After reading Joan Walsh’s column in Salon I have to get personal and revisit some times I’d rather forget. A high school student, described as a quiet boy, was the kid no one would let sit next to them. The bullying escalated into a beating, the bus driver kept on driving, the school is taking action after the situation got out of control instead of before, and the right wing is blaming the President.
The whole miserable story brings me back to four years I survived.
Pilgrim High School in Warwick in 1969 was almost 100% white. I entered as a freshman anticipating a great intellectual experience after eight years in a tiny Catholic school. So you can see why I got pounded.
I should have devoted more time to making sure I dressed right and had a group of girls to watch my back. I walked into that hornet’s nest totally unprepared.
I still don’t know how I got designated as a target, but the news account of how the unnamed boy was ostracized, pushed around, and then punched, while the only adult on scene failed to defend him is pretty close to what I experienced. Walking 45 minutes was a small price to pay to avoid the bus.
Adult life is a piece of cake compared to high school. I have retained a dislike of loud mouth bullies and a sympathy for anyone who is singled out for whatever reason. And speaking of loud mouths, a couple of guys who like to talk tough are yelling, ‘fight, fight’.
Today in crazy: In Barack Obama’s America, it’s open season on white people!
That’s the word from Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, who are hyperventilating over the story of a black teenager in Illinois who beat up a white kid, apparently while other black teens cheered him on. “White student beaten on school bus; crowd cheers,” was the screaming headline on the Drudge Report this morning, and Limbaugh told his radio listeners: “In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering.”
You won’t get this news on Rush–
“The incident appears now to be more about a couple of bullies on a bus dictating where people sit,” said Belleville Police Capt. Don Sax, who originally said Monday’s attack had racial motivations.
Sax said his original comments were “premature.”
These talk show entertainers are the same kind of guys who would despise anti-bullying programs as a feminizing agenda of the nanny state. These are the kind of guys who would be cheering a beating as long as they are well out of range. I hate this stuff.
Bullying is destructive. My white suburban high school had casualties. Teen suicide, drug addiction, rape, mental illness, family violence. It was a large school and any large group of people will have their problems. ‘It doesn’t happen here’ is not an answer.
In Providence, where we know stuff happens, we have some good programs to address the causes of violence and to teach peace.
It’s time to resist the instigators who want to push others to fight for their amusement and profit. It’s time to defend civility, so that discourse won’t be hijacked by the guy who yells the loudest. High school would be a good place to teach the skills needed to keep order and safety, and this could be a teachable moment.
Recurring Nightmare 
So, let me make sure I understand this. It’s Rush’s fault because you perceive the incident was misreported by him. I’m amazed. Maybe you haven’t seen the video. I did. It disgusts me. This was a mugging and, yes, there were people on the bus rooting the assailants on as they pummeled their helpless and seriously outnumbered victim. This was purely a disgusting act of violence. This wasn’t in a dark alley. This was in a SCHOOL BUS! It has no place in our society. The persons who did this should be put away for a long time. Maybe if people stopped this idiotic political struggle to “prove themselves right”, and start working TOGETHER, we could solve so many more problems in a much more productive manner and actual get to the root of why this type of abhorrent behavior continues.
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That was my point. Bullying and beating goes on in schools all the time. Adults are shirking their responsibility to teach the children they have charge of if they ignore it. Apparently this boy was being persecuted in school and no one intervened before it became physical.
Adults also have the responsibility not to draft youth problems into their political fights. Rush playing the race card is escalating things.
And I don’t endorse imprisoning teenagers if there are alternatives that could make them accountable. My point in writing that post is that kids are getting beat up on buses all the time, it’s wrong, and schools should make anti-bullying a part of teaching kids to be responsible adults.
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Rush is escalating things by playing the race card?And Jimmy Carter is being responsible?I saw that even Al Sharpton,a miserable character if ever one existed,didn’t necessarily attach racvial animosity to opposition to Obama.Jimmy Carter oughta remember the term “self fulfilling prophecy”because his intemperate statements could cause a lot of backlash.
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cause backlash? intemperate? After watching an organized group try to drown out all discussion at the Warwick Town Hall I think I’ve heard the limit of verbal hostility. At this point I’m worried about all the armed and unstable guys out there listening to the radio.
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Well,why don’t we just shut down talk radio and seize firearms from those you disapprove of?Hell,let’s just have one radio channel controlled by Obama.That would satisfy you,I’m sure.
If you didn’t like what you heard at Warwick,tough-that’s grass roots speaking out.
I realize that in your world,grass roots means “socially progressive”and such a thing as a conservative grass roots movement can’t be legitimate.
The New Black Panther Party thugs armed with clubs in Philly are probably your idea of poll watchers,right?You have a real bad double standard problem.It’s okay-just be honest about it.
In spite of what you and “klaus”seem to believe,the insurance companies can’t possibly be organizing all this opposition to the Obama administration’s efforts.
If you want to call all the opposition,or even a majority of it to Obama racist,have a ball.
I have a good idea.Shut down talk radio.Shut down Fox.That will get rid of all the “armed and unstable” guys,won’t it?No-it will drive them further into a corner,and THAT is the last thing you want.
Open debate is a safety valve,or doesn’t that penetrate your left wing mind set?
The arrogance of our elected representatives in responding only to special interest groups and ignoriing individuals who aren’t proffering campaign contributions is also fueling this anger,totally irrespective of Obama and his policies.
Obama’s latest solution to the illegal alien/health care issue is…guess what…amnesty.Gee,couldn’t see that one coming.
If he thought the town halls were bad on health care,he better be ready for a full blown uprising on the amnesty question.
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I really shouldn’t have gone on at such length.I think I’ve outstayed my welcome here.Jessie and “klaus” and the rest of the intelligentsia here can continue patting each ohter on the back with no dissident voices to interrupt.
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NN:
You’re absolutely right to worry. It’s a very short mental leap (convenient, given the audience it’s reaching) from the Rush/Beck/Hannity incitements to committing actual violence.
Whether or not it’s intentional by these mouthpieces for the radical fringe on the right, people hearing their racist and incendiary rhetoric are bestowing a certain level of authority to those they hear on the radio and see on TV. This allows the listener/viewer to establish a sense of distance and lack of responsibility for their own behavior.
This kind of separation from a sense of connectedness with other people, based on what they believe to be an authoritative voice, and an overriding sense of self-pity (“We’ve lost our country”) is textbook sociopathy. The right-wing bloviators — whether they’re too arrogant or ratings-driven to realize it — are creating a risk that threatens lives. In essence, they’re giving people who do not care to follow standards of civility and decency a license to incite and carry out violent acts.
It’s not funny, or something that should be dismissed lightly — never mind excused and justified.
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