So a poor young man here in California recently took his life after continual bullying. There are so many things wrong in this story - here is a young man who was into fashion and cheerleading - not the most masculine things - and encouraged by his parents to be open with it. How could these parents not understand that kids who are all growing up and discovering their place in the world would find the behaviors of their son as very odd. The unusual kids are always singled out and attacked. Growing up, I was always a head taller than everyone else and I was teased unmercilessly for being TALL. My first girlfriend was rather busty at 9 years old and SHE was teased by boys without pity - for a physical trait that we all grew up to desire! Generations of children have teased and tortured and terrorized one another; but these latest generations have suddenlybeen decried by parents for these behaviors. Have parents forgotten what it was like to be a kid? Expecting children to stop bullying is a fool's folly. In the internet age, ADULTS are picking on one another - rioting in the streets and calling out other's they don't particularly care for. This isn't wonderland, people. Do I defend bullying? No. That said, show me a way to monitor children constantly. Show me a way to keep them from being teased in social media (minus keeping them off it altogether - so they can be teased about that). Any time a child dies - by their own hand or someone else's - it is a terrible tragedy. Parents have to prepare their children for REALITY, and hope for better with their children in their dealings with other kids. But to expect that your child is going to stand out in such stark contrast and not prepare them for the ensuing onslaught is insane - children don't know how be resilient unless we teach them. Children don't know this won't last forever unless we tell them. However, children will be bullied at some point; no matter what. The smart kid, the pretty girl, the tall kid, the jock, the cheerleader. Everyone has something that will put them in another child's crosshairs. There is certainly a point where kids go "too far". Just like adults, those childrens exaggerated actions should be noticed and dealt with harshly. We will never have a community of kids who sing "Cumbaya" and appreciate the differences between them.
How can we? We as adults can't even manage it with experience.
For proof, look no further than the "create a story" that Ferguson, New York and so many other sensational stories that have become reasons for ignorance and civil unrest. Is there any basis for people to be upset about the actions that have happened in these different situations? Sure, any time another human being dies, there is a reason to be upset. Then you spread out your vision - looking to all the variables around the situation. Criminals not obeying the law and THEN discounting a police order. That never works out well for anyone. The law of the land is still to be followed until it is overthrown and there is a new law for everyone to follow. You don't get to selectively choose what you will and will not follow. There is no argument in that. Is it a reaspn to die? No. It does cuse a situation to escalate and become something where a mistake or overreaction can cost you dearly. If you don't start something, there won't be anything! Then we have the court of public opinion getting stirred up before there is ANY knowledge. Officers were convicted and the people were victimized before a grand jury had seen the first item from the prosecution. Thus, it began. Outrage on the news; destruction on the streets - destroying the very communities they live in - for what? Who were they hurting? Looting and stealing..... seems like an appropriate response to being upset to these individuals. These events became nothing more than a money grab and a possibility of being on the news for many of these hooligans. Of course, the justice system did what it was set up to do and the evidence went against the notion that so many had held ( and a number of "eyewitnesses" had lied about) and everything got kicked up another level. Now we have "protests" from coast to coast - excuses for disrupting Interstates (none of the motorists had anything to do with this) and more looting and pillaging. It would seem that none of these "protesters" have anything to do; and mob mentality is better than no mentality at all. All of these supposed "sympathizers", and not ONE of them considered raising funds for greiving families or accepting that justice HAS been served. Man on the street knows all. DOn't get me wrong, I know the legal system in this nation can be suspect and downright irritating; but these acts of wonton violence and anarchy take away from the cause and make everyone involved in these situations seem like a roving pack of pirates. I would even go so far as to say they are attempting to BULLY the nation into seeing it their way. But the civilized don't, and never will. Right or wrong - Justice has spoken. The uneven hand of being irate over African American male deaths (only outrage when a white person does it; but racial violence is an EPIDEMIC in the streets) offers no purpose other than to disrupt and cause people in the very community they were "saving" to suffer.
I had kept quiet on this because I didn't want to give the Ferguson situation any more publicity than it has already gotten. However, every day in the news is just another story of how people are "victimized" and had no ability to do anything to better their situation. As soon as you feel helpless; you're right. We as a nation have become a chorus of apologists who never look to the initiation of an event; only the aftermath. Bad things happen to good people every day; this is a fact. That is not what these events are. In one case; it was the horrifying story of an innocent kid being left to fend for himself in a hostile world. Parents that refused to use their experience to keep this kid from the untold horrors of childhood that so many of us endured. In another, you have criminals pressing a bad situation into a Deadly one. Untill we, as a nation, can hold those who start the process accountable; there will never be TRUE justice for any of us.
