(no subject)

[rm]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/cnn-news/19141470/detail.html

BOSTON -- Sirdeaner Walker, 44, has been surrounded by family after discovering her son, Carl Walker-Hoover, 11, hanging by an extension cord in the third-floor landing of the family's Northampton Avenue home in Springfield.

Walker said her boy, upset yet again over another bullying episode at school, had committed suicide.

"They were always saying, 'you're gay, you must be gay, you act like a girl,'" said Walker.

Comments

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

This is the sort of report that leaves me spluttering incoherently.

Where were that boys parents? Didn't they know how much turmoil he was in? Where the hell was the school administration? Why didn't they do more to protect their students. What were the bully's parents doing? Didn't they care that their kid was tormenting a classmate?

Too many people's apathy has lead to a confused and hurting young person ending his life because he couldn't take it any more. I hope something good can come out of this.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My experience, despite my parents witnessing my bullying, was to be asked what I had done to make people hate me.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Sigh.

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Thirded. Well-meaning mother asking, "What are you doing to these kids that makes them say and do these things to you?"

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I was told I needed "to learn to be 'street smart'" like my sister.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I even had a little "behavior" report card that I had to have my teachers fill out every day. So that I would learn how not to be bullied.

This is not a joke. My parents sent *me* with a behavior report card. Despite the fact that I went to an incredibly small school (less than 50 kids) and they knew the parents of the actual perpetrators.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

"You know, you're your own worst enemy" was an oft-repeated phrase my mother really liked.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a parent, that is...so wrong I can't even describe it.

Meaning wrong in the sense of "what kind of parents are those that are doing that?" It's pretty much the antithesis of what parenting should be.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

"well, you must have done SOMEthing."

That phrase makes me cringe even now...

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I could not have fit in if I'd wanted to.
That's not supposed to be an offence
At least my family got that...

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

I don't think I realized until I read this thread how common that response is from authority figures. A guidance counselor told me in seventh grade, when I complained about incessant, violent, daily bullying from perpetrators who thought I was gay:

YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING TO INVITE THEIR ABUSE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT MAKES THEM COME AFTER YOU?

LOOK AT YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR. YOU ARE LEAVING YOURSELF OPEN AND VULNERABLE.

THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. IT IS UP TO YOU.

I can't even begin to describe the damage those few words did to me. I was so fucking quiet and so fucking scared to begin with, I drove myself out of my mind trying to figure out how this was my fault.

It still hurts. I feel desperately sad for this kid.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My dad liked to quote Hamlet to me:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

In retrospect, not the greatest advice for a disturbed teenager...

[chite.livejournal.com]

In my case, my parents did intervene, and the school intervened, and it got worse. It's almost like there's no way to win when you've become the target, except to brass it out and live through it.

Ironically, the person who bullied me the most in Junior High became an honest to goodness friend in high school. Life can be weird that way. I just wish someone could tell kids that it doesn't last forever.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Wow. Did this person ever explain to you why he/she felt it necessary to make your life hell? Did they apologize?

[used_songs]

I'm a middle school teacher and I've seen this happen, too. I've had students who were bullied and the teachers, counselors, and admins got involved and it still didn't stop - it just went underground. It's so frustrating!

On the other hand, this year I persistently worked the system (write ups, parent phone calls, counseling referrals) on a student who has been harassing others for 2 years at our school; this student picked on a kid in my class last month, calling him gay. When I wrote the referral, since I had all of the background documentation, the admins were able to get the student placed at the alternative campus and now he has been reassigned to his home campus. So it can be done.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I left girl scouts because half the girls in the troop decided I was a convenient target. Luckily, it wasn't at my school, so I didn't have those girls after me there too.

My mom did her best to keep the girls in the troop from bugging me too much, but since she wasn't there to actually yell at them, there wasn't a lot else to do, (This was the late 1970s.) so she let me quit.

The next time I was seriously bullied in jr. high, I had enough friends/protectors (some of the tough girls liked me, so that kept me somewhat safe) that it didn't fly and those that were bullying me went and bothered someone else.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Did you read the article? The mother was talking to school administration for six months trying to get them to do something. I'm assuming she didn't have the resources to pull him out of there, as a single Mom.

So the question becomes not where were the boys parents, because the boys parents were trying to DO something. The question is : where were the administrators? Where were the teachers?

I have a hard time blaming the Mom who did her best, with no support.

N.

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

So the question becomes not where were the boys parents, because the boys parents were trying to DO something. The question is : where were the administrators? Where were the teachers?

Probably the same place the my elementary school teachers were when I was being tormented and hit in the 1970's: Joining in with the kids in their pecking order.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the mom was doing something; that doesn't leave the rest of the adults off the hook.

This is one of those reasons that mental health care needs to be included in health insurance and why we need decent, all inclusive health care easily accessible for all.

I really hope someone gets held accountable.

[eac.livejournal.com]

When I was bullied in school, I never divulged that to my parents. I somehow felt that the bullying belong to the world of children and that adults belonged to the world of adults.

It sounds as if this mother *was* trying to do something, though - she just wasn't able to get any traction.

I'm so sorry for this child -- and I hate that being perceived as gay is so damaging in this culture that a child might kill himself over it.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

When I got bullied through the first year of secondary school (to the point where I hardly even spoke my family) and finally told my parents, my father insisted it was my fault that people didn't like me. It took me a long, long time to get past those words.

The school can do only so much, if the kids refuse to change. My teachers tried, but within weeks, it had gone back to square one and never got any better, really.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

This is the sort of report that leaves me spluttering incoherently.

Having sat through 30 showings of The Laramie Project I'm pretty calloused. I'm angry at the culture that picks on someone for not being 'masculine' whateverTHEFUCKthatmeans.

Where were that boys parents? Didn't they know how much turmoil he was in?

Wherever they were they were doing a bad enough job of being parents that they gave their kid depressive reactions and thought patterns that chose suicide as a solution

Where the hell was the school administration? Why didn't they do more to protect their students.

Because they didn't like him? Because they didn't have to? Teachers can be lazy and selfish like anyone else.

What were the bully's parents doing? Didn't they care that their kid was tormenting a classmate?

Lets face it, they were probably encouraging their kids to think of homosexuals as inferior to 'normal' people. They were probably glad that their kid was 'in' the crowd and not 'out' of it.

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

I don't blame the parents at all. It sounds like the mother tried to get his teacher to do something about it, but they brushed her off. The same damn thing happened to me as a kid. My parents tried telling the teachers and the administration to put a stop to it, but they didn't do a goddamn thing. As eschewv said, either they were busy trying to make it through the day or they were intimidated by my tormentors' parents.