Just a Thought

[perzephone]

I read an article earlier today (that I cannot find now) about school shootings and the culture of non-disclosure in which most kids live. When you're a kid or teenager, if you hear that something bad is going to happen, unless it's going to happen to one of your best friends, generally you keep your mouth shut. If you hear about something bad that's going to happen to a best friend they're the only one you tell. The article was focusing on changing that attitude to make safe environments for people to alert school officials if they hear of a murder plot, no matter how small or off-hand it sounds, free of retribution and scorn from peers. Schools are also implementing zero-tolerance policies regarding verbal and physical abuse, bullying, sexual orientation discrimination, etc.

When I was in school kids were violent - we hurled abuses upon one another verbally and physically, we layed in wait for someone to walk unsuspectingly into a bathroom or just turn a corner away from the eyes of authority figures. We would bluff and threaten and beat each other up, fuck up shit in lockers, trash cars, you name it. During high school there were drive-bys in the parking lot. It was just gangs fighting gangs - sorry if you got in the way, but it wasn't personal unless you were in one of the gangs. There were also occasional rapes. I don't think it ever occurred to anyone I went to grade school or jr high school with to bring a gun to class to gun everyone down.

The violence seems to have stepped up over the past 16 years or so since I dropped out - it all kind of started with Kip Kinkle back in 1997. (I originally typed 1991 because I was also looking at an article about Jeremy Wade Delle, who committed suicide in front of his class in 1991) The article I read said that most school shootings are done by kids who are bullied and depressed - which instantly makes me think of 'Goths' and emo-kids. I think between that prevailing attitude and school's pressuring kids into being well-behaved and politically correct, it's going to cause 'normal' kids to lash out even more at the weird kids. I think it's going to start a culture of "kill them before they kill us first". Instead of wailing on them at school where they can get into trouble for it, or starting fights in parking lots or at bus stops, the normal kids are going to be laying in wait for the quiet, depressed, awkward ones off school grounds - with guns.

Comments

Re: School Shootings

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

The US 'right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for

Ok, here's where I whip out my red neck. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. People were killing each other with rocks and sticks long before guns (or gunpowder) were invented. When I was 5 or so, we lived in a barrio, and the Hispanic gangs went after each other vigorously with tire irons and chains and knives. People still kill one another in areas where guns are not as accessible to the general public. Humans are violent savage animals, especially when they're kids and don't have the same kind of social inhibitions that most adults do (I say most because my coworkers seem to enjoy verbally abusing one another).

This really kind of got off the point - I'm not sitting here trying to write up some kind of term paper about the negative sociological impact of violence in schools. All I was saying is that the media focus on who perpetrates mass murder inthe classroom is going to end up targeting the kids who are isolated loners, goths, emos, etc. for pre-emptive strikes.

I don't think many parents send their kids off to school telling them, "Ok, if you see a fat kid, a kid who wears glasses, a kid with braces, a kid who dyes their hair and wears dark clothing you torture them mercilessly, every time you see them, every chance you get". I know for a fact that parents can be racist, sexist and practice open gender-discrimination in front of their kids, be it consciously trying to instill those attitudes or subconsciously, but kids can pick up these kind of prejudices and behaviors all on their own. Then you mix in the hormones and angst of jr high/high school along w/the instinctual desire to preserve genetic integrity and soon you've got some poor kid killing themselves and others because they just can't take the abuse any more. Guns are just a handy tool, but some of these kids knew how to make pipe bombs and molotov cocktails. (My dad showed me how to make napalm and told me how to kill masses with horsehair (or tiger whiskers) - I guess he assumed it would never go past 'science class experiment' but it's stuff I've hung onto for many, many years).