another kid who got picked on who shot some other kids, and this one closer to home. I've only been out to Chardon maybe twice in my life, and know it snows a lot there, and I've been graduated from that pressure cooker called high school for ten years now, and even the most juvenile and scummy antics of my fellow adults are nothing to that awfulness.
Conformity and crowd control were first felt most keenly then, and then it just took more kindler gentler machine gun hand forms as we got older. Individuality within constraints encouraged until it went too far and was 'distracting' or 'disturbing,' and it seems we're all supposed to be shiny and happy and holding hands acting like this groupthink is the best thing ever, why are you being so quiet and negative?
You don't want to mess with those quiet ones because you never know when they'll snap...
I was one of the quiet ones, and I was friends with the other ones who didn't quite mesh, I still am. I was a freshman when Columbine happened and a senior when 9/11 did. Different situations to be sure, but an overreaction of the overlords who need to show they care a lot and a fear of those who are different, of the shadowy misunderstood Other. The interventions I remember seemed useless, the ignoring of the red flags just as bad. I understand despair but not inflicting that despair on others. I wish I had some words of wisdom but they elude me.
Adults have learned to channel their inner bully via signing papers and dropping bombs.
ReplyDeleteAnti-bully programming is a growth industry, but here we are, again. The rise of bullying on the interwebs, just new venues for the same old rage. That and adolescent cruelty are human nature, they're never going away, it's simply that now, the picked-on live in a world with technology. Much harder to off your tormenters in 37 AD when all you had was your mom's kitchen knife.