an 11 year-old boy teased mercilessly at school for his "femininity," a mother who tries to convince school officials to put a stop to it, and an outcome that no one was expecting. unless, of course, you grew up under similar circumstances, had the same fears and feelings this young boy may have had, and could see it coming.
tuesday is a joke / played on those not quite prepared / the same game again
I am now pissed off and incredibly sad.
ReplyDeleteOh man, this is way too common. Leadership Charter School failed this kid. Policy ain't practice. All the policy in the world does not replace active, engaged school leadership.
ReplyDeletesuch a waste. a situation that should've never should've gotten to this point. i disagree though with the context of the interview following the story...it seemed to emphasize the "coming out" issue and not as much "bullying" in general. the fact that the topic of "coming out" follows the story, one might assume this young man was gay, when, in fact, we don't know that he was.
ReplyDeletesounds like your sticking up for little carl's possible heterosexuality!
ReplyDeleteit doesn't really matter, does it, if carl was gay or straight. he was teased at school because kids thought he was gay. and as a result, he hung himself with an electrical cord.
i think the point of the discussion following the report is that bullying based around sexual orientation is too often allowed in schools. administrators may tend to look the other way. if carl were bullied because he of his race, the bullying probably would have been stopped.
the whole idea here is that it's somehow okay in our culture to mock or degrade someone based on their sexual orientation, or even their supposed sexual orientation. whether or not carl actually was gay or straight is less the issue than what was allowed to be said about him in school.
1. I could barely watch this. How many of us LIVE with memories of that hell? How many of us COULD have been pushed to the breaking point?
ReplyDelete2. The post-story 'coming out' discussion is ridiculous. This has nothing to do with coming out, or with being gay. (In unrelated news, however, Anderson should come out already.)
3. The parents of these kids should sue 'em all. For various reasons, I often find myself driving past my elementary school, site of torments uncountable. It still hurts.
1. This just intolerable.
ReplyDelete2. Agree with Tony, bullying because of his race most certainly would have at least been attempted to be stopped. But not always to success.
3. Jimmy Valq..I know where you went to grade school. And I know what you went through. Because I was in the same kind of place, just a few blocks away, at the same time. But, believe me, the kids and the nuns beat us all up, regardless of sexual orientation. It was all just a big piece of hell.
Anyone who had anything the least bit different to say for themselves was a subject of ridicule.
Do I know?
One of my friends hung himself in fifth grade. Sister didn't like him.