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The Bus Incident
Jun. 21st, 2012 01:41 amThe Bus Incident video has been going around on Rochester Facebooks today. It is HUGE right now, as far as local stories go. I have no idea how far it's reached, or if it's reached outside the city. But I feel like it will be national soon. I hope it will, disgusting as it is to watch.
The Bus Incident is this: a hand-full of teenage boys verbally torment an old woman, Karen Klein, who is the school bus monitor. They made fun of her weight, they made fun of her for crying, and they said she was so ugly that her kids should kill themselves. And her son did kill himself, ten years back, adding that extra sting. The video was shot by one of the kids and put up on YouTube.
Here is the first article of The Bus Incident:
Greece Police Reviewing Bus Monitor Bullying Video
Further reports say this is an isolated incident, while other videos of this woman's torments have popped up, proving that it is NOT as isolated as they thought. The school has said they're waiting til September to decide what they'll do about it (if anything) because it would be pointless to expel them at the last week of school. What pissed me off most, though, is that there are no comments (or even mention) from the parents.
The article has a blurred version of the video, but here is another, straight from YouTube. It's ten minutes long, and I couldn't even get through one minute.
Look at her. She looks like both my grandmothers. She looks like so many grandmothers I've seen. I'll bet she looks like their grandmothers, and I'll bet they'd never talk to their own grannys that way. This video infuriated so many people that someone started a fundraiser to send Karen, the elderly monitor who gets paid under 15k a year to deal with this torment every day, on a well-deserved vacation. In only a few hours, the 5k goal was reached, and right now, the funds raised is almost 100k (and it's still only day one)!!!
The reactions from this video have been pretty mixed, from intelligent discussion, to intelligent attempts, to ridiculous threats to go beat up the kids and harass them by phone (the kids' addresses and phone numbers are posted around the internet, by their own outraged peers).
One comment I've seen that annoyed me was that these kids should be treated like children, because their minds aren't developed enough to fully understand the impact of their actions and words, and treating the kids like criminals in an isolated incident doesn't solve school bullying. REALLY? They are 13 - 15 years old! They're not children, they're teenagers, and need to be reeled in by the law as juviniles. Their minds may be immature, but they are fully fucking aware of how cruel they are, and there's never going to be one incident brought to justice that cures school bullying - I think the array of school shootings has taught us that.
Schools were never trained on how to handle verbal and emotional bullying. The job of a monitor is to grab the ears of the kids starting physical shit and making sure they keep mostly seated. When I was a kid, the bus driver himself stopped the bus and came back to yell at rowdy kids. But no one touched the bullies. My sister and I were tormented by an older kid and no one did anything, so one day, my sister hooked the guy's arms back and I played punching bag with his nuts, and WE got in trouble (worth it, though, because that kid and his buddies never harassed us again). Because sometimes, sadly, the bully needs a real understanding that people are hurt by them, and their victims can stand up to them. Killing them with kindness only gets you called a fag and bullied twice as much. I like the Ender's Game approach: Ender beats the shit out of Stilson, his main bully. And he looks at Stilson's little gang and says, "You might be having some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to people who try to hurt me. From then on, you'd be wondering when I'd get you, and how bad it would be. It wouldn't be this bad. It would be worse." (of course, spoiler alert, this beating actually killed the kid, so best not to go to that extreme.
But it's seeing this shit, this video, and remembering what it was like to be bullied as a kid, that make me feel like I should remain child-free - not because I'm afraid my kids will end up like this, but because they might have to face these kids. I can't understand how kids end up this way - no, I know there are a hundred reasons, but this? You can tell this is just shit-ass parenting; most likely, the parents are the type who don't pay attention to the kids they hang out with, don't bother punishing them (or even scolding them) for misbehaving, let them do whatever they want, and pamper the ever-loving fuck out of them, thinking they could never do anything wrong.
This, in my opinion, is what happens when a nation decides spanking their kids is a form of child abuse. This is what happens when scolding your kids is seen as 'bullying them back'. I won't even discuss grounding a kid to th confines of their tricked-out bedrooms. Nobody's allowed to lay down a good, stern punishment without society shunning them for it, and so kids no longer see their folks (or any adults) as the authority figures, but equals. You treat your kids like equals when they deserve it. Not when they're being brats. You're not their friend, you're their parent!
Bullying is one of the most ancient of troubles, and we are just now trying to raise awareness. We can only hope we'll be able to significantly diminish the problem by the time our kids are old enough for school.
The Bus Incident is this: a hand-full of teenage boys verbally torment an old woman, Karen Klein, who is the school bus monitor. They made fun of her weight, they made fun of her for crying, and they said she was so ugly that her kids should kill themselves. And her son did kill himself, ten years back, adding that extra sting. The video was shot by one of the kids and put up on YouTube.
Here is the first article of The Bus Incident:
Greece Police Reviewing Bus Monitor Bullying Video
Further reports say this is an isolated incident, while other videos of this woman's torments have popped up, proving that it is NOT as isolated as they thought. The school has said they're waiting til September to decide what they'll do about it (if anything) because it would be pointless to expel them at the last week of school. What pissed me off most, though, is that there are no comments (or even mention) from the parents.
The article has a blurred version of the video, but here is another, straight from YouTube. It's ten minutes long, and I couldn't even get through one minute.
Look at her. She looks like both my grandmothers. She looks like so many grandmothers I've seen. I'll bet she looks like their grandmothers, and I'll bet they'd never talk to their own grannys that way. This video infuriated so many people that someone started a fundraiser to send Karen, the elderly monitor who gets paid under 15k a year to deal with this torment every day, on a well-deserved vacation. In only a few hours, the 5k goal was reached, and right now, the funds raised is almost 100k (and it's still only day one)!!!
The reactions from this video have been pretty mixed, from intelligent discussion, to intelligent attempts, to ridiculous threats to go beat up the kids and harass them by phone (the kids' addresses and phone numbers are posted around the internet, by their own outraged peers).
One comment I've seen that annoyed me was that these kids should be treated like children, because their minds aren't developed enough to fully understand the impact of their actions and words, and treating the kids like criminals in an isolated incident doesn't solve school bullying. REALLY? They are 13 - 15 years old! They're not children, they're teenagers, and need to be reeled in by the law as juviniles. Their minds may be immature, but they are fully fucking aware of how cruel they are, and there's never going to be one incident brought to justice that cures school bullying - I think the array of school shootings has taught us that.
Schools were never trained on how to handle verbal and emotional bullying. The job of a monitor is to grab the ears of the kids starting physical shit and making sure they keep mostly seated. When I was a kid, the bus driver himself stopped the bus and came back to yell at rowdy kids. But no one touched the bullies. My sister and I were tormented by an older kid and no one did anything, so one day, my sister hooked the guy's arms back and I played punching bag with his nuts, and WE got in trouble (worth it, though, because that kid and his buddies never harassed us again). Because sometimes, sadly, the bully needs a real understanding that people are hurt by them, and their victims can stand up to them. Killing them with kindness only gets you called a fag and bullied twice as much. I like the Ender's Game approach: Ender beats the shit out of Stilson, his main bully. And he looks at Stilson's little gang and says, "You might be having some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to people who try to hurt me. From then on, you'd be wondering when I'd get you, and how bad it would be. It wouldn't be this bad. It would be worse." (of course, spoiler alert, this beating actually killed the kid, so best not to go to that extreme.
But it's seeing this shit, this video, and remembering what it was like to be bullied as a kid, that make me feel like I should remain child-free - not because I'm afraid my kids will end up like this, but because they might have to face these kids. I can't understand how kids end up this way - no, I know there are a hundred reasons, but this? You can tell this is just shit-ass parenting; most likely, the parents are the type who don't pay attention to the kids they hang out with, don't bother punishing them (or even scolding them) for misbehaving, let them do whatever they want, and pamper the ever-loving fuck out of them, thinking they could never do anything wrong.
This, in my opinion, is what happens when a nation decides spanking their kids is a form of child abuse. This is what happens when scolding your kids is seen as 'bullying them back'. I won't even discuss grounding a kid to th confines of their tricked-out bedrooms. Nobody's allowed to lay down a good, stern punishment without society shunning them for it, and so kids no longer see their folks (or any adults) as the authority figures, but equals. You treat your kids like equals when they deserve it. Not when they're being brats. You're not their friend, you're their parent!
Bullying is one of the most ancient of troubles, and we are just now trying to raise awareness. We can only hope we'll be able to significantly diminish the problem by the time our kids are old enough for school.
