way of attracting trouble.
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novomit
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response 133 of 241:
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Aug 22 17:35 UTC 2003 |
I agree jep. Taking a knife or a gun to school is stupid. But when you dont
see where you have another option, you do what you have to do. And then things
can *really* get out of hand. i was lucky. So were you. But since the schools
were not made safe enough so that we couldnt get by by *not* doing these
things, I, at that age anyway, saw no other alternative.
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tod
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response 134 of 241:
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Aug 22 17:47 UTC 2003 |
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jep
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response 135 of 241:
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Aug 22 18:16 UTC 2003 |
Once a situation becomes intolerable, it doesn't matter if it gets
worse. The only thing that mattered to novomit, or me, or anyone else
in that situation, is that the situation has to change.
Novomit's gun did indeed change him from "hunted" to "hunter". So
what? He was the victim. Do you think he was obligated to remain a
victim, or that I was?
Let me tell you something, it is *bad* to be victimized, over and over
and on and on. It's bad if you're in an abusive marriage, it's bad if
you're a child being sexually abused by an adult, and it's bad if
you're a kid being harrassed by other kids. If you think it's bad to
take action on your own behalf in any of these situations, then it
seems to me, as I believe it does to novomit, that you prefer the
harrasser to the one being harrassed.
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tod
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response 136 of 241:
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Aug 22 18:30 UTC 2003 |
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slynne
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response 137 of 241:
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Aug 22 19:01 UTC 2003 |
Being bullied does not justify bringing a gun to school, much less
pulling it out and threatening someone with it. There is also a big
difference between the mostly verbal taunts novomit has described and a
rape. Frankly, there often isnt too much difference between a bully and
a victim except who happens to be in power at the moment. A gun turns
the victim into the bully real fast.
I totally get the helpless feelings one gets when one is a victim. And
I know it is especially hard when one has limited social skills and
thus has to endure the humiliation alone. I was bullied while in school
but soon learned that the best way to deal with it was to make friends.
In some cases, I even made friends with a former bully. A gang of five
boys will think twice before actually physically attacking another kid
who is hanging around 4-5 of his friends. They go for the loners
because they are easy and there isnt so much risk.
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tod
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response 138 of 241:
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Aug 22 19:13 UTC 2003 |
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jep
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response 139 of 241:
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Aug 22 19:30 UTC 2003 |
I'm going to listen to my son if he tells me of problems. I'm going to
to school with him and make sure the problems are dealt with, if there
are any. I'm going to make sure he knows, and the school knows, it's
not just him complaining, that it's me, too, and that it is not
acceptable for my child to be harrassed in school.
There is no way I would ever tolerate my son being afraid of going
outside during recess because he's being beaten up on the playground.
I went through that when I was his age. Thankfully, things are
different now than they were then. Playground supervisors and teachers
don't just ignore this type of situation, and parents pay attention to
kids more now than they did when I was a child.
It wasn't verbal harrassment which caused me to take a knife to school,
it was being hit (some days) and being convinced I was going to be hit
(other days). Yes, I would tell my son to do something else, rather
than putting up with that, if there were no other alternative available
to him. But I regard it as my duty to make sure there are other ways
to deal with that sort of situation before it gets to that point. I
wish someone had stepped up that way for me. I bet novomit would
rather have had an alternative, too.
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slynne
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response 140 of 241:
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Aug 22 19:47 UTC 2003 |
Here is the problem from the kid's point of view. Unless they are
constantly monitored by adults, the bully can get them alone. And going
to adults for help is often seen as a HUGE sign of weakness. Going to
adults is likely to make the problem worse. However, going to friends
is the opposite. It is a sign of strength. It isnt an accident that the
kids who get picked on and the kids who are the bullies are the ones
with the least social skills.
Of course, it is important for the adults in a situation to pay
attention to things. But there is a lot they will miss. And even if
they are able to keep things from getting physical, they dont really
address the root of the problem. Frankly, the verbal taunting is almost
as bad and impossible to control. Parents, school administrators, etc,
might be able to make kids not be violent but they cant make them be
nice.
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tod
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response 141 of 241:
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Aug 22 19:55 UTC 2003 |
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jep
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response 142 of 241:
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Aug 22 20:46 UTC 2003 |
Parents and other adults can certainly make kids behave politely and
act as if they're nice.
Taking weapons to school isn't generally seen as a sign of strength,
either. It's a sign of being desperate. In my case, it turned out to
be a way of crying out for help.
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tod
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response 143 of 241:
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Aug 22 22:20 UTC 2003 |
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jmsaul
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response 144 of 241:
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Aug 22 22:27 UTC 2003 |
What's your alternative, if they're getting beaten up on a regular basis and
the teachers won't do anything? You know the cops won't, and while they could
have studied martial arts or something, that wouldn't help much against five
guys.
Should they have sucked it up?
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tod
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response 145 of 241:
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Aug 22 22:31 UTC 2003 |
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jmsaul
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response 146 of 241:
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Aug 22 22:42 UTC 2003 |
We aren't talking about me here. I went to a private school, where the
teachers and staff didn't let that kind of shit happen. (I also went to
the dojo three nights a week, which gave me the right attitude to avoid
that kind of crap.)
Cops tend to ignore school roughness even now, and certainly would have
blown jep off when he was in high school. They had no interest in high
school kids punching each other out if it didn't do permanent damage.
They might now, but it wouldn't have been an option then.
I'm not saying bringing a weapon to school is right, I'm just asking what
you think they could have done instead that would actually have helped.
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jep
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response 147 of 241:
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Aug 22 23:04 UTC 2003 |
I *said* I shouldn't have taken a knife to school. I got lucky, got
some help (or impressed some bad kids -- I don't really know), and what
I did actually helped me, without causing me any damage.
Todd, it's clear as can be that you've never been in similar
circumstances, and don't have the slightest clue what it's like. For
me, getting bullied was something I dealt with most school days from
2nd to 8th grade, and got no help from *anyone*. If you think I was
wrong for finding a way to deal with that, and succeeding in a way that
got no one else hurt, then I can't imagine what your thinking must be
based on. If you think I should have just endured it, and that novomit
should have too, then it can only be that you lived in a different
world than I did.
I'm sure it'd have been better to stand in and get the stuffing beat
out of me in 3rd grade, like in a Tom Sawyer book or something,
and "earned the respect of my peers", but not every kid is the kind who
can do that. I wasn't. Some people aren't tough. Maybe there ought
to be a place in the world for those people anyway.
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tod
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response 148 of 241:
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Aug 22 23:34 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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i
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response 149 of 241:
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Aug 23 00:12 UTC 2003 |
Re: various "go tell the cops and they'll make it all better" responses
When i was about a high school sophomore, my folks read my younger brother
& me the riot act about *any* interaction with with the cops in the next
town. Seemed that the men in blue were a bit out of control over there,
and quite willing to drag a teenage boy they didn't like downtown and beat
him half to death. After several further "bad P.R. incidents" with not a
hint of self-doubt (let alone remorse) from the blue gang, the political
pressure got bad enough for something to be done. But about 20 years
later i heard a talk by the then-current police chief of that town, and
he was politely bragging about the rough-&-ready way that his force dealt
with young suspects and offenders.
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mary
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response 150 of 241:
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Aug 23 00:45 UTC 2003 |
When an angry student brings a gun to school he puts lots
of innocent students at risk. That's wrong. I don't care
how victimized you feel. If you can't rally enough
intelligence to find a better way out then you've got
bigger problems than the bullies.
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happyboy
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response 151 of 241:
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Aug 23 01:13 UTC 2003 |
_no shit!_
lol
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russ
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response 152 of 241:
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Aug 23 03:48 UTC 2003 |
Has anybody considered the message that the schools and police are
sending *to the bullies* by refusing to intervene?
No?
Let me offer a model, then. When bullying and harassment are not
checked in the bud, they become ingrained patterns of behavior.
What's right becomes whatever they can get away with, and that
encompasses a lot. When nobody treats the bullies as if they're
doing anything wrong, they come to rely on bullying to get their
way. They are on a track to become habitual predators.
What's the result of this in adult life? Spousal abuse, for one
thing. I'll bet dollars to donuts that the murderer of goose's
acquaintance grew up as a bully, just like novomit's nemesis.
What would have happened if that proto-murderer had been faced down
a few more times by a victim with a weapon? Might have convinced him
that it was too risky, and shifted him off that track. Some innocent
might be alive today if other long-ago innocents had used force to
underscore a demand TO BE LEFT ALONE, and the sum total of human
misery might have been reduced.
And that's why I find the criticisms aimed at jep and novomit to be
hollow and hypocritical. The most basic right *is* the right to be
left alone, and that is the moral distinction between the bully and
their victim. The victim does not go out looking for a bully, and
the moral right to self-defense does not have exemptions for age,
institutions or introversion. The crime in both incidents was that
the institution failed to act when it would have made a difference.
In at least one case (just among the people in this discussion) that
failure probably cost an innocent's life; that's not including the
tragic loss of human potential due to dropouts, depression and even
suicide caused by bullying.
If our institutions can't get along without abusing (directly or
indirectly) their charges, they ought to be on trial for the results;
we shouldn't be accusing the victims and excusing the perpetrators.
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jmsaul
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response 153 of 241:
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Aug 23 03:48 UTC 2003 |
Re #150: I'm not saying it's right. I'm asking Todd what he sees as the
alternative.
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novomit
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response 154 of 241:
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Aug 23 12:11 UTC 2003 |
Forget it guys, you know its better to suck it up than to defend yourself.
Some us weren't brought up in a glass bubble and don't have the option of
having someone come to our aid everytime we snap our fingers, but that's a
small excuse. Gangsters like us just never learn, do we?
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