Tag: school

There aught to be a law.

I was bullied as a child. I was different. I was a nerd, a geek and a bookworm who was socially awkward and shy, also known as an easy target. I can’t begin to count the number of times I came home crying because of the name calling and ostracizing. Oh, the good old days, when that’s all bullies did. Verbal and psychological abuse is bad enough, but it seems that the bullies of today have taken it to a whole other level.

Last week, three teenage girls decided it would be appropriate to set a 12 year old girl on fire. The act was pre-meditated. You can read about it here http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111127/mtl_fire_111127/20111127/?hub=MontrealHome

This is just one example in a sad trend of torturous behavior committed by teenagers and young adults. While I applaud celebrities like Lady GaGa

and Rick Mercer

for taking this on as a pet cause, I can’t help but wonder, where are the parents in all of this? Why are the parents of the victims not stepping forward and pressing charges? And what about the parents of the bullies, why are they allowing this behavior in their kids? Where were the teachers and faculty in all of this? In many cases this behavior happens right in front of adults who are supposed to be authority figures, yet they ignore it (just kids being kids). Where are the police in all of this? Why are the police not arresting these kids and making them pay for their behavior? Where is the legislature in all of this? There aught to be a law. If we continue to allow this behavior to go unpunished, then we have only ourselves to blame for the consequences.  Isn’t anyone doing anything to protect the victims of torment? Now I’m not talking about simple name calling, I’m talking about behavior like trying to set someone on fire, or behavior that causes a young gay teen to commit suicide.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/09/25/lemon-rodemeyer-suicide.cnn

Doing nothing because “it’s hard” to do something is no excuse.

The statistics are scary http://www.bullyonline.org/stress/suicide.htm

I will leave you with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi,

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

What about the Children?

Will the stupidity never end? This week a “News Story” broke about a retired porn star, Sasha Grey reading to grade school children. Read what happened here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/sasha-grey-porn-star-read_n_1088017.html

In this blog I will make the argument that the folks on ALL sides of this event are showing their stupidity. Let me begin with the aforementioned Ms. Grey. It should be noted that I am not anti porn in any way. I consider myself a sex positive feminist, from the old school of feminism that believes a woman should embrace her sexuality, not be vilified for it. I do not judge Ms. Grey for her former profession, only for her behavior in this instance. As a former porn star she should know that society will not want her in direct contact with children unless they are her own. While I applaud her wanting to volunteer for a worthy cause, she picked the wrong one. If, however, she had gone into that classroom, read the story and left without feeling the need to be validated through tweeting about her good deed, chances are, we and the children’s parents never would have heard about this situation. But, then Ms. Grey would not have had the publicity she so sorely desires. I am so sick of women playing the victim, especially when it’s obvious that they cast themselves in the role. Oh, look at the poor former porn star, she’s not allowed to do anything good without being reminded of all the bad she’s done. It was stupid of her to tweet about reading to elementary school children under her performing name to all of her porn fans (and TMZ). What I really want to know is who took the pictures of her in the classroom? Can you say Publicist?

Then there’s the school who claimed, when pressed, that Ms. Grey was never there. Could it be because she was there under her non-porn name and they just didn’t put two and two together (not EVERYONE watches porn after all)? Could it be because they wanted to avoid the inevitable shit-storm from the parents? Or maybe they thought that if they denied it, no one could ever possibly prove otherwise. Enter Twitter and TMZ. Denial was possibly the most stupid route to take in this drama. Who do they think they are, politicians?

Now to the outraged parents. The collective complaint here seems to be that their innocent little angels were subjected to the horror that is being in the same room with a lady who read to them. Let’s face facts, in the moment, all these kids were aware of was that some lady was reading to them. It’s the parents who have made this an issue that they now have to explain to their kids, by voicing their outrage. And we all know how parents hate having to talk to their kids about sex. How do you explain pornography to a 6-year-old? This is a question the parents should have asked themselves before reacting emotionally. If they had just left well enough alone, then these little children would not have had to know the meaning of the word pornography and why the pretty lady with the long brown hair was a bad person. These parents in their stupidity are just breeding more hate and playing right into the hands of Ms. Grey and her quest for fame (or, in this case, infamy) through victimization.