"What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in the maturer life." ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton
This is a disturbing story on many levels, but I can't help wondering that there must be something more to it that the author isn't revealing:
"It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high school student in this small Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie died by his or her own hand - three suicides, one overdose of antidepressants. One was bullied for being gay, another for having a learning disability, another for being a boy who happened to like wearing pink."
Read the story. Why so many incidents of "bullicide" at one school? So many possible reasons leap out, one cannot arrive at any one all-encompassing conclusion.
On the surface, it would appear that bullying got out of hand.
But, bullying has been in existence since man was created. Cain bullied Able.
I was bullied in school. I never even considered taking my life. Just about everyone can attest to being bullied at some time with no lasting ill effects. Why, all of a sudden, is bullying so severe that students are driven to take their own lives?
Perhaps the problem isn't as new as we are led to believe.
What is happening here? Have some students become too sensitive while others have become less sensitive? Is this a result of too little control or too much? Is it a result of legislating God out of schools?
At least two of the students probably could have prevented most of the bullying they received:
1. "Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn't get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant, his mother says.
He wore a stuffed animal strapped to his arm, a lemur named Georges that was given its own seat in class...
Mohat's family and friends say he wasn't gay, but people thought he was."
Well, he wore pink. He carried a stuffed animal around with him wherever he went. He wanted to sing soprano. If he wasn't gay, it certainly seems he wanted people to think he was.
I don't want to say he asked for it, but I think the evidence speaks for itself.
2. "[Meredith]Rezak was bright, outgoing and a well-liked player on the volleyball team. Shortly before her suicide, she had joined the school's Gay-Straight Alliance and told friends and family she thought she might be gay."
Why in the world does a high school even have a "Gay-Straight Alliance" in the first place? Students that age have no business having straight sex, let alone gay sex.
Shouldn't the homosexual activist's agenda to "naturalize" aberrant behavior share at least part of the blame?
She was also a good friend of Eric Mohat, the student who wore pink but "wasn't gay".
Perhaps her suicide wasn't the result of bullying at all. Perhaps it was, as the article suggests, because her family had "issues".
Perhaps America's current obsession with fostering and placating a victim-hood mentality creates a sort of longing in some students to make themselves the ultimate victim.
Also, as the article casually points out: There is "a national spate of high-profile suicides by gay teens and others, and during a time of national soul-searching about what can be done to stop it."
Macabre as it may seem, perhaps "bullicide" is becoming fashionable.
Perhaps the opening quote is the only explanation.
Who knows? I certainly don't.
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8 comments:
OK. After reading and re-reading the article a few more times, I have come to the conclusion that the students who committed suicide weren't being bullied because they were gay. Quite the contrary, reading between the lines, only one of the students was actually gay (if you believe Mohat's assertion that, despite wearing pink and carrying around a stuffed toy, he really wasn't gay), and her mother insists bullying wasn't the reason she committed suicide. I am inclined to agree. She probably had difficulty coping with her friend's (Eric Mohat) death.
So, the media's insistence that gay students are bullied more than any others is still unproven and unsubstantiated.
Mark, the Group Psych that promotes bullying or ostracism, in my experience, is usually rooted in one of several causes the most prevalent of which are 1. The victim is "different" ( Gay would just be ONE way to differ, others could include race, language, deviations from the intelligence norm either way, social status, religion, politics etc. ). The group wants and needs conformity to validate their own status; or 2. The individual has committed a sin against the group for which there is no redemption, like a betrayal of trust that resulted in the group being wounded in some way.
I was never bullied as a youth, but, alas did lead some rather heinous bullying campaigns, but always psych rather than physicaland I like to think, justified.
One in college, was actually engineered to make the victim a better person by tearing him down and then building him up in terms of timidity, assertiveness and feelings of adequacy and self worth and actually worked.
Why we thought we had the ability or right to do that I'll never know.
Last week I saw a lot of reports on CNN morning news about bullying and saw reports on other news programs as well. Turns out CNN is releasing a documentary on bullying and the White House has a new "czar" to focus on bullying. Hmm. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Several years ago reports of "road rage" surfaced. Then it was determined that "road rage" had NOT increased at all. Years from now, will the truth about bullying show that bullying has not increased?
You can always find evidence (4 suicides in 1 school) to back up your favorite news stories. Bullying has always been with us and always will be. We need to take action against it and students have a responsibility to "buck up" when they experience it. But we also need to investigate the "news" a little more.
There is definitely spin regarding this issue. I have done a little Googlin' to find out stats to compare gay suicides to straight suicides among teens, and it seems the gays are offing themselves at twice the rate. I find this curious given how we are told that amongst the youth of today, homosexuality isn't a big deal. If this is so, then why would gays be bullied more often (if indeed they are)? More importantly, why would they be killing themselves at a greater rate in a more tolerant climate? Could it be that homosexuals are less mentally stable than are straight people? Could it be that homosexuality is a symptom of mental instability, as opposed to greater stresses put on homosexuals, which doesn't seem right in today's more tolerant climate? Chicken or egg?
But are we really seeing more gays being bullied to death? This article suggests the answer is no, but merely another opportunity for the homosexual activists to push their agenda.
Assuming my link doesn't work, I'll just say that the Clementi case doesn't prove he was humiliated because he was a homosexual. That is, he may just as easily have been targeted if he was engaging in straight sex. But because he was gay, the activists insist that it was an anti-gay hate crime perpetuated upon him.
Even more damning of the activists is the mention of Raymond Chase as another victim of bullying. According to friends, he had no issues with his sexuality and he had no enemies of which anyone was aware. He expressed his love for a close friend who, while rejecting the advance, did not reject Raymond as a friend. But Raymond couldn't deal with the rejection and for that, he killed himself. No bullying or anti-homo attacks of any kind.
I find it appalling, but not untypical, that the activists and their supporters/enablers would seize upon these tragic events to further their twisted cause. No adult worth a damn would feel anything less than abject sorrow that a kid would end his life for any reason. No adult worth a damn would exploit such tragedies the way it seems the activists are so doing. If they truly cared about kids and bullying, why have they waited for gay kids to kill themselves before acting? I'm unconvinced of their sincerity and compassion.
I agree with you, Art, but if you read the article, it becomes clear that being gay is not the reason these kids were bullied. Only one of the suicidal teens was openly gay, and her friends and family insist her sexual lifestyle choice had nothing to do with her bullying.
They were bullied because they were "different", which is the same reason kids have been bullied since Cain slew Able.
I want to know-- is the reason they took the drastic measure of suicide an indication of the Wussification of America? I suspect it is. Our nation is becoming so thin skinned and super sensitive, it's a wonder more people aren't committing suicide over some perceived insult.
In my junior high school in the 1960's, two 7th graders hung themselves, perhaps 6 months apart.
Suicide has been around awhile. Putting bullying into the mix as to the many reasons we all ask after the fact 'why,' is a fad.
Back then, the 'why' of teen suicide was neglect, drugs, poor self esteem, family issues, and not fitting into the popular cliques, to name a few.
Just add bullying to the list. Why not? And while we're at it, why not just move it up to the top of the list for now?
We are reaping the rewards of a generation of children raised in schools for which there is little consequence for their behavior, therefore those whose bent is to bully, fear not doing it, those who are bullied fear saying or doing anything about it.
We have convinced our parents that the school knows best, and they are happy to aquiesse to the schools.
The liberal/progressive mind set of "now let's just have a learning session about respecting one another" has not worked, does not work and will not work to overcome the societal tendancies of kids and youth.
We have John Dewey, and all of his mindless followers, to thank for taking us down this road.
"I want to know-- is the reason they took the drastic measure of suicide an indication of the Wussification of America?"
I don't feel like looking it up, but I'm confident that my research has shown that homosexuals in general are more likely to commit suicide than the average person. The question this raises is, as I've said and also read, is their mental state such that homosexuality is common amongst depressed or otherwise emotionally challenged individuals, or, does homosexuality lead to emotional problems. Tough call, but I believe that to blame this kind of thing on anti-homo bullying is a cheap dodge for the purpose of forcing more compliance with homo demands for acceptance. We're now to tread ever so lightly around these people who supposedly are no different than the rest of us save their sexual "orientation". Well, if they're no different, why are they offing themselves at such a higher rate? I've seen anywhere from twice as much to four times as much depending on which article one reads and how pro-homo the author. Yet, we are told that society in general is more tolerant of homosexuality and the idea of "gay-marriage", so why the hell would they be bullied and offing themselves at an "epidemic" level, as Degeneres put it?
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