Here in Massachusetts the Phoebe Prince story has gotten a lot of press, but now its getting a bit of national coverage.
Now out of respect to the departed, and to their families, I’m not going to go into details and discuss the issues of the various cases.
I will say that these people chose to commit suicide, and they committed suicide ALONE. Now brutal bullying and mistreatment should not be tolerated and we should all do our best to make the world as nice a place as possible for everybody, even those we dislike or don’t respect.
That being said all the laws, legislation and serious criminal charges that are floating around for these cases.
These people being charged were bullies. But they did not KILL these people, these people killed themselves. Yet these charges are only being leveled after the person killed themselves.
These cases are sad, and horrible, but #1 WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF BULLYING! Every single school has some people who underwent some pretty egregious bullying, and every school in the past has, and will in the future. If everybody who was severely bullied committed suicide we wouldn’t have much of a population, and our soldiers would be trained in bullying.
#2. When a troubled teen commits suicide do we really need to find somebody to blame?
Again horrible stories, and frankly a bunch of assholes who I don’t have a lot of respect for, but at what point are we crossing the bridge to witch hunts?
Good morning Weer’d :),
I think part of the problem today is the electronic aspect of the bullying.. i.e. txting, facebook, chat etc. The person being bullied cannot escape any of it. The group mentality adds to the problem as others join the bullying to “fit in”. One little post or a picture that mocks someone can be seen by hundreds. Back in the day we didn’t have all these avenues to continue the bullying 24/7. I’m sure it must suck to log in on your facebook and see mocking posts at all hours, or get txt messages at all hours.
Things are different out there and kids are ruthless, even some of the parents haven’t grown up. This mother created a fake page and the girl she was bullying commited suicide….
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/472262mother_responsible_for_teens_suicide.html
I THINK the problem is that the kids don’t have ANY escape when its 24/7.
There will always be shitheads out there and its sad when you realize that a little intervention by school officials/ parents could have helped.
I don’t agree with legislation BUT I feel that the school should be a place for learning and not a place of fear for the students.
I don’t think its that much more complicated. People can be shunted from social media circles, and just because people are saying rotten thing doesn’t mean you have to seek them out.
Certainly things like Text messages and phone calls can be admissible in real-deal harassment cases, as well as outright slander online.
Really the same protections that were available to us as children still exist today. And like everything else those with the least parental involvement will suffer the most.
Weer’d, it’s the “Somebody ought to DO something!” mentality.
This story scares you?
If only the bullying law were in place! You could take the government to court for bullying you via the internet!
I wish!
Weer’d:
I hesitate to actually recommend this, but have you read any of Emily Bazelon’s series in Slate about the case? (Here’s a link to her most recent article, which contains links to the other articles in the series.)
It’s a long series, and I think worth reading, but to summarize; the whole story was a lot more complicated and messy than people got from the media, and public policy decisions are being proposed and implemented based on an incomplete knowledge of what actually happened and why.
Yeah its a VERY complicated case, and nobody easily fits into the convenient box of Good Guy and Bad Guy.
Certainly the policies that are being proposed are based on flawed information, and that’s what scares me.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again; we need to bring back the Code Duello in some form or other (even if it’s just Marquess of Queensbury rules).
People would be more polite if they had to back up their words with their fists; even if the bully wins the duel, if he’s bullying everyone, he’ll get worn down eventually.
Instead, we throw the book at people for fighting, and try to tell them that violence doesn’t solve anything.
Sometimes fighting is the only good choice.