Shitty Things People Say Part The Millionth
This is just tremendously depressing to me. And this.
I don't understand why people think bullying is just part of life. Everyone experiences being pushed around, but the way we as a culture just accept this kind of thing to the point that children are committing suicide because of it . . . that's sick.
It's sick the way that the victims are blamed by teachers and by the bullies' parents for bringing it on themselves, for not standing up to the bullies, for being too sensitive; and it's sick the way they are punished if they fight back.
It's sick the way that people can hear about something like these dead children -- dead -- and say that there must have been something wrong with them. That they should've been the ones to change, and that if they didn't, that's their fault.
And it is fucking sick the way people - from children to grown adults - will defend the use of the word "gay" as a pejorative. It really isn't defensible. Humor does not excuse everything, nor does meaning well. It just reveals that you are too lazy to find some other descriptor.
It is using that word negatively in any way other than as a totally neutral categorization of someone's sexual orientation that has given it such terrible weight that children who are not gay are killing themselves. Mindless little shits are using that word -- a perfectly good word that describes so many lovely people I know -- to hurt.
I don't care if there are no kids around to hear, I don't care if you're with someone who doesn't care if you use it that way, I don't care if you are gay, yourself, and are trying to assert that "That's so gay!" is a perfectly okay thing to say because you are the Big Gay Representative of Gaydonia and you said so. I'm sick of it, I've had enough. Pick some other word. There's 171,476 entries for full words in the OED, a conservative estimate. You have 171,475 other words to choose from. This one has as of right now today completely ceased to amuse me.
And while we are at it, let's pile on a "fuck you, you fucking fuck" to anyone who has ever pulled out the old "other people's words can't hurt you; you can only let them" canard in order to forestall someone else's entirely appropriate response, instead of trying to fucking help. There is a time and a place for that psychobabble crap, and that time and place is rare as hen's teeth. Most of the time, it is harmful, hateful bullshit.
I am willing to bet anything, anything you care to name, that both of those children, and the others who have killed themselves this year alone, were each and every one told that sticks and stones might break their bones, but words could never hurt them. I am willing to bet my house that those children were repeatedly told to just ignore what was being done to them. At eleven. When we are all so incredibly capable of ignoring things like daily pain.
Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover's mother found his lifeless body hanging from an extension cord minutes before she was due to confront school officials yet again over the bullying her son faced every day. They'd had every chance to listen, and had not.
I was bullied, and my parents and teachers didn't do much of anything about it, so I can tell you that when you tell a kid to just ignore it, that cruel words mean nothing, you aren't saying what you think you're saying. You are turning the kid loose to deal with his own pain at an age when he is not capable of doing that. You're telling them that they just don't matter enough to you for you to care. You're telling him that it's all right that the world is this way, and that they are the one who is fucked up for not being able to adjust to it. You're saying the bullies are right to pick on them.
I have a nice long rant about turning the other cheek in general coming, but I wanted to keep it separate from this discussion of bullying out of respect for those kids. So I will leave it at this: Don't say that shit to kids. And don't say that shit to grownups, either. It's shitty.
I don't understand why people think bullying is just part of life. Everyone experiences being pushed around, but the way we as a culture just accept this kind of thing to the point that children are committing suicide because of it . . . that's sick.
It's sick the way that the victims are blamed by teachers and by the bullies' parents for bringing it on themselves, for not standing up to the bullies, for being too sensitive; and it's sick the way they are punished if they fight back.
It's sick the way that people can hear about something like these dead children -- dead -- and say that there must have been something wrong with them. That they should've been the ones to change, and that if they didn't, that's their fault.
And it is fucking sick the way people - from children to grown adults - will defend the use of the word "gay" as a pejorative. It really isn't defensible. Humor does not excuse everything, nor does meaning well. It just reveals that you are too lazy to find some other descriptor.
It is using that word negatively in any way other than as a totally neutral categorization of someone's sexual orientation that has given it such terrible weight that children who are not gay are killing themselves. Mindless little shits are using that word -- a perfectly good word that describes so many lovely people I know -- to hurt.
I don't care if there are no kids around to hear, I don't care if you're with someone who doesn't care if you use it that way, I don't care if you are gay, yourself, and are trying to assert that "That's so gay!" is a perfectly okay thing to say because you are the Big Gay Representative of Gaydonia and you said so. I'm sick of it, I've had enough. Pick some other word. There's 171,476 entries for full words in the OED, a conservative estimate. You have 171,475 other words to choose from. This one has as of right now today completely ceased to amuse me.
And while we are at it, let's pile on a "fuck you, you fucking fuck" to anyone who has ever pulled out the old "other people's words can't hurt you; you can only let them" canard in order to forestall someone else's entirely appropriate response, instead of trying to fucking help. There is a time and a place for that psychobabble crap, and that time and place is rare as hen's teeth. Most of the time, it is harmful, hateful bullshit.
I am willing to bet anything, anything you care to name, that both of those children, and the others who have killed themselves this year alone, were each and every one told that sticks and stones might break their bones, but words could never hurt them. I am willing to bet my house that those children were repeatedly told to just ignore what was being done to them. At eleven. When we are all so incredibly capable of ignoring things like daily pain.
Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover's mother found his lifeless body hanging from an extension cord minutes before she was due to confront school officials yet again over the bullying her son faced every day. They'd had every chance to listen, and had not.
I was bullied, and my parents and teachers didn't do much of anything about it, so I can tell you that when you tell a kid to just ignore it, that cruel words mean nothing, you aren't saying what you think you're saying. You are turning the kid loose to deal with his own pain at an age when he is not capable of doing that. You're telling them that they just don't matter enough to you for you to care. You're telling him that it's all right that the world is this way, and that they are the one who is fucked up for not being able to adjust to it. You're saying the bullies are right to pick on them.
I have a nice long rant about turning the other cheek in general coming, but I wanted to keep it separate from this discussion of bullying out of respect for those kids. So I will leave it at this: Don't say that shit to kids. And don't say that shit to grownups, either. It's shitty.