Oklahoma students walk out after trans student’s death to protest bullying policies
Oklahoma students walk out after trans student’s death to protest bullying policies
After the death of Nex Benedict, classmates at Owasso High School say bullying often goes unpunished, causing students to feel like there’s no point asking for help.
Bullying goes unpunished everywhere. We had to take my daughter out of school here in Indiana and put her in online school because she was being bullied by virtually every kid in the school. The bullied kids were bullying here. The school did nothing despite our pleas. Once, she was doxxed by a couple of sisters on Discord who also prank called her a whole bunch of times. The school made both the sisters and my daughter apologize to each other. Online school requires one parent as a "learning coach" (i.e. I have to make sure she stays on track all day), which meant going down to one income. I'm not sure what other choice we had since she started having self-harm thoughts.
And maybe a month later, one of her few friends, who basically became her replacement at that school when my daughter left, got pulled out by her parents and put in online school.
I mentioned this in another thread- my daughter has another friend in that school who is trans. Not only does the school deadname him despite his parents' pleas and force him to use the girls' bathroom and locker room, but the other day, a girl was being a bigot against him and he slapped her. He got out-of-school suspension. Nothing happened to the girl.
If you face harassment on the job you can sue for millions of dollars. If schoolkids could do the same up to age 25 for school bullying I bet we'd see less of it
I feel like the monkey's paw outcome here is public schools closing because no one (read: conservatives) wants to pay for it, or change the schools to be better about the underlying problems.
Bullying goes unpunished everywhere, but especially after Trump's presidency, and now the problem is becoming systemic.
Dude it's been this way since the 90's, at least. It has been turbocharged due to technology is the main difference. Ask me how I know.
American culture is abusive in general, it's not shocking that abusive behavior has become the norm.
In societies where the law has broken down and failed to make an orderly society, people turn to mob mentality to "punish" those they see as in need of punishment.
In American society law has been broken since at least the Reagan era, and we're seeing the societal effects in real time. The people doing the bullying are just as under the thumb of America as anyone else, but like classic mob mentality, they've simply chosen people they don't like to abuse as opposed to real criminality. Why? Because most humans are stupid, base motherfuckers, and they always assume that they are a "good" person, and by extension their friends are "good" people so why should they do any introspection, it means that the other people are "bad" people. It's the same tribal fucking bullshit it has always been and this is exactly why we started trying to build orderly societies with law enforcement and justice you could count on. Now that that's squarely out of the fucking window, you have a society that is all too ready to dole out mob violence which rarely equates to "justice." The worst is that the mob is often in the wrong and also in the majority as evidenced by the above anecdote.
When justice fails, when justice is delayed, when justice is deferred, when the cops have special rights to brutalize you but are not held to the same standards and are allowed to break the law, this is what you fucking end up with. A society ready to fucking eat itself alive. It's not fucking rocket science (although it is social science).
Bullying goes unpunished even outside of Trump’s sphere of influence.
I am curious about the parenting techniques and philosophies and social views of the parents of the bullies
I'm guessing a lot of abuse and neglect. And/or evangelical Christianity in the case of the people bullying her trans friend. But clearly they have had it pushed into their brains that anyone who isn't "normal" needs to have "normal" beaten into them.
My daughter's friend for obvious reasons. My daughter because she likes dressing like a punk rocker and they decided she's a furry because she wears leather collars. Then we made the terrible mistake of allowing her go as the anime catgirl character she wanted to dress up as for Halloween. My wife, who is great at this stuff, made a costume that was exactly like the picture my daughter showed us. She went to school that morning and an eighth grader asked to take a picture with her... which she then put on Tiktok with some nasty messages and shared with the entire school. We didn't even wait for the administration to make her apologize again. That was the end of her time in school.
And honestly, if I could, I'd pull her friend out of that school, pick him up every day and put him in online school with my daughter. My wife joked that I'd start a school here for queer kids (my daughter is also queer, but that wasn't the bullying that bothered her, it was the furry stuff). Honestly, if I could, I would.
Bullies come from all walks of life...
Mean as shit. I've actually met the parents of two different guys that bullied me. They were poor white trash that smoked and drank and gave you that sense of fight or flight that usually only kicks in when a goddamn bear attacks you.
I suppose it's easy to ignore any signs of it happening from that point of view. Their kids have friends (the clique) who can represent the facade of everything being just fine, which every parent desperately wants to believe in in advance. If they catch a glimpse of it, they'll write it off as the bullied kid being the problem.
And that's best case. In worse cases, the parents will encourage the bullying directly or indirectly and see nothing wrong with it.
It's the same way that things like racism or sexism are taught from one generation to the next. It's not that anyone wants their child to be so, they just don't see it happening themselves.
These kinds of behaviours don't happen because they want to hurt someone. It happens because they want to protect themselves (even if it's at the cost of others) so they can fit in with the popular people. The desire to fit in comes from fear (or acknowledgement) of not being able to solve stuff on their own. So instead of teaching their children algebra or whatever is necessary to perform, they teach them to fit in at all cost, because that's what worked for themselves.
So in short, it's ignorance paired with herd mentality.
TBF, it's very common for boys to get punished for getting in fights with girls while the girls do not. So in that sense, it's gender validation.
not a "death", a murder.
How much you want to bet that the ones that bullied them were some of the students who walked out?
Not gonna pass up on a free day of school right?
I bet they were saying to each other “let’s kill 4 more and get the whole week off”
God I love Gen Z.
Fingers crossed the alphas keep it up, I'm not hearing a lot of good things about how they're doing with in school behavior.
Do you think I could start a charity that sends free T-shirts to high schoolers that say things like "no gods, no masters" "trans rights are humans rights"?
Most high schools where this is needed have rules against messages on tee-shirts.
Free speech doesn’t end inside the school door. Pretty hard for a school to ban messages on school shirts.
Nah start a business. Why not make money. They'll buy it to fit in the group and feel empowered.
Teenagers have no money
Good to see from these students.
Also good to remember that cis women are just as capable of violence against trans people as cis men. The murderers were three cis girls.
Good on the Students here. The only way to change the culture is to pushback and hold people accountable.
My ten-year-old daughter has been staying in Lawton, OK, with my eldest, her sister, for the past year. They were once very close, but my eldest and her family relocated about five years ago. During that time, my eldest has welcomed two new additions to her family. I've been the primary caregiver for my youngest since she was just eight months old, so naturally, she shares a strong bond with her older sister. Given that all the people I cherish are in Lawton and that's where they wish to remain, I've decided to relocate there as well. At 46, I realize I may have more time ahead of me than I initially anticipated, so why not make the move?
However, as I reflect on my decision, I can't help but ponder whether there truly exists a "safe place" free from hate. Despite my readiness to leave behind the issues of Texas, conversations I've overheard and the experiences my children describe from their school environment make me question this notion. The tolerated presence of hate within our society generally is concerning.
It's disheartening to witness how hate and ignorance persist, even with the abundance of available technology and resources. It seems that some individuals deliberately choose to harbor these sentiments. In light of this reality, I find myself wondering: "can we ever truly escape it?"
Clearly rhetorical, just venting.
Hey, free period is free period