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Marc2b -> RE: I'm Feeling Violent Again! (6/22/2012 8:33:01 AM)
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Okay, now that I'm over my initial outrage, now that time has allowed reason to temper emotion and I'm past the "hang 'em by their ankles and dip them in boiling oil!" stage... I've a few more comments on the matter.
The fact that the bus driver may not have known what was going on is possible, but I don't know how probable it is... so I'm going to reserve judgment on the bus driver until we hear from him or her (I don't even know if it is a him or her, I've heard nothing on the bus driver).
I'm also going to reserve judgment on the parents for the time being. It is easy to say that they must be bad parents but the truth is that even kids of good parents go off the rails now and then. How the parents react to this will tell us what kind of parents they are. I know that if it were my kid, the first thing I would say to them is "kiss your summer vacation good bye. Ya know, there are some home improvement projects we've been putting off and I'm thinking now is the time to start them. You can also kiss the television, your radio and computer goodbye for the summer. I'm going to let you keep your cell phone though, since you're stupid enough to record your own wrong doing and post it online."
Concerning the notion the bullying is a part of growing up and kids need to learn to stand up for themselves: There is some truth to that, but only to a limited extent. There is a difference between dealing with one or two bullies and several of them... especially if they are bigger and stronger than you. While kids do need to learn to stand up for themselves the bullies among us also need to learn that we are living in a society and that there are rules of behavior that are demanded... or so the theory goes. We haven't been demanding that from the bullies. We haven't been backing it up. Fear of litigation is no doubt a major factor in that but it remains baffling to me that we, as a society, tolerate behavior from kids that would never be tolerated in the adult world and would result in arrest and lawsuits if it happened in the workplace.
A "leave it be, let them stand up for themselves" attitude can also lead to greater tragedy if the victim decides that increased violence is the only way they will find safety and peace of mind. Most of the school shooters were bullied kids... relentlessly bullied kids. While I certainly don't condone the actions of school shooters... I do understand them. My own experience could have led to greater tragedy. No, I'm not saying that I ever considered shooting up my school (not seriously, anyway) but things culminated in what could have resulted in greater tragedy.
I was one of the relentlessly bullied in Junior High School (for you youngsters out there, that's what we used to call Middle School). I experienced it all: the viscous taunts, the shoves, the vandalism of my property, the swirlees (and there is nothing fucking funny about them), the beatings, etc. Help was not available. My mother's advice was "just ignore them." Uh-huh. My father's advice was to tell them to meet me behind the bleachers after school where we could settle it "man to man." He didn't understand that the bullies didn't do one on one... they preferred seven on one. There was no point in appealing to the teachers or the principal since they had been ignoring the situation from the start... and if you even tried, that would only result in an escalation of the bullying for having broken the teenage version of omerta.
For nearly two years I took it. Then one day I finally snapped. For lunch period, the school would first have us gather in the gym and wait on the bleachers to be let into the cafeteria one row at a time. For some bizarre reason I could never figure out, they always started with the top row and worked their way down. Naturally, where one sat on the bleachers reflected one's social status. The "cool" kids (in other words, the bullies) sat on top while us losers sat on the bottom row. One day, pretending as usual that the taunts coming from above didn't bother me, someone threw a wet sucker into my hair... and that is when something in my mind said "fuck it." I plowed my way up the bleachers, grabbed the bastard that I knew had done it by the shirt and, using all my strength, threw him (not pushed, threw) him over the bleachers where hit hit the floor with a most satisfying "THUMP!" He received a broken arm and a mild concussion. My parents received a $500 medical bill and a received a two week suspension. When I returned to school, my days of being bullied were over... nobody fucked with me after that.
Now, this account may seem to support the "let them learn to stand up for themselves" theory... and to a certain extent, it does. But the situation should never have been allowed to progress so far because it could have turned out much worse... instead of a broken arm that kid could have just as easily ended up with a broken neck. Instead of a mild concussion he could have ended up with a fractured skull. He could have ended up paralyzed or even dead. At the time I probably wouldn't have given a shit but now, with the added perspective of thirty-five years, I know that kids do not think the way adults do and lack adult judgment. I am glad I did not seriously hurt that kid... it is a burden I am glad to do without. Which leads me to my next point.
It is easy to denounce these kids a viscous bastards, etc, etc... but nobody comes out of the womb a moral saint. I'm willing to bet that there is no one (myself included) who doesn't have some incident of wrong doing, of cruelty even, in their past. Most of us feel a sense of shame when we think about it... which is good because it means that we are decent people overall (the ones who never feel any shame are the ones to watch out for). The sucker throwing bastard I gave the flying lesson to? Well, I've bumped in to him a couple of times since then and he actually turned out to be decent guy. While we as a society must not flinch from administering a proper punishment to these young men we must do so with the understanding that we are ultimately trying to save them from themselves, so that they too grow into decent people who need feel only a little shame for something they did rather an unendurable shame for something much worse. Putting a stop to bullying isn't just for the protection of the bully's victims but for the benefit of the bullies themselves.
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