9 students charged with bullying that lead to a suicide

[Hobbs]

Didn't like power rangers? Geez!

[IDrinkaRum]

13 Worst Cases of Bullying

Interesting, but disheartening, read.

[ArenaBoy]

Taken from another board but first some context:

For those who have gone to the faculty and teachers because of bullying only to find little done. This was interesting.

I spoke about this a few months ago with a child psychology student. She told me about several studies that showed that often the school admins and teachers often ignore bullying or downplay it. They often take the side of the bully and consider the victim to be exaggerating. Take that for what it is worth.

[ArenaBoy]

There's a scene from the movie Bowling for Columbine, Marilyn Manson is being interviewed about how he was blamed for the Columbine incidents. He was asked what would he say to those two kids. His response?

"I wouldn't say a single word to them. I'd listen to what they have to say and that's what no one did."

With that said, throughout middle school and the first year of high school, I went through it as well. I was tormented because I was a little quirky. I went to the principals and teachers and yet they did nothing.

One day, I snapped. I fought back and landed a punch on the bully's throat. Not meritorious but he stopped after that. I got in trouble and was suspended from school for three days. My parents stuck up for me because they saw the idiocy in the punishment. It wasn't until I was hanging out with older friends and grew physically that the bullies left me alone.

Before that incident, what got me through it was having a dog and listening to music. However, I felt much better after sticking up for myself.

Bullying isn't limited to physicality though, it's verbal as well. A friend's sister has cerebral palsy. As a cruel joke a guy who had a reputation as a ladies man asked her to prom only to say he was joking. She was devastated. My friend beat him up, and the jackass left her alone after that.

One problem with the whole bullying thing is the whole "use your words" philosophy. Bullies aren't going to go away because you used your words. For some maybe but it doesn't matter. It's basically teaching that if you use words to the aggressor he will stop. But unfortunately, we sometimes have to stick up for ourselves using the only way they can understand.

To me, the other problem is that the people who are bullied are the ones who are a bit different from everyone else. The ones who aren't popular because they don't fit a standard. It seems to be a fear to help the student who has the blue and pink hair and listens to Marilyn Manson over the student who plays for the football team and is liked by his equal minded peers.

On a final note, my senior year of high school the video game Bully was due to be released the next year. A education class I was taking wanted to get the game's development cancelled. I refused to participate in it for these reasons:

1. The game is protected under the first amendment.

2. Banning a video game won't help reduce bullying.

3. I told my teacher that if you really want to stop bullying, that trying to ban a video game that has bullying in it won't work.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

The whole thing stings of cop-outs and moral high-ground. It's just that the moral high ground rarely ever gets problems solved, rather, it just ends up making one feel better about getting nothing done. The world doesn't change because we were nice, or polite, but because we did the right thing in order to better ourselves.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the columbine pair actually not bullied? Rather, ignored (like, say, everyone else) by others? They did what they did because they were disturbed, sometimes the answer is simple. But I digress...

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04...ths/index.html

5. Marilyn Manson: Klebold and Harris hated Marilyn Manson. On his Web site, Harris said he loved, "Good, fast, hard, strong, pounding TECHNO!! Such as KMFDM, PRODIGY, ORBITAL, RAMMSTEIN, and such."

7. Outcasts: Perhaps the most pervasive myth is that Harris and Klebold were rejected outcasts. They were not captains of the football team, but they were far more accepted than many of their schoolmates. They hung out with a tight circle of close friends and partied regularly on the weekend with a wider crowd.

[Boozy]

Hearing more and more about this story, I can't help but wonder why this generation growing up is so full of anger and hate??? And then wonder what they did wrong, like they don't even know how to act??? A group of kids bully someone to the point of suicide. A kid nearly beats a girl to death in Florida with a steel-toed boot. A mob of children in Milwaukee beat a grown man to deal. It's just one twisted story after another. And they ALL show NO remorse and think this is acceptable. What the hell is going on with this generation!!!! This is the generation that was supposed to NOT be spanked and was supposed to be given the BEST that we had to offer. I find this so disturbing.

There are almost 30 million teenagers in the US, and you're going to hang their entire generation based on the stories of a few? That's overreacting a tad, don't you think?

You might consider that we live in the age of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle. The media is digging these stories up and reporting on them at an unprecedented rate.

That's why we're hearing "one twisted story after another".

[Hobbs]

I'm with ditchdj. I freaking hate the new generation of teenagers. Buncha whiners is all they are. There's a few good ones, but not many...certainly not enough to redeem the generation.

[blas87]

The whole generation thing is a bit vague. School shootings and bullying have been going on a lot longer than 1999.

[the_std]

ditchdj, Hobbs, I would point you towards this thread with those kinds of remarks.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Honestly, I haven't seen any real proof that this generation is any different than those that came before. Each one had their shitty music and good music, 'wild behavior' and rebel attitude. How it all manifested changed for each, but it was always the same shit in a different toilet. The largest school killing was perpetrated with explosives years before pong was invented, by a 50 year old.

The only thing that has been shifting is the mean level of structure that's being rebelled against. It used to be stick up the ass puritan and now it's pretty low, but teens rebel against it because that's what they do, on average. Since everyone was once a teen, it stands to chance that everyone was rebelling against something back then, regardless of how bullshit it was. Most everyone who did turned out to be posers and joiners, but that too is pretty consistent.

[blas87]

We can only chalk up recent generations to be the most violent or crazy merely because life has become so techy and convenient.

Computers/cell phones/etc haven't been around that long, all in all. Facebook and Myspace are infants in the technology era....10 years ago, everyone was chatting in IRC and Yahoo and ICQ.

[ArenaBoy]

I'm with ditchdj. I freaking hate the new generation of teenagers. Buncha whiners is all they are. There's a few good ones, but not many...certainly not enough to redeem the generation.

In the 1950s, adults worried that Elvis and rock and roll was harming their kids.

In the 1960s, adults worried that the hippies and the love generation were going to put the US in a bad situation.

In the 1980s, Tipper Gore heard a Prince lyric that she didn't agree with. Under the guise of "helping the children," this led to the formation of the PMRC. It is because of them that the parental advisory label exists on records now.

In the 1990s, parents were complaining about Marilyn Manson and claiming that he was causing kids to do bad things.

In the 2000s, there have been complaints about video games and rap ruining kids.

Point is, people are going to have the same view of the next generation. Music is the best example of this and is why I listed it. Most of these "ruining kids" arguments has music tied to it. They're afraid of what they don't get.

[McDreidel09]

And a good number of the previous generation aren't whiners?

Sorry, but it grinds my gears when my generation is marked as the "bad generation." Yes, things have changed. Personally, I think we aren't as knowledgeable about things that we should know, but that doesn't make us the bad generation. Do I think that some people in my generation are morons? Yes. I deal with them everyday. Do I think that some people in the previous generation are morons? Yes. I dealt with them at work.

The internet has really opened up a whole new world for bullying. There is cyber-bullying, not only from kids, but from adults too! May I remind you of the parent who impersonated a teen just to get back at a girl her daughter didn't like and bullied her to death?

[Fryk]

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

hat quote is from either Socrates, or an ancient egyptian, depending on where I've looked it up. Everyone always thinks the next generation is spoiled.