Bullying Redux

[Nekowolf]

This is what Sparrow was referring to:

There is a case where a 15-year-old Irish immigrant, Phoebe Prince, was bullied and harassed by a group of students at school. It was apparently common knowledge at the school. She eventually hung herself.

The students who were found to be her bullies are facing criminal charges in her death, and a debate is currently going on as to whether the school staff knew about it and did nothing, and if they should face criminal charges as well.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/29/2010-03-29_phoebe_prince_south_hadley_high_schools_new_girl_driven_to_suicide_by_teenage_cy.html

As for my opinion, absolutely they should face charges. If you run an office, and someone slips and falls, because you didn't put up a sign, they are liable to sue you. If you know of a crime that has been committed, and do not report it, you are liable for jurisdiction in a court of law; possibly even prison. If this stuff was going on in their school, and they knew about it but did nothing, they are absolutely liable for the full extent of criminal law. They are accessories to a criminal act (I think that's the charge I'm thinking of, anyway). They are in charge of providing safety of their students.

EDIT: There are also other cases as well of students being bullied to the point of committing suicide. I'm just unfamiliar with those ones.

[Mistermook]

You'll note, however, the actual charges aren't about "bullying" directly, they're the specific criminal acts that happened in the course of the bullying. If there was a "was very mean to her" criminal charge in there I must have missed it. In my opinion it's nearly always legal and protected speech to be an ass to someone if you're so inclined, and I disagree with laws that occasionally seek to change that, but you're later charged with a crime related to how you've been a big abusive douche to someone it's absolutely fair game to push it as motive and frame of mind. I wouldn't mind if the wide range of defendants in the case got nice fat felony records out of it because they obviously went beyond the bounds that are repeatedly underscored in the article (but which are mostly protected speech) but I think it's a stretch to call for the manslaughter charges that some people would likely call for. The girl hung herself, that much doesn't seem to be in question. She might have been driven to despair by criminal acts, but in the end she took the final step herself and pushing responsibility for that onto others seems to ignore all of the despondent, bullied teenagers out there who manage to not string themselves up.

On the other hand, civil liability is a different animal entirely. It wouldn't surprise me if the school district, specific teachers, the arrested students, and the arrested students parents, were all taken to the cleaners in the lawsuits that will surely follow.

[Safyre420]

Being the subject of relentless bullying throughout school, most of it just verbal abuse, I hope the school officials get charged with misconduct or something and are fired and banned from teaching, administrating or whatever position it is that they are currently holding. While on the premises of a public school, it is the responsibility of all teaching staff and administrators to keep the students safe, which clearly didn't happen. I also hope that the evil brat kids that are charged don't just get a smack on the hand.

[Purity4]

Mistermook, I think the problem here is that verbal abuse is being called freedom of speech. If a spouse verbally abuses their spouse, it is grounds for divorce and even a restraining order. Why isn't verbal abuse punished when used by teenagers. There should be consequences when someone chooses to verbally abuse another person. This shouldn't have been tolerated in the name of freedom of speech. We (staff, parents, etc involved in this case) can't all be ignorant enough to not see the difference and react accordingly. Not only that, but this 'bullying' wasn't only in the verbal form, but in the form of physical assaults, as well.

[Elyasis]

They should only be charged for the physical assault. That is a crime. The rest isn't and shouldn't be.

[kattenijin]

They should only be charged for the physical assault. That is a crime. The rest isn't and shouldn't be.

Don't know about where you live, but my High School has had a "zero tolerance" policy for the last 23 years now. This includes verbal assault. Any words, threats, or actions that are construed as bullying are punished severely. A bully is suspended for the first offence, and expelled on the second. Recently the policy has been expanded to include "cyberbullying".

As for freedom of speech, it should be tempered with responsibility for it to be most useful to us. If you choose to take the freedom but reject the responsibility that needs to go with it, then you will find that, very soon, you will get into situations where your physical freedom might be challenged.

Any form of bullying is not to be tolerated.

The most recent suicide data for the US:


1.3% of all deaths are from suicide.

On average, one suicide occurs every 16 minutes.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24 year olds.
(1st = accidents, 2nd = homicide)

More males die from suicide than females.
(4 male deaths by suicide for each female death by suicide.)

More people die from suicide than from homicide.
(Suicide ranks as the 11th leading cause of death; Homicide ranks 13th.)

There were over 800,000 suicide attempts in 2005, an estimated 12 to 25 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death.

Between 15 and 25 children every year commit suicide because they are being bullied (there may be more we don't know about, and many more than this attempt it because bullying has made them so unhappy.)

[Nekowolf]

For the record, freedom of speech does have exceptions in hate speech and threats. These forms of speech are -not- protected.

[Oaktree]

There is a fine line between petty bullying and criminal behavior. In this case, they certainly crossed that line because of the physical assault. I don't think that "bullying" itself is a crime, though. In cases where it is merely verbal assault, it can't impact the target of the bullying any more than they let it. I was teased in elementary and middle school, but I shrugged it off because it's not worth it to let other people control you. People will be jerks, and you can't go and sue everyone who says mean things to you.

I think that the school administrators should have paid better attention to what was going on because, to a certain degree, they are responsible for the children while the children are on school grounds. However, the school is not responsible for the suicide, nor are the children who bullied the girl. They are responsible for the physical assault, which they should definitely be punished for, but they didn't make the girl commit suicide. The girl who committed suicide made that choice and it was her responsibility even if the other kids were making her life miserable.

I think that too many people are thin-skinned and think they are entitled to an easy life. Life is difficult and we just have to learn to deal with it. It's sad that she died, but its also sad that the the other students are likely to be adversely affected in their prosecution by the strong emotional undercurrent to this story.

Mistermook, I think the problem here is that verbal abuse is being called freedom of speech. If a spouse verbally abuses their spouse, it is grounds for divorce and even a restraining order. Why isn't verbal abuse punished when used by teenagers. There should be consequences when someone chooses to verbally abuse another person. This shouldn't have been tolerated in the name of freedom of speech. We (staff, parents, etc involved in this case) can't all be ignorant enough to not see the difference and react accordingly. Not only that, but this 'bullying' wasn't only in the verbal form, but in the form of physical assaults, as well.

If you had a bad day and mouthed off to someone who was annoying you, how would you feel if they tried to have you charged with "bullying"? It's in our nature that everyone has their bad days and ends up acting like an ass from time to time. If we as a society are so thin-skinned that we can't ignore the occasional person letting off some steam, we are going to end up with a lot of people with criminal records. I understand that this situation was a little more than just someone letting off steam, but based on what you are saying, you think that we should be held to an impossible standard that punishes those with and without malicious intent.

[Purity4]

If you had a bad day and mouthed off to someone who was annoying you, how would you feel if they tried to have you charged with "bullying"? It's in our nature that everyone has their bad days and ends up acting like an ass from time to time.

If we as a society are so thin-skinned that we can't ignore the occasional person letting off some steam, we are going to end up with a lot of people with criminal records. I understand that this situation was a little more than just someone letting off steam,


but based on what you are saying, you think that we should be held to an impossible standard that punishes those with and without malicious intent.

That is a couple of 'if's' that likely wouldn't occur. I've had plenty of bad days. People annoy me in general, but I don't mouth off to people because I'm having a bad day and people annoy me. Otherwise all I'd do is mouth off. All.day.long. It's hard to say, hypothetically, (since that is what you ask of me to do) what would happen after hypothetical events that would never happen.

Back on topic: This girl was endlessly bullied. It isn't like it happened once per week, once per day, in just one place. It was over the internet, in person, at school, in the neighborhood, incessant, constant, everywhere, all the time. That is not just one moment of being mouthed off because you annoyed someone. This is constant harassment and abuse. The two situations are nowhere near comparable. Anyone who suffered this intense level of bullying would be affected. I would not accuse the victim of being thin-skinned in this circumstance. A person would have to be inhuman to be unaffected, or sociopathic.

Your final statement is so far off base from my point, it doesn't warrant comment.

[supersimoholic]

If bullying is a form of abuse then doesn't that make bullying a crime? That's the way I see it. If someone "mouthed off" at me once because they were in a bad mood, I'd put it down to just that, they were in a bad mood. But if someone said horrible things to me constantly and for no reason other than to be mean then I'd call that bullying and report them, because even though I've never been to bothered about people saying things I know that some people aren't as strong as that, so what might not bother me might emotionally cripple someone else. Bullying is a crime because it can ruin a persons life in the same way being mugged or raped can, it just depends on the who the victim is and the amount of bullying. Like I said, myself, I can shake it off, but their are people I know who were badly affected by bullying, and that was just verbal abuse, she lost all her confidence and started self harming and has attempted suicide.

And yeah, the teachers and other school staff should be charged as accessories because they could have stopped it but they didn't. Now that girl is dead.
If this case were in the form of a picture, it would be an image of the bullies hanging the girl themselves while the teachers stand there and watch. And that is how they should be charged.

[Oaktree]

Back on topic: This girl was endlessly bullied. It isn't like it happened once per week, once per day, in just one place. It was over the internet, in person, at school, in the neighborhood, incessant, constant, everywhere, all the time. That is not just one moment of being mouthed off because you annoyed someone. This is constant harassment and abuse. The two situations are nowhere near comparable. Anyone who suffered this intense level of bullying would be affected. I would not accuse the victim of being thin-skinned in this circumstance. A person would have to be inhuman to be unaffected, or sociopathic.


I was speaking in the general sense when I was talking about people being thin-skinned. I was talking about people who want to prosecute for things like "cyberbullying" and general verbal abuse. I think these are things that happen and that a mature and rational person would ignore. And I do think that it is possible for children to be rational about it. This case clearly went above and beyond, as I stated, as it involved physical abuse as well. I can understand someone being affected to some degree by this level of bullying, but I can't understand committing suicide over it. And I can't see anything even approaching suicide in cases where the abuse is merely verbal.

[Mistermook]

I think some people are allowing themselves to take this case a little bit too personally and without a lot of thought about the implications in the law, and are coming off a little histrionic.

Let me put it this way: If we chose to view this sort of behavior as having an inevitable, or even very possible, response of suicide, then we will by precedence allow a defense for murder for someone bullying. That is, you'd be essentially saying that someone could simply make someone feel bad enough and hurt their feelings enough that their lives were construed to be in danger and a rational, legally protected response would be to kill the verbal abuser.

Mind you, there's already a legal threshold in place for verbal assault with specific intent to harm in some jurisdictions. If I tell someone I'm going to shoot them, and I have a gun, then they're well within their rights to shoot me first in self defense. What some of you seem to be pursuing is lowering that bar further. If I called you fat three times, (four? what's the limit) then you could argue that you felt fat enough to take your own life, and therefore were justified in shooting me in self-defense. That's the sort of thing you're really discussing when you're engaging in this call to collect charges on the non-physical allegations involved and folding the suicide as a criminal act.

Have a bad childhood? Kill yourself? Your parents committed manslaughter, congratulations! Or you could just kill them since you considered suicide, what the hell, right? Bad boss? Shoot the bastard, because you've got a ready made defense in "he made me feel bad, and when I feel bad I feel like killing myself." Hell, since suicide is a death we could backlog the courts with suicide cases - someone made those poor suicidal folks feel bad enough to kill themselves, and that's a manslaughter charge for someone. You'd nearly have to pursue it as a DA, because otherwise your violent crime figures would skyrocket. You'd be scooping up cheerleaders who didn't speak to smart kids and models who made cheerleaders feel ugly, all potential felons by the insane reasoning you guys seem to be proposing. The threshold for abusive speech becoming criminal is high for a reason. Free speech is there for a reason. There's a reason why verbal assault has a very specific threshold, and why people who commit suicide kill themselves and we don't accuse other people of killing people who don't, you know, actually do any killing.

They're charging lots of people with very real crimes. Some of them will likely stick with a death involved, possibly even after the appeals process. The students and administrators who did this and let this happen? They are not going to be having happy lives for the next three to six years even if they get off scott free.

But maybe some of them will kill themselves, and we can charge the gal who committed suicide with killing them by making them sad back...

[Safyre420]

I think some people are allowing themselves to take this case a little bit too personally and without a lot of thought about the implications in the law, and are coming off a little histrionic.

Let me put it this way: If we chose to view this sort of behavior as having an inevitable, or even very possible, response of suicide, then we will by precedence allow a defense for murder for someone bullying. That is, you'd be essentially saying that someone could simply make someone feel bad enough and hurt their feelings enough that their lives were construed to be in danger and a rational, legally protected response would be to kill the verbal abuser.

Mind you, there's already a legal threshold in place for verbal assault with specific intent to harm in some jurisdictions. If I tell someone I'm going to shoot them, and I have a gun, then they're well within their rights to shoot me first in self defense. What some of you seem to be pursuing is lowering that bar further. If I called you fat three times, (four? what's the limit) then you could argue that you felt fat enough to take your own life, and therefore were justified in shooting me in self-defense. That's the sort of thing you're really discussing when you're engaging in this call to collect charges on the non-physical allegations involved and folding the suicide as a criminal act.

Have a bad childhood? Kill yourself? Your parents committed manslaughter, congratulations! Or you could just kill them since you considered suicide, what the hell, right? Bad boss? Shoot the bastard, because you've got a ready made defense in "he made me feel bad, and when I feel bad I feel like killing myself." Hell, since suicide is a death we could backlog the courts with suicide cases - someone made those poor suicidal folks feel bad enough to kill themselves, and that's a manslaughter charge for someone. You'd nearly have to pursue it as a DA, because otherwise your violent crime figures would skyrocket. You'd be scooping up cheerleaders who didn't speak to smart kids and models who made cheerleaders feel ugly, all potential felons by the insane reasoning you guys seem to be proposing. The threshold for abusive speech becoming criminal is high for a reason. Free speech is there for a reason. There's a reason why verbal assault has a very specific threshold, and why people who commit suicide kill themselves and we don't accuse other people of killing people who don't, you know, actually do any killing.

They're charging lots of people with very real crimes. Some of them will likely stick with a death involved, possibly even after the appeals process. The students and administrators who did this and let this happen? They are not going to be having happy lives for the next three to six years even if they get off scott free.

But maybe some of them will kill themselves, and we can charge the gal who committed suicide with killing them by making them sad back...

One thing that you seem to look over is that there is already laws in place(may just be states laws but there are laws) regarding verbal abuse. Slander is just one form of verbal abuse(though not necessarily always verbal) that is punishable by law, though only a misdemeanor. Sexual harassment, be it verbal or physical, is also punishable by law. There seems to be a whole lot of looking away from what minors do to other minors, they may be minors, but they should be held accountable for anything and everything they do that physically or emotional harms someone else.

[Mistermook]

No I'm not overlooking existing laws. That's why I mentioned the existing laws on verbal assault in my message. If you'd like I'll bring it up a lot more explicitly and talk about it at length so that I can devote an entire post the nature and extent of verbal abuse laws? I thought about it but I decided it would be be more effective to draw attention to the effect that changing the limitations of such laws by the implied precedent that's effectively been called for being set here? I'm not a lawyer of course, or else I wouldn't be talking about the law here for free, but it's not like the law is particularly complex once you get the hang of reading statutes and doing your research, and I'm one of those weird people who actually digs reading legal documents given the right mood. It's the way the world works.

Slander and defamation have a different, even higher, thresholds for prosecution. You're not going to use slander and defamation laws here to effectively punish anyone, except perhaps in a case where one of the defendants is mistakenly identified by the press and someone completely innocent gets thrown through the wringer of the public eye. I'm uncertain if the prosecution has standing to make a slander case on the behalf of an alleged victim either, or if the statute of limitations (one year) has passed for a slander case. Defamation cases have "opinion" defenses too, the threshold of which decreases with intimacy called privilege - your mother calling you a whore is less likely to be regarded as opinion than if I do it. Since none of the participants seem to be friends or have much more in common than a shared battleground of words in the school, it's hard to imagine the opinion defense not being effective. In any case the penalty is merely a fine, and there are more serious charges on the table here. Making slander charges in this case would something like writing a bank robber a parking ticket.

Sexual harassment laws are powerful things, but I'm fairly certain they're inapplicable to anyone but the school officials and the threshold there seems to be established as "deliberate indifference" or "actual knowledge" of a sexual harassment situation. Since most of the charges and allegations in the case seem to involve verbal confrontations without sexual overtones as far as I can see though, I can understand it if school officials didn't see a responsibility to step in. You might be confusing sexual harassment charges that might be leveled at the school with the underlying sexual assaults that might prompt sexual harassment for indifference allegations. Again though, there seems to be at least two rape charges already on the table here. I don't see where the police are missing anything, especially since the rapes are specifically characterized as "date rapes." Unless the school officials turned a blind eye to a date rape they were notified of or had some knowledge about on school ground or at a school function though, I'm not sure why they would be charged with harassment - and in any case, in such an instance I'm fairly certain the other circumstances of the case would progress the charges beyond the simple responsibility for harassment given the more serious nature of the crime.

Would you like me to consider other possible crimes I might be forgetting? Possibly they should charge one of the girls with littering when she allegedly threw the soda at the other girl?

Look...I get it that people want to be outraged about this, but letting yourself be outraged into making outrageous legal arguments just ends up wasting taxpayer money and probably doesn't make for a very good case where any sort of justice is done. A couple of rape charges and assault with a deadly weapon, with a dead girl to play sympathy with, is not the sort of thing people shrug off easily. Dead students don't ever look good for school officials no matter how they get there. In the best of results for the alleged perpetrators of the crimes they're going to be dragged through the press as villains even if they walk.

And yeah, no matter how you parse it -none of these cruel, malicious people killed the girl. That's all on her, whether you like it or not.

[Safyre420]

I wasn't saying charge anyone with sexual harassment, just stating that sexual harassment can be verbal abuse. The school officials should be held accountable for everything that happened to the girl at the school under their watch. While none of the kids actually killed the girl they played a part in her death, they were the cause and the girl killing herself was the effect of the kids' harassment and abuse, from my understanding. The girl however shouldn't have killed herself, she should've told someone about the abuse she was receiving that way her death could've been prevented.

[Oaktree]

The school officials should not be held accountable to the same level as the kids who bullied the girl. They were negligent, but negligence isn't as bad as action with intent. I think that saying that the bullying "caused" her death is an improper use of the word. Their actions were part of the girl's consideration about committing suicide, but she is the one who chose to kill herself, so the only direct cause of her death is on her.

[Safyre420]

It may not be the direct cause of her suicide but they seemed to have driven her to that point, so they did inadvertently cause her death by their relentless abuse.

[Mistermook]

It may not be the direct cause of her suicide but they seemed to have driven her to that point, so they did inadvertently cause her death by their relentless abuse.
Not in any real legal sense though. Some of them are facing felony charges, I'm just not sure what the "it's not enough!" crowd wants more than that. There's surely going to be a round of civil suits following the criminal court cases too.

It's like they saying they're gonna hang them and everyone's calling for them to be drowned also, and perhaps fined five dollars for not washing their hands. Justice is being pursued and there are serious charges being waved around, the additional responses to the actions seem nonsensical or impractical.

[WCF]

I'm not sure where my professor got this information, but she claims that this bullying case, while unfortunate, is a media overhype of bullying, especially in the case of female bullying. She claimed statistics said that women committing such offenses has actually dropped in the past decades, as opposed to risen.

[Nekowolf]

People can also twist the meaning of what is not hate too which isn't helpful to a person who actually has no signs of hating that other person. I have had a few people do that with me where they will twist something and make it to sound like I said something that I didn't. But hey what goes around does come around so they in the end will end up hurting themselves for lying. Lies do caught up to people, when they twist the truth to suite their agenda.
True, but it's not as simple. These kinds of things can end up in court, where a legal decision must be made as to whether or not the person said or did not say something, and if it falls under First Amendment protections or not. Just take a look at the case against the Westboro Baptists.

[fragglerocks]

What I don't understand, is why are they considering charges against the school, but not against Phoebe's parents? (Bear with me here, I will make a point..) Certainly, the school is responsible for the safety of the students, and can be charged accordingly if anything goes wrong. Parents are responsible for their child's safety, and as well can be charged accordingly if something goes wrong. And something did go wrong. This poor girl was relentlessly abused and not one person stepped in and tried to make it right. Why was she not put in another school, or put into therapy? Or homeschooled, or..? I just can't fathom a child being SO SAD as to commit SUICIDE...that wasn't showing some form of sadness in her everyday actions.

I was bullied as a child, and thankfully it didn't go this far. But my mom DID notice a change in me at home, and she put me in therapy to deal with it. My mother saved me. Unfortunately for Phoebe, no one noticed in time.

[Purity4]

Fregglerock, I totally agree that her parents have some responsibility here, as well. The apathy of all involved is so sad and disappointing. So many people, admittedly the school staff, knew what was going on and chose to not care.

[Nekowolf]

I dunno what CT said, but now I'm really really curious.

To the point, however, for those who are not aware of the current case, the Westboro Baptist Church is an extremely anti-gay group who has gone around to soldier's funerals to protest homosexuality with very controversial signs.

A case was filed against them, from the father who's son's funeral was protested at. He won, the Westboro Baptists filed an appeal, and instead won the appeal, reversing the decision with a court order of the father to pay their legal fees.

The court argument is heavily involved in regards to First Amendment rights, and whether or not their protest qualified as hate speech or not.

[Mistermook]

Again though, neither words nor indifference/neglect made a direct result of the girl's death, since she killed herself. Words don't do actual harm in terms of murder cases, though they can establish motive, frame of mind, and probably will make a very real, powerful impact in the accompanying civil case. The parent's responsibilities will likely get brought up as a matter of defense, but as to why they're not directly responsible... Who really wants to arrest parents who have just had their daughter commit suicide? I mean, really, what does that accomplish?

There would have to be a really, really clear documented path of responsibility like "Early that afternoon she told her mother several times: Mother, I am going to kill myself tonight. She then followed it up with asking her father for a high chair and a bit of twine, which he gave to her without comment, except for to show her the proper way to tie a knot that wouldn't slip off of a corpse's neck." You do hear about parents like that sometimes, but they're not the norm. And in this case, any break in the chain of responsibility to people other than the bullies just muddles the issue. It's not a tool of the prosecution really, it's a point for the defense. You'll want to look to paint the bullies as callous and everyone else as clueless or having taken ineffective steps to correct the behaviors, a pattern of breaking socially accepted boundaries from the bullies. You can't pin the criminal murder on the other kids, but I'm fairly sure you can seriously imply about it and push the limits of "these lesser crimes are just the ones they've been caught at, they're really horrible people who will commit more serious crimes eventually because they lack boundaries and empathy."

[supersimoholic]

... I put bullies up there along side those who rape and murder because their attitudes are like those who do such things...

I was going to add something like this, that the emotional & mental damage of bullying can be just as extreme as that of a rape or attack victim, it just depends on how emotionally/mentally strong the victim is.

[Undercovers_Agent]

Ummm... Bullying is ILLEGAL but not usually prosecuted. It's assault. Contrary to popular belief assault is NOT beating the crap out of someone, but assault is makeing verbal or written threats to harm or threaten harm against an individual, harm being physical or mental, and depending on where you live can even be battery (If it is a demoralizer) as for being Irish and in a public school, I lived in LA for two years and nearly homeless, and I went to an inner city school, it sucks, but it's not something to hang yourself over, most of them are wanna be white gangsters who rape, beat, and fail their way to the top.

[Vanito]

Bullies are sad losers. Especially the type which picks one single weak victim and harrases someone with a -group-. Have some guts, take someone your own size, dont attack a single person with a group, and play fair games. But bullies never are known for having guts. They very well know which weak victim to pick. And continue and continue. When they notice you dont care about them they usually quit, but not everyone is the same. When they find someone who does seems hurt they continue. The weaker the better. Bullies prey on that kind of people and should be accounted responsibility for their actions. Because they very well know what they are doing. The sooner the better, because they themselves do not have the strength or responsibility to correct themself.

The people who seem easier victims usually seem to be the nicer ones. I really don't get it why some people feel the need to pick on those. grab someone your own size!

As far as schools/teachers go, they are the ones who can correct bullies for the largest part. It seems common sense for teachers to care about kids they teach, but when they do not do so and do a lousy job, they can use a kick under their butt to take some action.

[Purity4]

I read this article today, and thought of your thread here, Nekowolf, and thought it fit. Everyone, please read.

Memoirs of a Bullied Kid (http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/memoirs-of-bullied-kid.html)

[AlexandraSpears]

The school officials should not be held accountable to the same level as the kids who bullied the girl. They were negligent, but negligence isn't as bad as action with intent. I think that saying that the bullying "caused" her death is an improper use of the word. Their actions were part of the girl's consideration about committing suicide, but she is the one who chose to kill herself, so the only direct cause of her death is on her.

I agree. I was bullied big-time as a child, but I was told that suicide was a selfish act. I managed to cope. I never drank or did drugs or anything like that.

In the end it was the girl's decision to kill herself.

Still, bullying needs to be stopped. Contrary to the old rhyme, words CAN and do hurt.


Someone mentioned "hate speech" isn't covered under the First Amendment. I'd like to know who defines what hate speech is. That's such a broad term...it's getting to the point where if you say something and someone else doesn't agree it's automatically labeled as "hate speech," so be careful with that!

[wickedblue]

Well gosh good for you AlexandraSpears. Some kids don't deal with verbal and physical assault quite so well. Some of them end up permanently damaged by it. And some even commit suicide because they don't know of any other way out. Calling the girl selfish does absolutely nothing productive.

Hate speech: A term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against someone based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. The term covers written as well as oral communication.

[AlexandraSpears]

Still a pretty broad term and a broad definition of "hate speech" there.

Where did I call that girl selfish? I merely said that I was told that suicide is a selfish act.

One thing I do have to wonder...was that girl on any medication? Because lots of times anti-depressants, interestingly enough, CAN cause suicidal tendencies.

[wickedblue]

Actually it is not at all a broad definition, it very concisely states what constitutes hate speech. Only people that actively engage and defend hate speech would consider that to be a broad definition.

Calling it a selfish act is calling her selfish and it doesn't actually help anyone that is suicidal to be told it's selfish.

She might have been on medication and yes there is some evidence that anti-depressants can cause suicidal tendencies in teenagers but that doesn't take away the responsibility of her peers that were bullying her or the teachers and administrators that should have put a stop to it.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

Actually it is not at all a broad definition, it very concisely states what constitutes hate speech. Only people that actively engage and defend hate speech would consider that to be a broad definition.

Calling it a selfish act is calling her selfish and it doesn't actually help anyone that is suicidal to be told it's selfish.

all she said was that she was told that suicide is a selfish act. nowhere in her post did she mention the girl as being selfish for killing herself.
( and there are PLENTY of people who believe that committing suicide DOES make you a selfish person. of course they dont seem to consider that making someone live in misery for their sake is pretty damn selfish itself. )

i also fail to see where she "actively engages and defends hate speech" in her post. if youre going to fling accusations around, why not be more specific about it?


as for the topic itself...
have to agree with Mistermook and Oaktree on this one. sometimes people dont like to see shades of gray.

[wickedblue]

I don't know if I should even respond to that since it's going to make it personal rather than debating the topic at hand but since you felt like she needed defending, I'll go ahead and clarify my post and then I hope this will be the end of it because I do not wish to derail this topic. In fact, if you feel that you need to continue the conversation, I'd be more than happy to reply to a PM.

I was responding to her post where she jumped on her high horse and basically said, well I was bullied and I didn't commit suicide because it's selfish. Which to me reads as her calling the girl selfish because she did. And I will once again reiterate that calling it a selfish act does not help a depressed and suicidal person. It can, in fact, make it much worse for them. They are already at their lowest, feeling unloved and unworthy and someone comes in and calls them selfish on top of that and it just makes them feel like they really are a horrible person unworthy of life. This is not something I'm just randomly pulling out of thin air here, I'm all too familiar with the thought process of a suicidal person.

I will concede that I possibly read into it and took it a little bit personally for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I've been in a severe depressive episode for a while now and I often take things personally that aren't meant as such when I'm in that place. That still does not make her wrong for implying that the girl is selfish.

As for the part about hate speech. I was reacting to a person who has been in several threads making homophobic and racist comments, and regularly posts things like "why can't I say things like that, it's my opinion" then comes here and says "hate speech is such a broad definition", so I simply clarified for her that it is not a broad definition and that in my experience only people that actively engage in and defend hate speech would say that. It's a fair assumption on my part to believe that she does, considering previous experience.

Edit: Back on topic: Another suicide in the news today (http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/07/hope.witsells.story/?hpt=Sbin)

A 13 year old girl hangs herself after being bullied at school and just like the original case in this discussion, this goes far beyond bullying and a girl is dead, again, because of it.

[fakepeeps7]

Another suicide in the news today (http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/07/hope.witsells.story/?hpt=Sbin)

A 13 year old girl hangs herself after being bullied at school and just like the original case in this discussion, this goes far beyond bullying and a girl is dead, again, because of it.

Do the schools have any programs that teach about the proper use of social media? Or of what can happen if you do something as obviously stupid as sending photos of your breasts to a teenage boy?

I can't help but wonder if this could have been prevented if there had been such a program.

It makes me wonder about what's going to happen to the local girl who was gang raped and then someone posted the pictures on the Internet. If we're going to allow kids to have these technologies, they need to be taught how to respect them and use them properly.

I'm so glad I'm not a teenager today. We never had to worry about sexting or cell phone cameras in the locker room or video cameras at raves. The technology just wasn't there (and thank goodness, because we probably weren't mature enough to use it responsibly!).

[Mistermook]

I dunno, I don't remember being without care or worry decades ago when I was a teenager. Just off the top of my head, we managed to have two suicides, an attempted suicide, a murder, a drowning or two, and a girl who dropped dead from a brain aneurysm. Plus everyone was pregnant, smoking pot, drinking heavily on school grounds, and basically doing all sorts of crazy shit that I honestly can't imagine happening with my daughter's friends from high school very much. Well...most of them. I didn't even go to school in a big city - this is all just in a middling sized area on the Florida panhandle.

I don't subscribe to the "things are so hard these days!" newsletter. Things are always hard. Life is hard. Make the best of it.

[wickedblue]

Do the schools have any programs that teach about the proper use of social media? Or of what can happen if you do something as obviously stupid as sending photos of your breasts to a teenage boy?

I can't help but wonder if this could have been prevented if there had been such a program.

It makes me wonder about what's going to happen to the local girl who was gang raped and then someone posted the pictures on the Internet. If we're going to allow kids to have these technologies, they need to be taught how to respect them and use them properly.

I'm so glad I'm not a teenager today. We never had to worry about sexting or cell phone cameras in the locker room or video cameras at raves. The technology just wasn't there (and thank goodness, because we probably weren't mature enough to use it responsibly!).

Those photos were passed around school against her will.

That is not just wrong, it's sexual assault.

She was then attacked repeatedly and slut-shamed for something that was intended to be private.

While I think it's obvious that 13-year old girls should not be sending photos of their breasts to their boyfriends don't make the mistake of thinking this would not have happened without the technology. The technology only gives them a new medium but the antics are the same.

[Purity4]

That article is not recent. It stated in there that the girl sexted her breasts to her boyfriend in one school year, then the summer was a break from bullying, and the following year, when she was 13, the bullying continued. This means she sexted the pic when she was 11 or 12. This also means this girl's parents had their heads in the dirt for well over a year. This bullying went on for over a year and the parents claim to have had no clue. If they had no clue, then they failed their child. This article also goes on to say a group was founded a year after her death, so this is definitely not a recent incident. I gather she would be 14 or 15 by now if she was alive.

In the year or so that has passed since Hope Witsell took her own life, her mother has started a group called Hope's Warriors. She hopes it will help combat bullying and save other moms from feeling the horrendous pain that she feels.


Donna Witsell has a message for parents: "It happened to my daughter, it can happen to yours too. No one is untouchable. "
And I disagree about her conclusions. I think bullying can be prevented if someone, anyone, does something about. This is mentioned in the article I linked up thread from 'Single Dad Laughing' blog. If you haven't read it yet, please do. I also believe Attachment Parenting *click here* (http://www.attachmentparenting.org/principles/principles.php) makes a world of difference in all children's lives.

[wickedblue]

Does it matter if it was recent? It was in the news today.

I don't think it's fair to say that her parents had their head in the dirt for over a year. Yes, parents do have to take interest in their children and talk to them about what is going on but if the child doesn't say anything, how are they to know?

As much as I, as a parent, would like to think my daughters are telling me everything, I know better because I remember being that age and I sure as hell didn't tell my parents everything. Especially, in this case, I can imagine for this girl how terrified she must have been to tell her parents because she did do something she was told to not do and then her peers and the world-at-large slut-shames her for it. She probably felt like she did the most horrible thing and that her parents would never understand. The fact that she killed herself as the way out makes that a strong probability.

Edit: Purity4, your post was updated as I was typing. I'm not seeing what you see that the mother said it was not preventable. She said that no one is untouchable. She was saying this can happen to anyone, for parents to not think that it isn't happening to their child because that could be a deadly mistake.

[Purity4]

Wicked Blue, and that is exactly my point. Her parents clearly hadn't nurtured her self-confidence to lead to a pre-teen who, when bullied, didn't even feel comfortable sharing her feelings and experiences with *her own* parents. I am saying there was clearly a disconnect here in their relationship, prior to the bullying and her suicidal ending reflected this lack of attachment that must have existed for years. Just because we wouldn't have shared with our parents because we likely were not raised in an attached manner, doesn't mean we shouldn't do better with our own children today.

[wickedblue]

So, she is victimized but her parents are to blame because they obviously failed her because they did not raise her in the way you think they should have?

[Purity4]

Yes, her relationship with her parents and how she was raised, and the fact she couldn't tell them about the bullying, certainly was a factor in her suicide. If they had known, if they'd been involved enough in her life to notice, then they would have done something about it. If they had been involved, they could have talked with her, comforted her, lifted her up, perhaps even moved away from the area if the bullying didn't stop, or at the very least, changed schools.

This could have even been prevented if their 11 - 12 year old hadn't had free, unmonitored access to photo sharing on her cell phone, if her parents had been more aware of what their own child was doing, but they obviously didn't even have a clue, and they should have.

[wickedblue]

Oy. I give up. I'm way too impatient right now to have a reasonable discussion.

Suffice it to say, there is so much wrong with that argument.

[fakepeeps7]

Those photos were passed around school against her will.

That is not just wrong, it's sexual assault.

She was then attacked repeatedly and slut-shamed for something that was intended to be private.

While I think it's obvious that 13-year old girls should not be sending photos of their breasts to their boyfriends don't make the mistake of thinking this would not have happened without the technology. The technology only gives them a new medium but the antics are the same.

Did I ever say that it wasn't wrong or that it wasn't assault? Around here, such things would actually be considered "distributing child pornography". It's serious business.

My point was that you can't just hand technology to kids and expect them to be responsible with it. You have to teach them. Would you hand a loaded gun to a teenager? Why is this any different?

[Purity4]

Edit: Purity4, your post was updated as I was typing. I'm not seeing what you see that the mother said it was not preventable. She said that no one is untouchable. She was saying this can happen to anyone, for parents to not think that it isn't happening to their child because that could be a deadly mistake.

Yeah, my copy paste failed me the first time and I had to add in the sentence I was referring to. I agree, bullying can happen to anyone. No one is immune, but I also inferred she meant the suicide of their child could happen to anyone (any parent). Overall, it made me feel almost like they were implying being a victim is inevitable, and am not the type to simply throw up my hands in despair. I do not believe failure is inevitable.

[wickedblue]

I didn't interpret it the same way you did though that is a valid interpretation. I'd have to read the article again.

I've had a minute to breathe so hopefully I can sort out my thoughts without sounding argumentative. That's the reason I posted that I give up, because I was in the middle of a long post that upon reading it over realized that it sounded really argumentative. I get really passionate about things that matter to me and this is one of those things and my passion was starting to sound more like hostility. I'm pretty embarrassed now but with that said, I shall respond:

Fakepeeps: It wasn't my intention for that to read as though I thought you weren't saying that it was wrong. I just don't think this should be blamed on the technology when this could have happened without it. Maybe you didn't mean it that way and that's just how I read it.

It's my understanding that the parents did teach her to not do that but unfortunately, no matter how much we teach our kids that they should not do something, they often do anyway. It's the most heartbreaking thing as a parent when your kid screws up and you've warned them against that very action and they are now dealing with consequences that you didn't want them to have to deal with it all.

Purity4, the problem with your argument is that there is more than one valid way to raise children and I don't think it's fair to blame the parents because they may or may not have raised the child in the way that you see best. Lots of children turn out wonderfully without that method and in the same token, it would be foolish to think that these problems could just be prevented if you do it this way. I'm not going to absolve her parents of their responsibility and I think it would be naive to think they haven't already spent countless hours questioning every single thing they ever did and blaming themselves. I mean, my kid got pretty injured riding her bike one afternoon and 2 years later, every time I see her scar I beat myself up for it, I just can't imagine a parent could have a child commit suicide and not feel responsible for it, even if they did everything in their power to be the best possible parent.

The truth is, we don't know whether they had their head in the dirt but it's an unfair assumption that they did and it doesn't take away the responsibility of the kid that shared a private photo with his classmates, which allowed for her to be victimized over it.

[Purity4]

I agree that not everyone must parent the same way, to a certain extent. But these parents didn't even know their 11-12 year old was taking camera pics of her breasts and sending it to her boyfriend. They didn't know this! This is where it all began. How can these parents not be held accountable for having no clue? Parents must be involved, they simply must be. Parenting styles are different, yes, but all parents, no matter how they parent, should know if their 11-12 year old is taking pics of her breasts and is showing them to a boyfriend at such a young age. This alone, suicide aside, IMO, borders on neglect.


ETA: my 13 year old step son was given a camera cell phone with text ability by his mother without our knowledge, yet we still found out, even though he tried to keep it a secret, because we pay attention, we ask questions, we are involved. We limit his usage of the phone in our home for various reasons particular to him and his level of personal responsibility.

[el_flel]

I don't understand how you would expect to know whether your kid is sending naughty pics of themselves to other people? I think that's pretty unrealistic expectation. Finding out that your kid has a phone that you didn't know about is one thing, but knowing the content of every message they send is another.

[wickedblue]

That's a pretty big leap to take there that they are neglecting their child because they weren't aware of a picture she had sent.

Kids hide things. They could be really involved in their child's life, while also trying to teach her independence and responsibility, which is just as vital, and still miss things.

The thing is, we can only do so much. We teach our kids right and wrong, we give them freedoms that come with responsibility, we teach that actions have consequences, we follow up with them and we talk to them and we check their room for clues of things they could be hiding from us but unless you are in your kid's pocket all day long, you don't see everything. We have to trust that they are doing the right thing even when we aren't looking.

This girl made one mistake as kids are prone to do, by the very nature of being KIDS, and she is now dead because she was allowed to be victimized for it. I wish that girl had spoken to her parents instead of killing herself and we don't know the reasons she chose not to, it could be because they were horrible people that made her feel unsafe but it could just as well be that she was a sulky teenager that thought her parents would never understand even if they really would have.

And you don't know for certain that they were not checking her phone and all that. You just don't.

She should not have been subjected to any of this at all because that picture should never have been shared. And a huge part of the responsibility lies with our culture that regularly shames young women for having sexual urges. If we would stop making young women feel ashamed for showing sexual agency, she would never have felt so ashamed for actions that she felt like she couldn't talk to her parents about it.

[Mistermook]

Correction: She should have never been subjected to any of this because she shouldn't have taken that picture. She bears the sole responsibility for the picture existing in the first place. Blaming other people about what they did when they came into contact with the picture(s) is all well and good, but in the end it amounts to the same thing: She took the picture. She killed herself. Other people are definitely cruel, but cruelty shouldn't absolve someone of responsibility for themselves in something like this. I'm all for trying to protect people, but it's really hard to protect people who can be convinced to harm themselves.

[Princess Leia]

wickedblue: I agree with your points. However, I think it's very important not to attribute the whole situation to external factors. That's counterproductive. There's no one group that can be "blamed". Yes, the idiot who sent the picture out was responsible. So were her peers. So was the school administration. Maybe society was, too. But it isn't wise to just throw our hands up in the air and suggest that the parents were not partially responsible for the incident, or that the girl herself was not responsible for her actions. This was a suicide; it's not like, I dunno, she was walking down the street and got hit by a meteor Sims 3-style. The circumstances were not completely out of her and her family's control.

[wickedblue]

Maybe I wasn't clear in my posts; I wasn't trying to attribute blame to one group. There's a whole lot of responsibility to go around here.

Yes, she took that picture and clearly she should not have, I even stated that before but my point was that if our culture wasn't so hell-bent on shaming young women who express their sexual urges, she may have felt like she could talk about what she did before it got to this point.

Saying that she should not have been subjected to this -not- because the picture shouldn't have been shared but because it shouldn't have been taken at all is just victim-blaming. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn't make the subsequent assault her responsibility. Say, a woman is raped, it's not her fault that she got raped because she worse a skirt or talked to that man. He is the rapist, he's the one that committed a crime and he's the one at fault here, not his victim.

This is no different.

And before anyone jumps down my neck for talking about a 13 year old girl with sexual urges, let's not be in denial here. As much as even I would like to believe they don't have such urges at that age, they do. At 13 girls are at a war with their bodies, hormones surging, breasts developing, hair growing where it never has before and that funny feeling they get in their vagina when a boy looks at them and none of the awareness of what any of it means or the responsibility that goes with those confusing feelings.

We do have to teach children to be responsible with their phones and not share things that are private in that medium because it can so easily get spread to unintended parties but we also need to teach children that there is nothing wrong with those feelings they are getting. If we did, these bullies would not have had any ammo. We've spent a lot of time debating the responsibility of the parents of this girl that killed herself, what about those kids who thought it was perfectly okay to assault her? Where were their parents? What were they teaching their kids?

[Princess Leia]

Saying that she should not have been subjected to this -not- because the picture shouldn't have been shared but because it shouldn't have been taken at all is just victim-blaming. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn't make the subsequent assault her responsibility. Say, a woman is raped, it's not her fault that she got raped because she worse a skirt or talked to that man. He is the rapist, he's the one that committed a crime and he's the one at fault here, not his victim.

If I make a pornographic film of myself and I PM it to someone here at MTS and it gets leaked somehow, are you suggesting that I'm not at all responsible for that? You're right, I'm not to blame for whatever verbal abuse I receive -- just like how this girl shouldn't be blamed for the fact that she got verbally and physically harassed -- but I think I'm at least partly to blame for the fact that it got leaked in the first place.

We've spent a lot of time debating the responsibility of the parents of this girl that killed herself, what about those kids who thought it was perfectly okay to assault her? Where were their parents? What were they teaching their kids?
Of course they're to blame. But like I said, it's counterproductive to focus on them because there's very little we can do other than charge them for assault and say, "Gee, they're horrible people." No matter how much we may want to, we can't storm into other people's houses and teach their kids the values that we think they should learn.

When I'm reading these bullying articles, I'm thinking: how can we prevent something like this from happening again? To me, the simplest and most effective answer is to look internally, not externally and build up a good defence system, so to speak... which is education.

[Purity4]

I don't deny 13 year olds are capable of sexual urges, especially for those that go through puberty early, but lets at least keep the facts straight. She was 13 when she killed herself, one and a half years *after* the bullying began, so she was between 11 and 12 years old when she photoed her breasts and had a boyfriend she sent the photo to.

I also agree that the responsibility lies in multiple places. In this case, it sounds like the school did the most to prevent or deal with the bullying, yet it wasn't enough since there wasn't follow-through such as making sure the parents were notified of the problems the school was aware of and enforcing consequences for those doing the bullying such as suspension.

Wickedblue, your last paragraph was right on what I am thinking, as well. Parents of those children who are bullying also have a responsibility here. My original post regarding parental responsibility was not intended to be only on the parents of the victim, but on all parents. But as Leia pointed out, we can only control so much, we can only affect so much, and we should put our focus on what we can affect, and that most definitely includes our own children.

Here is a relevant link:

Dad reacts to bus bullies (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39497339/ns/today-parenting/)

[wickedblue]

I'm going to read what you linked to but I have to get dinner on the table so I won't be back for a while. Before I go:

Princess Leia, I appreciate what you are trying to say but I'm going to disagree with you. If you share something with a person in private and they breach your trust and share it with others, you are not responsible for the leak or subsequent actions against you. Your trust was violated.

In fact, someone much smarter than I am has written up exactly what I'm trying to say here. I just read it and was like, HELLO, THANK YOU. Read here (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/10/consent-autonomy-respect-dignity.html)

Purity4, whether she was 11, 12 or 13, everything I said about sexual urges remains the same. Some girls do enter puberty at that age and start dealing with all that.

[Mistermook]

All I see is "Someone kills themselves, let's blame someone else for that." Not to be anything less than direct, I think that's bullshit.

I don't want people to kill themselves and I think it would be wonderful if everyone were happy, well-adjusted people, but at some point I'm going with blaming the person who causes the most grievous harm. In the case of suicide that's not someone being a dick to someone else, but the person who kills themselves. You can "well, but..." all you like about the matter, but barring some weird suspense novel plot-line where someone's told to kill themselves to save their kids or something it's ultimately up to you to save yourself when you're the most direct and present danger to yourself. Get counseling. Get a hobby. Get out more. Write impassioned rants on the internet.

I mean, throw the book at anyone involved in bullying if they actual break the law, but being a bad person isn't something we can legislate much more than we do and no amount of legislation is going to stop your kid or friend or you from figuring out a way to be unhappy and offing yourself if you're intent on the act.

[Purity4]

Purity4, whether she was 11, 12 or 13, everything I said about sexual urges remains the same. Some girls do enter puberty at that age and start dealing with all that.

I wasn't disagreeing with anything you wrote about sexuality, I was just trying to keep the facts straight to avoid further confusion down the thread line.

[Princess Leia]

Princess Leia, I appreciate what you are trying to say but I'm going to disagree with you. If you share something with a person in private and they breach your trust and share it with others, you are not responsible for the leak or subsequent actions against you. Your trust was violated.
My issue isn't even with the fact that the photo was sexual in nature so I don't think that article on rape culture is entirely relevant. My issue is about how most people don't realize that sensitive items and technology just don't mix. If I take videos of me dancing alone in my room or practising making out with a pineapple (there's nothing inherently bad about me doing those things, just like how I don't think she was a slut for taking a naked picture of herself and how I don't think there's anything wrong with people making sex tapes) and post it on Facebook -- hey, they're my friends! I should be able to trust them! -- am I not at least partly responsible if those videos gets leaked? If I Photoshop a picture of my boss's head on a monkey's body and that gets leaked somehow and causes me to get fired, am I not partially responsible for that? Yes, my trust was violated... but where does personal responsibility begin then? I live among people. I know that some people are not going to act the way I think they should. Does that mean that if anything goes wrong in my life, I should be able to shrug and say, "Well, yeah, I could have done this but whatever, that dude was just an asshole. And society is just not where I want it to be. Not my responsibility."? What does blaming society accomplish?

Take your rape example. No, clearly it's not my fault if I get raped just 'cause I happen to be wearing thigh high boots and a sparkly magenta dress. But next time, I may be more inclined to, say, bring pepper spray with me. I'm not blaming myself for not bringing pepper spray in the past and saying that my not bringing pepper spray caused me to get raped, I'm just taking precautions because I don't want to get raped again. It's not my fault if it happens again, but I still don't want it to happen so I do what I can to protect myself. It's just me realizing that we don't live in an ideal, progressive society where people don't get raped and people applaud young women for expressing their sexuality.

Again, when I look at cases like this, I'm thinking: how can this be prevented in the future? That's why I chose to focus on the girl and her parents. To me, it seems more productive to sit down with your kids and teach them about depression/sexual urges/ the dangers of technology than to shift the blame to society. Perhaps society is mostly responsible... but we can't exactly force other people to change their attitude nor force social norms to change overnight.

[Undercovers_Agent]

Dad reacts to bus bullies (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39497339/ns/today-parenting/)

I did something like this. My sister got bullied a lot, got called a slut a lot (even though she's not), and was sexually harased. Found the guy responsible. Beat the fucking hell out of that guy, had to call an ambulance, broke a leg too. Not proud of it though.

[wickedblue]

I wasn't disagreeing with anything you wrote about sexuality, I was just trying to keep the facts straight to avoid further confusion down the thread line.

Gotcha.

I read the article you linked to. Another case gone terribly wrong. The father should not have acted in the way he did toward children but what the hell? It should not have gotten to that point at all. This is another case where the adult in charge was apparently shirking the responsibility they are charged with.

Princess Leia, again I appreciate what you are trying to say and obviously we are all responsible for own behavior but when we are attacked/victimized it is not our fault because we are the one that put ourselves in the time and place that the incident has occurred.

The article linked about rape culture was defining how it affects us. And it was relevant because the girl was violated and the culture we live in, this rape culture, as it were, wants to shift the blame to the victim. As she stated in the article I linked to: "Welcome to the rape culture, where it's just taken as read that people will violate you, so it's your responsibility not to do anything to make yourself vulnerable. And if you do, that's your "mistake." " And that's why it's relevant.

I'm not trying to shift blame to society or say we aren't responsible for our actions because of this society but change starts with one. Societal change doesn't happen overnight, it happens when each individual person begins to change their thoughts, their speech, their actions. Just a teaspoon at a time but it matters.

[Purity4]

Gotcha.

I read the article you linked to. Another case gone terribly wrong. The father should not have acted in the way he did toward children but what the hell? It should not have gotten to that point at all. This is another case where the adult in charge was apparently shirking the responsibility they are charged with.


It sounded like the father hadn't dropped his daughter off at the bus before because after he said how late the bus was, he also went on to say how surprised he was at the complete lack of behavior control on the bus. I know all schools are different, but that bus needs more supervision. Someone needs to volunteer for bus duty.

The bus my daughter takes to school has a great bus driver (he was passing out high fives to each kid as they got off the bus today and I've seen him wait on more than one occasion when he sees late kids running through the residential area trying to get to the bus, he just pays attention to these things) and there are 1-2 volunteer aides riding the bus to and from school to assist with keeping the kids supervised. The bus transports children from preschool through fifth grade, so there is quite an age range and potential for bullying there and I feel as though the school is doing what it can to keep the kids safe.

[Purity4]

I'm not trying to shift blame to society or say we aren't responsible for our actions because of this society but change starts with one. Societal change doesn't happen overnight, it happens when each individual person begins to change their thoughts, their speech, their actions. Just a teaspoon at a time but it matters.

I completely agree with this.

[Purity4]

Read here (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/10/consent-autonomy-respect-dignity.html)


Like, I am , like, trying to read this article, but , like, words the girls, like, say include the word 'like' like so many times, like, my mind is going to, like, explode. Like, seriously.

I did enjoy reading the comments after the article, though.

[wickedblue]

Like, I am , like, trying to read this article, but , like, words the girls, like, say include the word 'like' like so many times, like, my mind is going to, like, explode. Like, seriously.

I did enjoy reading the comments after the article, though.

Huh? She writes very intelligently...

Edit: Oh, wait, you're referring to the article quoted within this blog post. That was the interview the journalist did and that's how the friend of the girl spoke. Not entirely surprising given her age.

But like, yes, it's, like, annoying. :P

[Princess Leia]

Princess Leia, again I appreciate what you are trying to say and obviously we are all responsible for own behavior but when we are attacked/victimized it is not our fault because we are the one that put ourselves in the time and place that the incident has occurred.
It's not about determining who's at fault though. To me, it just seems more pragmatic to shift the focus to something that we can control. If someone punches me in the face, obviously it's not my fault just because I happened to be at that particular bar at that particular time. However, I can influence the outcome of the situation by acting a certain way. I can hit back or walk away. Saying "It's not my fault!" is not productive. It's true, it wasn't my fault that some idiot assaulted me, but if I can do something that might turn the odds in my favour (in this case, walking away or calling the cops), why wouldn't I do that for my own sake? "Yeah, it's not my fault, that guy was a jerk... but I'm gonna hightail it out of here anyway because I'm looking out for my own well-being and I don't wanna get beaten up."

Just because I focus on the victim or her parents doesn't mean I'm holding them responsible for everything. I'm merely looking at the situation from their perspective. I'm focusing on them because it's easier to focus on individuals (like you said, change starts with one) rather than 324893298 other people: her peers, the school administration, the media and society in general. Absolutely, her peers should be charged with assault. Perhaps the school administration should be reprimanded too if they really were being negligent. But there are still steps the victim could've taken to make things easier for herself FOR HER OWN SAKE -- not because she's at fault for the abuse in any way. I realize saying 'could've', 'would've', 'should've' is futile because I can't change the past but I think it's still useful to evaluate the situation from that perspective so that other kids who are in a similar situation can act before it's too late. What seems like a better thing to do: throwing your hands up in the air, saying it's not your fault and stopping there, or saying it's not your fault... and then calling the Kids Help Line?

I think it's incredibly grim to focus on external factors -- even if those external factors are mostly to blame -- because it may lead people to believe that nothing can be done.

[wickedblue]

I'm not disagreeing with you on that at all. I just see it differently. I can't help but focus on how society has such a big responsibility and I'm saying, we can change that. It's starts with acknowledging that it is a problem and speaking out about it. Silence is getting us nowhere.

There's a lot of of other factors here as well that can be directly and immediately changed but I don't think we should turn a blind eye to what is going on in the world and not try to change it either. It doesn't make an immediate difference, necessarily, but it is important.

What happened to this girl and others like her is tragic and I think it's a mistake to say, well sure society has a role in that but we can't change it so let's not focus on it. We are society. We can change it.

I'm beginning to sound like a pep rally so I think I will stop at that. :)

Except one thing and that is that this girl did think it was her fault, as evidenced by the fact that she did not talk about it, instead letting the shame eat at her which led to her death. So, I do think it's important, vital, to get the message to these kids that it's not their fault when they are victimized. When they feel that it is safe to talk about what is happening to them, without fear of being told that they brought it upon themselves, it takes away power from their attackers.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

maybe i and others who have experienced bullying in the past are a minority in the way that i/we handled it...but i never told my parents or my teachers when i was bullied.

to a bully, that only makes you look weaker, and easier to pick on. theyll just wait until theres nobody around to counter them, then theyll strike again and again until theyre satisfied.

ive seen it happen as well with someone else in middle school.
she did tell teachers, she told her parents, but her parents werent there with her and the teachers shrugged it off as just a teen thing.
students tend to take it more seriously if someone "on their side" speaks out against it... or, if criminal offenses are committed, when they are prosecuted for them. complete removal from the situation (school transfer, expelling, etc) are the only other tried-n-true ways ive seen bullying stop altogether. (which makes me wonder, why did this girl not request a transfer? what were her circumstances? details DO matter in situations like these...)

however i am speaking of bullying in general.
personally, my parents advised ignoring it. which i always believed was easier said than done.
teachers also advised to ignore it. again, easier said than done when you arent the one suffering the effects of the bullying.

however, i eventually learned that the best way (for me, i suppose, with my circumstances) to combat it was to eliminate what factors they found to label me as a target.
i stopped taking their guff. i dished back what i got, to whom provoked it. once they learned that i no longer believed myself to be a victim, they relented.

it was this experience that led me to bullying bullies. ironic, isnt it?
but that was my "place" on the social scale. there were victims, bullies, and bully bullies. having been bullied myself, i knew it wasnt a pleasant experience, and took it upon myself to bully those that i found bullying others. much more often than not, they would end up being so distracted by me that they would drop whoever they were bullying at the time, and either fight back or relent. eventually, though, all disputes were settled and nobody was truly hurt.

bullies operate under the idea that they are the top of the food chain...so to speak.
they believe that nobody can get in their way. when someone does, if they do not see that person as an equal, they will fight tooth and nail, or find alternative ways to get their bullying across.
but i have found most often someone may be persuaded to stop bullying (or coerced, in the worst situations) by someone they see as on their side... a fellow bully, or a friend of theirs.

pre-teens and teens are very willful creatures. if one way is obstructed, more than likely they will find another way. while adult interference is effective to a point, i believe that if any notable change is to be made against bullying, it MUST be primarily students who do the changing. by choosing to stop bullying others, yes, but also by choosing not to remain inactive when they see someone being bullied.