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Colleges Struggling With the Digital Bathroom Wall
theodp writes "Back in the day, anonymous character assassination was confined to permanent marker scrawl in bathroom stalls. But now, thanks to sites like the student-run CollegeACB.com (ACB=Anonymous Confession Board), which can get hundreds of thousands of hits on a good day, TIME reports that anonymous slander is going viral on campus. Even the most elite universities — normally the land of the politically correct — have been struggling with the problem of anonymous gossip sites and their very un-PC posts, which an Amherst dean likens to 'the worst of junior high.' If he thinks things are bad now, wait until the kids start getting creative with Google Sidewiki."
I don't have a primary source for this because it was supposedly on TV, but apparently there was a conversation between an American reporter and black British athlete Kriss Akabusi that went something like this:
"So, Kriss, what does this mean to you as an African-American?"
"I'm not American, I'm British"
"Yes, but as a British African-American ..."
"I'm not African. I'm not American. I'm British."
Sounds like natural selection to me.
Oh wait, that wasn't the PC thing to say. I'm sorry, should I report to the Museum of Tolerance or skip that step and go straight to Tolerance Camp?
It doesn't sound like natural selection to you if the poor kid who hangs himself in a closet is yours.
:) People tried to bully me, but my sheer irony managed to turn their rather limited attempts against me, so most gave up. Exceptions were the (in)famous sports class guys, who used their punches where their wits were powerless. Classic story, yeah I know. Yes I managed to be fine. However, I might have more empathy in me for those who get bullied.
...And let me tell you another real-life story:
I know a couple who have a kid. Back when she was pregnanti woth this kid, she was involved in a car accident and the kid had some birth defects. Now I don't know exactly what happend or how the condition is called (it's not a nice thing to avidly ask them for details), but he can't walk properly, when talking he mumbles horribly (I don't understand a word he's saying, but his parents can; they learned the hard way) and will most likely never go out by himself, meet a girl and/or procreate. He can write but the letters look like crap and are very hard to decipher. He's 12 now.
Back when he was 8, his parents attempted to send him to a public school, and for about a week or two all was fine; but one day teachers found him tucked behind a garbage container; turns out some of his colleagues mocked him, prodded him, called him names and so on. Bullied him, in a word. And they finally dumped him behind that garbage container. He refused to eat or drink, his parents had to take him to the hospital, sedate him, feed him intravenously and pray he won't die. He eventually got better. By that I mean back to what is normal for him.
So what?, would you say. Natural Selection, he'd better be off dead. Okay, but he paints. He's a bloody ARTIST, my friend. He makes art like you or I can't, and he's good at it. I've seen him do it, it's amazing. Now he's no Picasso or anything and at some points his paintings are hard to understand (my guess is he sees the world very differently from us), but it's amazing nevertheless. His parents are not interested in showing his work, they're just glad this activity makes him feel better, but when I enter their house, the walls are literally covered in his drawings. So learn this, man: not all people who can't behave like us are bound to go silently in the night.
Now teens are living by their own standards. You're successful as a teen if you got the dough, the looks and the (sometimes chemically enhanced) sexual stamina. Whoever doesn't fit the pattern likely becomes a victim, no matter the size of his brain. When I was younger, I was respected during the IT classes/exams (because I could help all others) and at parties because I know a gazillion of jokes and I'm pretty good as an amateur stand-up comedian. That's it. I wasn't welcome to join the gang when they went to see movies or in clubs. I ain't good looking, don't have the dough and even if I'm okay in bed, I had to match first two prerequisites to be able to prove the third
When I was a kid, I had a classmate who was poor. I mean, dirt-poor. he only had 3 pairs of pants, and other kids noticed. One day, they threw some god damned substance on his pants (oily stuff, can't recall what it was) and the pants were ruined. He was so ashamed that later that evening his parents caught him attempting to commit suicide (he fucking hanged himself on the outside of the window). He managed to survive and later he earned a sponsored scholarship and became a doctor in the ER in a local hospital. He saved dozens of lifes. Hell, if you have a car crash near that town, he'd be the only one able to help you (small town, one hospital) and save your life. But hey, maybe you're right, maybe he oughta be dead...
You know, it's not always about the "rig
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)