Nothing breaks my heart or shakes me to the core quite like a story of bullying. Maybe because I’m such a pacifist that I can’t even stomach R-rated movie violence, or maybe because just the thought of someone physically harming my son nauseates me. I don’t know what it is that makes me so unable to hear a story about bullying without suffering a full-blown anxiety attack, but whatever it is that sets me off, this story in the New York Times about a teenage boy in Fayetteville, Ark. had it in spades.
Billy’s parents say the school system refuses to do anything to stop the four years of beatings, despite school bus video proof and even cell phone video by the brother of one of the abusers. They’ve now resorted to suing one of the bullies and other “John Does” and are considering suing the school system.
What do you say?
It seems it’s always the victim that’s told, “You don’t like it? Move.” But why should the family have to remove their child from an [otherwise] highly-rated school system? What of the school responding that it “looked like Billy got what he deserved?” Is that ever an acceptable response to violence? Or do you think there’s more to the story? Have you or your children ever had bullying issues? What should the parents’ action be? And what is the community’s responsibility in this situation?
March 31st, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I believe beatings among children should be treated as any other incident of assault. In other words, the bullies should be arrested, and the staff at the school should be prosecuted under RICO laws for promoting crime.
Enough is enough, why is this still allowed? I think it’s because so many school principals were themselves bullies as children and are still bullies at heart as adults. These are bad people. Let’s call them what they are.
When I was in high school, the target was Robbie. Robbie was a shrimpy little guy. Every morning he would get pummeled by the same big guy, who was nicknamed Moose. Every day we told the teacher and the principal, and every day Robbie washed the blood off his face in the bathroom before class. One day my friend and I decided we were sick of watching and both of us jumped on Moose and tried to give him a taste of his own medicine. He was so big he just laughed at us both. He was so muscular and fat that our blows literally couldn’t hurt him. Then he beat up Robbie twice as badly to teach us a lesson.
Robbie and I caught up to each other last year, by the way. He’s tall, handsome, happily married to a beautiful woman, and a neurologist. I wonder if Moose is in jail, or if he’s coaching football at some high school where he encourages his players to give little shrimpy guys “what they deserve”?