TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: bullying myth

  • The Myth Spreads Like Cancer II

    The Myth Spreads Like Cancer II

    Bully for Them:

    Who would have thought? A factually inaccurate article from the Washington Post. I’m stunned. (Not really)

    Basically, this is just another “feel good” article about bullying. It states the obvious by saying bullying is a real problem in our schools but, as usual, doesn’t offer any real solutions that can be applied in the real world. It relies a lot on parental involvement. In a perfect world that would be enough, but as we all know, the parents of bullies are either bullies themselves or refuse to admit that their kids are bullies.

    And they blame the usual suspects, TV, Movies, video games, but still not offering any real solutions on what the schools can do to stop bullying. However, my major bone of contention is with this…

    Bullying’s link to violence has been repeatedly documented. For example, the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo., by two students who had been bullied, resulted in the deaths of 12 classmates, a teacher and the shooters themselves, and the wounding of 23 others.

    WRONG!!! Again I refer to what, I think, is the definitive article about Columbine, “The Depressive and the Psychopath” written by Dave Cullen for Slate. An addition to the article deals with the myths of Columbine…

    Here is the straight story on seven of the central myths:

    1. Targeting jocks, blacks, and Christians: There were no targets. Harris and Klebold just wanted body count, and they didn’t care who died. They expected their bombs to do most of the killing, murdering everyone in the cafeteria, irrespective of clique or social standing. When the bombs failed, they shot indiscriminately, firing into open crowds and under tables without bothering to see who their victims were. They taunted jocks briefly in the library, but they taunted virtually everyone else there, too.

    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.

    In other words, they weren’t bullied.

    Even though some people think I encourage or excuse bullying, you couldn’t be more wrong. As a former victim, I think bullying is a cancer on our education system. But unfortunately, I don’t think there will ever be a realistic solution to eliminating bullying from our schools.

  • The Myth Spreads Like Cancer

    The Myth Spreads Like Cancer

    Power and control drive school bullies:

    This is a long-winded article about bullying that brings nothing new to the table. Let me sum it up for you…bullying is and has always been a problem, teachers and students do nothing about it, and here are some tips to prevent it that don’t work in the real world. It’s the usual stuff in these anti-bullying articles.

    For once, I’d like to see some real information in these articles, like telling parents that their kid may be a bully. But as we all know, it’s not about personal responsibility anymore. And speaking of which, I have a bone to pick with a few words in this article. Mainly…

    One of those kids has been in police custody since September. Andrew Osantowski, 17, who is expected to stand trial June 7 in Macomb County, is accused of creating a hit list and plotting to blow up Chippewa Valley High School in Clinton Township. Schoolmates told the Free Press at the time of his arrest that he was the victim of near-constant bullying.

    He’s not alone. From Red Lake, Minn., to Columbine High in Colorado, bullying is partly blamed for deep-seated problems that end in tragedy.

    And the myth perpetuates once more. What makes it worse is that when it’s printed in a “legitimate” media outlet, people take it to heart as fact.

    In the case of Andrew Osantowski, I only saw him mention bullying once in the chat transcript, but never said if it was him being bullied. Also, on his websites, he never talked about bullying. He spoke mostly of his past criminal exploits and his fascination with Nazism. And if you’re telling people at school that you are a Nazi, then you’re inviting trouble on to yourself.

    In the case of Jeff Weise, he was the bully rather than the bullied. According to reports, he bullied kids who listened to rap music, which is ironic considering, he listened to rap himself.

    As far as I can tell in the FBI report, Eric Harris’ bullying consisted of being made fun of in gym class on two separate occasions and Dylan Klebold bullied the mentally handicapped.

    I know this asking a little too much, but journalists, please do a little more research before listing myth and urban legend as fact. When you print these myths as fact, it lends the would-be school shooter legitimacy to their violent plans for vengeance.

  • Myth in Miami

    Myth in Miami

    Can Columbine happen here?:

    When I read the headline, I thought, “Finally someone who gets it.” Well, after reading the article, I was only half-right.

    The author of the article is Kathy Hersh, who is co-chair of the Miami-Dade Community Task Force to Eliminate Bullying. While she admits that school shootings can happen anywhere, her reasoning is questionable.

    While trying to eliminate bullying is indeed a noble cause, she’s guilty of perpetuating the myths that bullying led to Columbine and Red Lake…

    A Miami-Dade County grand jury convened last year to answer that question. The jury studied 37 deadly incidents in schools across the nation, hoping to find a common characteristic among the perpetrators that could be used to profile potential killers and possibly prevent a similar tragedy. The only common factor that it could identify was that all the killers had been the victims of persistent bullying, victimized to the breaking point.

    And…

    The same day that we visited Arza to try to persuade him to support the bill, a boy in Red Lake Reserve, Minn., shot his grandfather and his companion, then went to school and killed 10 classmates before turning the gun on himself. Michael Weise had been a frequent target of bullies, and he couldn’t take it anymore.

    First off, it was Jeff Weise, not Michael, and he was a bully, not the bullied. Secondly, I’d like to know which incidents they studied because I can name several where bullying was not a factor.

    The fact that a legitimate organization that aims to end bullying does not have their facts straight is scary. Not only that, but since they buy into the bullying myth, it just lends legitimacy to would be school shooters who think they are justified in what they are doing.

    And the three things that students asked for to help with the bullying problem don’t sound like things that students would request. I mean, did students really request an “active peer-mediation programs”. That sounds like something feel good adults who forgot what school was like came up with.

    If a victim were to engage a bully in an active peer-mediation program, it would just lead to more bullying. The only thing that can be done to stop bullying is to catch bullies in the act. If you don’t, bullying will remain the age-old problem of the victim’s word against the bully’s.

    And the myth just continues to perpetuate.

  • So What?

    So What?

    Deadly revenge for bullied kids an absurd idea:

    This is a great editorial from the Miami Herald by a man named Leonard Pitts Jr., who writes what I’ve been saying for years, bullying is no excuse to shoot up a school…

    We have become sadly experienced with school massacres in recent years. We have seen many disaffected loners turn campuses into killing grounds. And then comes the inevitable explanation.

    He was an outcast.

    He was jilted by a girl.

    The other kids bullied him.

    And I repeat: So what?

    And just like myself, Mr. Pitts has also been accused of not knowing what it’s like to be bullied…

    My wife, who I’ve known since fifth grade, once had to run and get my folks after some boys jacked me up and tried to inject me with hypodermic needles they’d found in the trash behind a medical clinic.

    Now that’s hardcore. How many of these Harris and Klebold wannabes have been harassed to the level of their tormentors wanting to inject them with medical waste? I can almost guarantee you not one of them. Did Mr. Pitts plan to shoot up a school? Not according to his article…

    So yeah, I know a little something about being bullied. And yeah, too, I know something about wanting to mash the face of some jerk who’d made my days miserable.

    There is, however, a gulf of difference between wanting to do that and wanting to indiscriminately massacre a schoolyard full of people.

    It takes a special kind of arrogance, self-absorption and entitlement to believe that your humiliation and pain merit the lives of a dozen strangers.

    Mr. Pitts also disagrees with the criminal as victim mentality and sums things up with an obvious question…

    So to say a child killed people because he was bullied or ostracized is to dignify the act with false rationality — and to shift the onus for the crime to its victims.

    I get impatient with hearing that because it explains everything and explains nothing, because it does not help me understand how a child can become so alienated from his own humanity and finally, because it does not address, much less answer, a question that ought to be painfully obvious.

    Kids have been bullied and ostracized from the beginning of time. Why is it they are just now picking up guns?

    Why indeed, Mr. Pitts. Why indeed.

    I’m not doing the piece justice at all. So click on the link at the top.

    I’m not familiar with the rest of Mr. Pitts’ work, but after reading this I think he deserves a Pulitzer.

  • The Bullying Myth

    The Bullying Myth

    Violence ensues when teenagers are bullied:

    This is an opinion piece from Eastern Michigan University’s magazine by Lindsay Buhagiar. She takes the stance that if people like Eric Harris and Andrew Osantowski were not bullied, they would not have planned or committed acts of violence.

    While I respect Miss Buhagir’s right to her opinion, it’s a load of crap. Yes, bullying is a severe problem in our schools that needs to be corrected. However, I don’t think in either case that bullying was a major factor.

    Both Harris and Osantowski were racists and anti-Semitic. Both had past criminal histories of break-ins. Most importantly, both had parents that that didn’t care enough to get them the help they needed.

    Now, your novel approach to be nice to those that are different from us is fine, but the subjects involved didn’t exactly make it easy for themselves by having beliefs that are shunned by most reasonable people. It’s hard to get attached to “Hug a Nazi” day. What do you think would have happened if a cheerleader or jock or whatever tried being nice to Harris or Osantowski? They would have been met with a nice “fuck you” for their troubles. The alleged bullying was just an excuse. In reality, they’re nothing more than psychopaths.