Another sad tragedy resulting from bullying.

god...

this really does need to stop... can't really tell how many times I've been called names and in the afternoon when I've gotten home, felt bad enough to start taking some pills.

Let's hope NC joins the train of states that pass anti-discrimination laws... the only reason religious organizations want these laws to fail is because they lose their powers to bully and have people bully in their names.

an athletic coach

I think that pretty much says it all. sports and homophobia as well as religious connections to sports go HAND IN HAND.  

"It's hard to free fools from the chains they revere." ~ François Marie Arouet.

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by: TSinGarnNC16 @ Thu Apr 09, 2009 at 15:02:29 PM CDT

Not necessarily.

Maybe boys' sports. It's certainly what I've heard, though never having been a boy, I can't really say. But more than one young dyke has found a haven in girls' and women's athletics, and not necessarily experienced homophobia. Don't paint all coaches and sports with the same brush.

Well, girls don't necessarily experience homophobia from their own teams. Though I've never played on a team that fostered a homophobic culture, I've had teammates taunted by opposing teams. So homophobia is used against girls too, but not across the board, and coaches of girls'/women's sports aren't so concerned with girls being unfeminine, since girls and women are already trangressing that barrier just by participating.

Regardless, it's unacceptable for any adult to ignore harassment and bullying of students.

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by: one jewish dyke @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 00:27:00 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I've comented on

the general swinishness of sports culture before.  It seems to bring out the absolute worst in human nature.

I was bullied fairly mercilessly in high school, called fag and cocksucker, physically assaulted, etc.  And I'm terrible at sports--I've had balance problems since I was little, which pretty much ruled out any kind of athletic prowess.  That seemed to confirm the pigs in their conviction that I must be a faggot.

I'm 6'4', 200 lbs., and I grew to that size fairly early.  But even that wasn't enough to give them pause about harassing me physically.  A fag is a fag is a fag, and we all deserve what we get, right?

I honestly believe that what is smilingly called sports culture, and its connection to organized religion in so many "minds," is one of the biggest factors that keeps the US from developing a real civilization.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 11:49:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

As someone who loves sports culture

I "resemble" that remark, Q.

Though the sports as religious festival meme is absolutely on the mark (the Olympics).

Oh, I have been bullied, teased, the whole nine yards, to the point where  I wanted to commit suicide when I was even younger than this kid. And to this day, I have difficulty trusting folks, in part, because of that.

Interesting story: When I lived Alphabet City over 20 years ago me and another gay friend of mine were taunted by 2 thugs on the playground so we challenged them to a game of hoops (you know it was one of those playgrounds with no nets in the hoops).

Of course, we beat the shit out of them. To my surprise, though, neither got angry and one of the guys even came on to my buddy.

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by: kevinchi @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 12:12:28 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hang in there kid!

You are strong.
You will survive.
This too shall pass.

Hang in there long enough to realize your full, beautiful, out and proud potential.

You're not alone.  Even when it seems like everyone's against you ... your brothers and sisters are standing with you.

Don't give up!

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by: ExHack @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 14:22:30 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Indeed we all are.

Standing right there with you...

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by: Louise @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 14:32:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

As I'm sure you're aware,

Tim's been active here for a while now.  His postings are always smart, thoughtful, articulate and perceptive, a lot more so than a lot of the supposed adults here (my snarky self probably included).  I rest a lot easier knowing that the future of our community is in the hands of young people like him.

If we don't stand by our community's younger members and support them every way we can, a great deal of what we do is for nothing.  Unless we're motivated by pure self-interest, that is.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 17:29:31 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Setting the snark aside

to say I wish I could give that comment a 5, Q. As well as Tim's.

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by: Louise @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 20:36:52 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Disgusting

the "Family Values" crowd wants the bullying to continue.

Some years back in a debate over an anti-bullying proposal - in California I believe - a christofascist parent (possibly a school board member; I forget) actually stated that, however bad the bullied kids may feel, the bullies need to be tolerated too.

Until that diseased mindset disappears, the suicides will not stop.

>^..^<

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by: KatRose @ Thu Apr 09, 2009 at 22:53:27 PM CDT

That diseased mindset...

...is simply the mindset of a bully.

The Christian church is the adult institution in which bullies congregate and reinforce each other in their bad behavior.

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by: Jim @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 00:51:10 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

maybe if the MSM

covered half this stuff, we'd have passed these laws by now. How many people have to be driven to suicide - or murdered - before these sensible bills can be passed? Most sensible people don't know these issues are a real problem and thus don't urge their legislators to act. Of course, these laws would also be passed if there wasn't such bitter resistance from a fringe group of bible thumpers. If only the 'compassionate' Christian Taliban crowd gave a shit about anyone but themselves and their warped view of how this world should work at a theoretical level.  

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by: RyansTake @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 01:55:13 AM CDT

If the MSM covered this more

there would be outcry from the parents of bullies and proposals for laws to prevent the stories from being told in the press.

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Claim to fame: Posted first PHB diary to be demoted

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by: cindik @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 05:54:55 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Suicide

NOM & Maggie Gallagher have this poor boy's blood on their hands.  They all can go rot in their christianist hell.  

vanhattan

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by: vanhattan @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 02:22:00 AM CDT

The thing is, less than 1 out of 5 suicides are LGBT related.

  As many here at the Blend know, I thankfully survived several attempts at suicide.  One thing I am proud to be a failure at.  As a result I took some classes regarding suicide prevention.

 All you have to do is google suicide statistics and click. The numbers are quite disturbing.

1.3% of all deaths are from suicide.

On average, one suicide occurs every 17 minutes.

These are statistics from 2001.  If you clicked over, I am sure you will be stunned by the numbers.  

But I guess that the 4 out of 5 are worth it to the christians as they stand in the way of passing laws and policies that would help prevent many of them.

1 out of every 64 american commit suicide,

Now these don't even count those who lose their lives in Murder/Suicide.  This is from 2005

According to a 2002 report by the Violence Policy Center, at least 662 people died in murder-suicides in the United States over a six-month period the previous year-an average of nearly two murder-suicides each day, every day. Seven states had more than 10 murder-suicides during the study period: Florida (35), California (29) and Texas (29), Pennsylvania (17), New York (14), Virginia (12), and Ohio (11).

With the christians standing in the way, as they believe that humiliation will keep people from being gay, they have a lot of blood on their hands, and most are not LGBT.

Yes, it is a crying shame, I would call it criminal.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 02:51:38 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Also glad

you failed... very glad, Happy.

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by: Louise @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 04:58:41 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

LGBT or Not

I'm 50 years old and the problem hasn't changed at all in school environments from what I can tell. I quit school to save my life, literally. I acted on what I understood at the time to be no other choice. When a bunch of guys hang you from your ankles from a highway overpass and say that if you don't get your faggot ass out of town they will let go, you start to listen. Even looking into those passing windshields upside down, it didn't seem like anyone cared.

To this day I hear stories of the same things that happened to me, everybody knows about it, I could see teachers down the hall when I was getting punched and they did nothing as if that's just the way things are. When someone is beating the crap out of you and the people you are told will protect you do nothing, it isn't a stretch to think that justice is a joke and it might only apply to those who don't like you, that's not a good incentive to stick around. I had my school tell me to move my locker to another wing because I was a problem. I was the problem, not anyone else.

To this day I see very few changes, the one change I hardly ever see is the ability of the staff to rise above the mentality of the inmates students and teach a little something beyond state mandated curriculum. Safety and security are not an option in your average high school. Never has been, not likely to be any time soon.  

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by: brucetude @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 04:40:14 AM CDT

The school bullying

especially in crowded hallways near the lockers and then on crowded buses at the end of the day are the very reasons why I have now rearranged my daily schedule to pick up our daughters every afternoon.

Our daughter was having repeated issues of sexual and physical harassment, mostly at the hands of a much larger and older lunkhead classmate. We finally ended up taking her to the police station for investigation, when we had exhausted all resorts with the principal after the boy in question's most egregious attack. It had resulted in Mary having a shredded knee, so there was physical PROOF.

The bullying abruptly STOPPED, because Officer Friendly took Mary's report seriously and investigated with both the school and at the boy's home.

She is no longer being taunted daily as to her sexual orientation or in any other way. And it is, from a parent's perspective, so damned relieving to see my child come out of the school building every day without the tensed face I used to see and to hear about her day on the drive home.

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by: Louise @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 04:56:28 AM CDT

other things that need to happen

First, I'm so glad you stayed with us Louise, and the others who have posted, and all who have traveled that excruciating road. I 'ideated' all the time in high school, but didn't take it further.  Yep, social norms need to change, but the Law is already there for us in many instances.  Here's what else needs to happen.
1) Parents need to report "bullying" to the police as well as to the school and escalate from the very start.  Interesting how we have different names for things depending on who the victims and perps are.  Assault & battery - between children - becomes "bullying."  Between brothers, well that's just "boys being boys."  
2) Parents need to sue the school if no immediate, drastic action is taken.  It may save their kids' lives, and it certainly makes school boards stand up and take notice when lawyers and billable hours and punitive damages start to loom.  Seems like legal concepts of "accessory" and "depraved indifference" apply here.
3) Parents need to press charges against the bullies' parents, as adults are legally responsible for their minor children.
4) Parents need to go to the school (not just call), and talk with administrators and barge into the teachers' lounge and ask which teachers are ignoring or encouraging the problem and call them out on it in person and at school board meetings and add the teachers' names to the lawsuits.  
Kids' lives are at stake - this is an emergency.  Putting responsibility on the bullies and on those who tolerate the behavior will result in suspensions and in the creation of new intervention strategies.


Listen to your fairy Godmother, my dear: you will go to the ball.

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by: 555catnap @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 07:28:33 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

All excellent suggestions

The role of a parent includes protecting their child. That some parents fail to do so from inaction or "letting the school handle it" rather than take a more proactive role is something I can't comprehend.

That's what is so heartbreaking and upsetting about this story. His mom did everything right.

We need so much awareness of the issue and laws in place that are enforceable to protect all children.

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by: Louise @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 08:24:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's everywhere

When I was 7, my family moved. My parents were concerned about the violence in the city, and we moved to the safe suburbs.

I started getting bullied. Sometimes it was one kid; more often 2 or more. Sometimes it was a circle of kids who made sure I couldn't escape while each took a turn at beating me.

At 9 I suffered a depressed skull fracture (flashlight battery thrown by a classmate who was chasing me).

At 10 I made my first suicidal threat.

At 11 I intentionally put my head through a windowpane in our home.

At 12 I carved a suicide note on the door of a school restroom (the principal made me apologize for the damage to school property).

There are several things that need to happen:

• Schools have to be made safer
  
• Parents have to teach their children to not harm others
  
• Somehow, we have to stop older children from teaching violence to younger children
  

Unfortunately, I don't know how to make this happen.

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Claim to fame: Posted first PHB diary to be demoted

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by: cindik @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 05:51:38 AM CDT

This is why I pulled my teenager out of Public Middle School

My daughter is a smart young woman, who will probably be straight, but since she has Asperger's (a social disorder- she's working on it), she was continually picked on at school.

Her behaviors cause her to hyperfocus on topics, sometimes she gets a little hyperactive, but all in all she is an intelligent morally balanced person.  

What made me pull her out was the bullying she got for being just that little tiny bit different, she would be upset every day from the stresses - I called, I went in, I talked to administrators and teachers - all of them said pretty much the same thing, "You daughter's smart, polite, appropriate, she makes great grades - sorry we can't stop the kids from picking on her."

Um, HELLO - that is supposed to be their job.  I looked around - found a great private Homeschooling situation (non religious curriculum for my agnostic woman!) and now my daughter goes to school 4 days a week for 4 hours of intense self-driven education.  And the bonus to me: she is happy, not picked on, all differences accepted.  About the only thing she ruminates on now is making sure she doesn't get stuck with religious stuff.  But I HAD TO TAKE A STAND, I feel for all the children who didn't have someone who did...no matter what their difference.

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by: Beejcctx @ Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 08:59:59 AM CDT