vagina vagina vagina

[enochs_fable]

The story of the high-school girls suspended for saying "vagina" while reciting lines from the Vagina Monologues seems like it may end happily. Their suspensions have been, er, suspended "for further study," and the author, Even Ensler, will visit the school and the girls.

Comments

[jiggliusceasar]

I nearly got in trouble for using the N-word in class in AP English while reading a passage from All The King's Men that I was instructed to by the teacher. Apparently, I wasn't supposed to read that word (or at least, not out loud).

Then again, this was AP Study Hall - the teacher was also the cheerleading coach, and it was last period, so she was often doing that work rather than teaching. I definitely learned more about CCGs than literature in that class.

[echoweaver]

Heh. I have an opposite story about the n-word. I was bullied out of a school by the students for using the word with permission when reciting an award-winning speech in speech class on affirmative action. The n-word was used as part of a before/after picture of progress made since the 60s.

In that case, I had the support of the faculty, but not much interest in actually supporting me in a meaningful way. And I wasn't even trying to make a social statement.

I find this line from the article the most revealing: "School Principal Richard Leprine said they had agreed not to use the word." I suspect the suspensions were reprisals for failing to follow some previously agreed-upon censorship.

[enochs_fable]

Yikes. No meaningful support, like pointing out the context?

I suspect the suspensions were reprisals for failing to follow some previously agreed-upon censorship.

Yes, it was.

[echoweaver]

Once the rumor-mill gets going and students mobilize, there is no context anymore. The school said it was sorry when I started getting threats and escalating passing-period confrontations with the "tough" element, but it didn't actually try to protect me in any way. So my parents saw no choice but to move me to a different school.

We moved between middle school and high school. What's the most disturbing thing about this incident is that I'd started getting telephone-style threats from students in my new school who knew students from my old school on what was planned for me when the schools merged. I don't know if that would have ended up being as bad as it sounded, and I'm just as happy not to know.

[enochs_fable]

Kids can be such little shits. I look back on my years of junior high with undiminished loathing. If I could kill with pure bile...

[echoweaver]

Can't add to that. Middle-schoolers in particular are vicious little pre-conscience monsters.