Slashdot Mirror
Catching a breath...
Heads Up. This is in the Be Careful What You Wish For Dept: A bunch of reporters and producers are trawling the site looking for geek kids to put on TV and radio, and to interview for newspaper stories. Journalism has suddenly discovered that this story is a little more complicated than violent video games and geek monsters.
Be careful, especially those of you who are younger. Some of these reporters get it, some don't. Some will worry about your best interests, and others won't. I've declined to give any e-mail addresses of kids relaying the realities of life in High School to reporters, since in some cases, radio and TV exposure would make their lives worse, not better.
It's an individual choice, but think about it. If you need guidance, please feel free to e-mail me, as I worked in newspapers and for a TV network before becoming a cyber-gasbag and writer.Update: 04/28 02:03 by H : Doug has also put up ListenToUs. This is a gathering place for us to communicate with each on social issues, especially in light of Littleton.
Be careful that we do not, in the course of accusing the media and school administrations of placing blame on a group of people, that we do not ourselves place blame on a group of people. I noticed in the previous stories that a lot of geeks are blaming people, including jocks, bullies, parents, and school administrators.
We have met the enemy, and it is us.
-Ben
I've had firsthand experience with the press. A friend of mine was accused by his university of "maliciously hacking" a computer system. What he did was to create a series of nested subdirectories. About 180. They claimed that exhausted the inodes and took out the mainframe. We dug out the logs that proved he was innocent. They didn't care. They force-failed him in his classes and gave him a six-month suspension.
As a last resort, he went to the press. I, and others, went with him. The press made him out to be public enemy number one. After all, hackers are evil. That sold more copy...
To this day, my one real regret is that he never hired a lawyer... Or filed a lawsuit...
As for the press: Where do you think all those bullies went after High School?
My suggestion: Talk to the press. But preserve your anonymity. Don't let them use your face or name. Or perhaps even your voice. That way, when they get the story all wrong, and they will, at least YOU have some protection.
To any of you high school-aged kids that may have the opportunity to speak on this subject to a mass-media outlet, please think very carefully before you speak. We have already seen messages from youngsters that chose the wrong words when expressing their feelings and were removed from school, sent to counseling, or contacted by police. Many, many of use can relate to what these kids in Littleton were possibly going through, but expressing this view with the wrong words can make you a target for some "authority" to make an example out of you and show people that they are doing something. Please, don't let it be you that is used by people out to promote themselves.
I had a similar reaction from my wife and father- just a "whatever". My dad was more interested in writing a letter to the editor on gun control than discussing the root causes.
Likewise in high school, I ended up having to suck the stuff up and take it. This whole discussion with so many coming forward with their experiences has been unexpectedly theraputic.
It is very true the persecution was experienced by a variety of people- the strongest/most aggressive/"best socialized" on top. I wonder how/if this could be changed as it seems intrinsic in the structure of the schools. Maybe its a consequence of the individual school's administration- good administrators, good teachers wouldn't put up with this crap- but PHB school admins are another story. Frankly, how could you trust any Principal to stop people abusing you, when you've been brought up to fear talking to him/her. Sure, "their door is always open", and "they just want to be your friend"- but how can that trust exist when they have such power (some real, some imagined) over you? Even if they do something, and stop some jock from punching you in the stomach whenever you walk past- why then, he and his buddies have a reason to torture you.
The media coverage on this issue has been nauseating- they resemble a bunch of vultures feeding on the corpses. "Gee, why don't you poor kids give us a group hug so we can put it on the front page." This can only increase their irrelvance.
I hope there are enough media people with a concience and some particle of integrity to push some of the other aspects of this story.
Gregm
This is my life, and t his is my story. My life has begun, and has seemingly ended with the net. I'm 25 now, and I have nothing to show for what seems like a patethic life. Anyway, I want to tell my sad story, in the hopes that someone out there, a Good Samaritan as it were can at least point me in the right direction.
.58 average. My parents gave me the choice of going to a local community college, or getting kicked out of the house. I went to school. I hated it.
I am a Cuban-American, which is a nice way of saying I'm an American Citizen who doesn't identify with being American. I learned to spean Spanish first, and I never properly adapeted to being American. My formative years are very confused and very blurry, I think I remember being intelligent, but I was always getting into trouble with authority figures, wheter by calling them names, or having this need to make them feel stupid. I distinctly recall various events leading up suspension, and many, many, many frantic calls by tortured school administrators to my parents because I was "difficult" I was never evaluated or tested for any type of learning disability so I don't know... Maybe that's part of it.
High school was, difficult. If you've seen "Something about Mary". You know her retarded brother Warren? That's what it felt like to be me. I cried for a month after reading Ordinary People, because I thought that suicide was the best way to go. I didn't want to live, and I knew nothing was worth it. I never got around to actually killing myself primarily because I couldn't find a graphic enough way. I wanted something with explosions, that were guaranteed to work. None of this choking to death or shooting myself nonsense. I wanted something dramatic...sensational.
I'm fat, that describes me. High school was a fat person's hell. I mean, I wasn't Jabba The Hutt, but I was close. I was at least 60 pounds overweight throughout high school. The football people loved it. I was perfect to beat up in the locker room. I played for a single season, I did a lot of tackles, and I suffered through 2 weeks of football camp. I would always be last place in the running times, last place in number of tackles, and last place in anything. I ended up crying to the head coach, and I don't remember much more. I was curled up under the covers afraid to come out at that dreadful place. At the end of all that, 3 months later. I was barely able to keep up with the slowest runners on the team. And I got very good at accepting physical abuse. Fist fights in the locker room, headbutting lockers, that was easy. It was easier than dealing with reality.
Anyhow, that didn't last long. I had already discovered girls, and oh, great was my woe. I was under this mistaken impression that girls would like someone who was fat, if they were good at football. People on the team even told me as much. Anyhow, freshman year came and went without a single date, or even anyone I could even ask out. I pined for what I thought was the promised life with some girl, somewhere. It never happened. To this day, I still pine for Karen Ficken.
I did a lot of shop-lifting that summer. I stole every single Science Fiction book out of Waldenbooks near me. Whole bookshelves worth. I got caught by Mall Security near August, and they let me go with a warning. I at least had a friend, in Marilyn, a grammar school classmate who was somewhat antisocial, and we viewed this as our escape. She was a friend, and romanticism never blossmed. A couple of weeks after school started in September, she disappeared to Florida. Supposedly to be with her Lesbian lover, Tara.
I got a job, working in some Dental Office somewhere. Part time, after school. I sould suffer through the humillation in the hallways, and being a social outcast and I thought that if I had money, "chicks" would dig me. Never happened. I don't remember much besides setting up a BBS (you know, a Bulletin Board System), those quaint things that people did back then. I was rude, and obxnoious, and had a lot of other rude, online friends, who thought the same way. We did the usual pranks, lit up pentragrams in gasolines in school parking lots. That type of thing. I lost touch with all of them later on. I never knew what happened to any of them, I guess it was better this way. At least they couldn't pin down anything on me.
A couple of months went by, BBSing day in and day out. Never going out on weekends. I mean, sure, there was the occasional attempt to go to a dance, and try to talk to someone, and get laughed at or something. But I always went back to it.
Anyway, Sophmore year ended, and I worked in a factory over the summer. That was fun. I got yelled at, and beat up in the parking lot by these big black guys because I was making them look bad. I would hide in the rolls of shelves, and take naps in the scaffolding of a 3 story building. Hiding 20 feet above the ground seems to make you invisible.
That summer, I hacked my way into some local college, and discovered Usenet. Whoa, and IRC-ii. On what was to become EFnet's #bondage, I discovered many friends. Inanna, Kiran, Justice(JRJ), Crimson, Elf, Akasha, (I know I have my times mixed up here, because I was on for a while). I can barely remember the names of them all. People I talked to, almost daily. They were more real to me, than life itself. Their stories, their history, I lived my life through alt.sex.bondage. Downloading the newest story was the highlight of my week. Reading something new was, more important than any political story, or news article. Truth be told? I did an awful lot of sexual self-discovery through the wonders of alt.sex.binaries.erotica. I remember lots of fights, and people fighting about one of the bots on channel. Something about the "Great Banning of the Five". Who the five were? I only remember Inanna. I remember her being very high-strung, temperamental, and passionate about people she liked and cared about. She didn't really talk to me that much, and I tried to stay out of her way. I guess with practice, being meek comes easy. So does impersonating someone's email address. Live a lie, long enough, and you become the lie. Days, Weeks, months passed.
Junior year came and went. People did drugs in school, Mesc, and Pot, were the drugs of choice. I became known as the piss-drinker. I mean, sure it was diluted and all, but the reptutation persisted. People would point at me, and laugh. It doesn't matter where I would sit, people would just laugh. I discovered smoking, and booze. Soon, every day was a good day to drink. Sure, go to class bombed? Fun fun fun! I mean, sure I was still on IRC, but...well... I thought I was cool.
The year came and went, I didn't bother anymore. I read, and I was online. Meeting real physical people was a pretty big waste. I had a senior prom. I drank 2 liters of Absolut. I puked all over someone else's limo. I had to have a friend fix me up with someone, because obese old me, couldn't get a date if the future of humanity depended on it. I remember being so happy to graduate.
Ah, but then the story takes a morbid twist. I applied to school after school. My acceptance letters all came late. A college in Tennessee, and 2 local schools. Not a single school I wanted to go to, replied. I found out later, that my parents simply didn't mail checks with all the forms. They figured spending $50 for UCLA was pointless. I mean, sure, we can't afford it, so why bother.
I ended up going to a state school. I met Jenifer, there. She was a nice girl from Conn, we talked a lot. I tried to hit on her endlessly. To no avail. I don't know. Maybe there was a reason for it. I ended up meeting a Matthew-Sweet lookalike, who I hung with a bit. He was uh, great with ladies, and I was terribly jealous of his skill. He had dates, and was always going places. Me, I'd try to join a club, and be too timid to even apply. No, my nights were spent to a higher passion, reading stupid computer books, and figuring out how to play games. A few months later, I discovered I could lie, and stay home and be online all day and never go to class. I was able to do it for almost 2 years. Wow, I did a lot, and talked to a lot of people. None of them probably remember me anyway, so it's probably a blessing. Thankfully Deja News has none of my work archived (Whew). That would be really embarassing.
Around the same time, I started to hang out with my Sister's boyfriend a lot. He treated me like a brother. He showed me how to drink, how to smoke. I don't know, for a while there...*Gasp* I might have almost been cool. I had friends, places to go on weekends. It was probably the happiest time of my life. I did pot, I did coke. I went nightclubbing. I even bounced for a while. I vowed to make everyone in high school pay for the crimes they committed against me. My war against humanity was in full force. I vowed to see them drop, man, woman and child bow before me, as I sliced their throats. Death, Happiness, and rage filled my days. Liquor, and carnal pursits my nights. I worked in a go-go bar. I pitifully flirted with the dancers, while I secretly plotted their demise.
Anyhow, my sister broke up with him, on August 9, 2 days before my birthday. I ended up crashing my car after driving 65mph in city limits, and I nearly killed some other drunk driver. I was able to remain friends with him for nearly another year. I can remember after that, how the doors would come crashing down, and people wouldn't return my calls. I sank into a pit of misery and depression. Too apatehetic to take over the world, too lazy to even clean my room. I wallowed. I was kicked out of college for having a
I ended up meeting my first girlfriend. She was, a lot of things to me. She was white, she drank a lot. We faught a lot. I had sex. I used her for sex at first, and came to lover her after time. I tied her up. I got to do all the kinky things that festered within me for 20 long years. I abused her, I poured hot wax on her. I spanked her, I gagged her. I beat her, and I liked it. I enjoyed causing pain on her, and the fact that she liked it too, was kinda cool. Slowly, I started to come out of my shell, but I never became the person I wanted to be. I stayed with her because I was afraid, and I loved her. Afraid of being alone again, and Afraid of never finding someone else like that.
We grew, she moved. I changed her. I became a hardcore shoe fetishist. Money was no object for shoes. I downloaded pornography all day long. Gigabytes of it. Entire collections of buxom-beauties. 20, 30, 40 years old. It didn't matter. I tried to fill the hole in my heart with empty pictures of long dead women. Betty, Eva, and Whitney were close to me.
I changed jobs, and we stayed together. I discovered new torments, and Armbinders, and ball gags, and spreader bars, and everything else. New things waiting to be discovered. But the closer we became, the more she complained about how I felt empty. That I didn't romance her, that I didn't feel like I loved her. And it's difficult to feel like you can love someone when you can't even accept yourself. We faught a lot, nearly constantly. I hated a lot of what she did, she loved me through and through.
I changed jobs again, and got a job working for a major telco with a substantial salary. Technically my skills were without peer. Professionally? My attitude sucked. I couldn't get anything done that involved any sort of people skills. I lavished her with expensive gifts, and shoes. At one point her shoe collection was over 200 pairs. I brought shoes weekly. I lusted after them. I would follow women around, and ask where they brought them. I would buy any magazine that even showed a pair I hadn't seen before.
But through it all, we stayed together. Now, she went to the same community college I went to, and things went downhill. We never saw each other. I'm feel like I'm being dumped, but she explained that I needed the time to find myself. She didn't want to waste anymore time with me, if I was so fucked in the head.
I'm angry and I'm sad. I'm crying daily. Just hearing the sound of her voice brings me back to being fifteen. I mope, I'm angry, I'm rude. I'm cursing people on the way to work. I've been picking fights. I haven't yet gone to a cop and tried to get shot, but I think it's coming. She's still there for me, as a friend, but I feel so hurt. I could go on, but I'd rather not break out into a crying plea for her to take me back.
I need help. I need I don't know. Everything. The chance to erase my life and start over. I need therapy, and maybe more. I don't know. Drugs, Prozac, Thorazine, and maybe Ritalin. I don't know. I'm angry about everything, but I know that I don't fix myself, I'm going to die. Either Die a lonely and bitter man in 70 years, or I'll die in a brilliantly spectacular death somewhere on a highway somewhere.
I'm kinda lost on therapy. I know I can't afford it, but I can get it through my insurance. I'm posting a list of all the people on my plan. Hopefully someone who's scene aware can read it, and tell me if any of these quacks can help me. I understand that I'm a deviant, but I'd like to be able to go to someone, who can understand that I'm kinky. I don't know. I want to be normal, but I want to be kinky. I want to be skinny, and not fat. And while I'm working on the fat, I can't let my soul rot. I can't go online like this, and I'm turning to the one audience that helped me before in my time of need. I really don't know what else there is to say, except Thank You.
anonymous_loser@yahoo.com
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I believe that the reason we've got people attempting to use the recent tragedy in Colorado to disarm the American populace is multifaceted.
One of which is that the Europeans and Canadians are jelous of the freedom and prosperity that we have in the USA. As I'm sure most of us have experienced, it's like when you get a roomfull of your classmates angry at you for "ruining the grading curve".
I believe that the Europeans carry a cultural bias against us because many of the early immagrants to this land were ejected from european nations. Now we have the most powerful nation on the planet. Like when the geek who get's picked on by Johnny Football hero grows up to invent something that cost more than Johnny's gas pumping job will allow him to afford.
Self loathing among Americans is once again on the rise. There are some in our midst who feel guilt at the great advances we've made. They have been seduced by the hope of being glamorous like the eurotrash imagery that they are fed in the tabloids and from hollywood. In order to purge themselves of that guilt they concentrate on the negative aspects of our country. We've got x nmber of homeless...We had y number of murders last year...Only z of us could afford health insurance last year.
They convienently leave out that x*230 have homes. That y*5000 are living in relative safety.
Guns are made the target because our attitude towards them is unique in the world. In this country the PEOPLE have the power to determine their own destiny. We can't be forceable quieted by the government if we say something too unpopular. Or if we tell a secret that the government doesn't want out. Or if we refuse to have the conditions of our lives dictated to us. A few individuals among us have been silenced, but there are many more carrying on the work.
The fact that Kevin Harris shot and killed William Degan and was later AQUITTED of murder charges because Agent Degan was involved in an illegal operation is proof that the system we have in place can and does work.
People all over the world bash the US, but they're more than happy to take our aid in the form of money from the international monetary fund or the world bank. Who gives the most to the UN? We do.
The US has enough gun laws on the books right now (actually we have too many). If law enforcement was allowed to enforce them properly we wouldn't need any more. Bill Clinton claims that the brady Act stopped the sale of over 250,000 guns to people who were prohibited from owning them. If that's te case why have there not been 250,000 prosecutions for attempting ti illegally obtain a gun? Why because it's a sham, it's a lie. They want to change the way we think about firearms. They've even thrown out the Red Herring of "sporting arms". The 2nd amendment has nothing to do with sporting. Not target shooting, not duck hunting, not necessarily even home defense. The words of the men who wrote the constitution confirm this.
Before you atttempt to make us into potential victims like yourselves, just keep in mind the last time your "safe" european countries were in trouble, it was a bunch of tobacco smoking, gun toting Americans who bailed you out.
Guns availability is not the issue, remember Dunblane Scotland? No matter how tight your controls are, there will always be nutcases who go berzerk and attack innocent people.
After all, in the 1930's-1940's Germany had nice restrictive laws related to guns.
http://www.jpfo.org/L-laws.htm
Sorry for the rant, but I've grown weary of outsiders and know-notings telling us how to run our country.
LK
I truly don't believe that either of these two kids would have ever bought into racism, Naziism, or anti Christianism (is there a "term" for that?).
When I was in HS, my twisted little mind found many ways to retreat from those that caused me pain, including a fascination for guns/bombs/militarism, as well as Paganism. It started with a self-defensive superiority complex, where I convinced myself that I was better than "normal" people, because I was smarter, or a non-conformist, or a free-thinker. Some of that was helpful in establishing an identity in a world that wouldn't let me be normal, and some of that was pretty destructive, but ultimately, I don't know why, I turned back from "the darkness".
I have to also admit, that I teased too. I was prolly about 20% up from the bottom in the social pecking-order at my school, and I'm not proud of it. So I'm having a hard time coming to grips with pain AND guilt. I can't blame the teasees (shooters) because I was teased, and I can't blame the teasers (because I teased), and I sure as hell can't blame music, video games, or guns, because I have at least half a brain. I guess I can turn to "the system" like everyone else, and relate that I too witnessed the institutionalization of the "caste-system" - where teachers favored the popular kids, and ignored the unpopular ones, and in judging conflict, the administrators most often sided with the populars. (in fact, I was almost arrested because some jock stole a kid's walkman, and said he saw ME do it. The thing that saved me was that they searched my person, and my locker and couldn't find the walkman).
Can I empathize with the rational that caused these kids to go berzerk? Yes. I "snapped" at some point, and others describe it here too. Hand-to-hand seems so much more "acceptable" than guns and bombs. It shouldn't have to be, and frankly, I don't know what would have become of me had I not become proficient in HapKiDo, or had I been physically just plain unable to win or at least draw my fights. Not all oppressed kids have enough of a physical stature - possibly the reason why they are being teased. (
Mostly I'm just glad to know that I'm not alone, and that it's damn great to not be in school anymore.
Life is a Bitch.
School is it's son.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Anyone have their familiy not get it or actually turn on you for telling them the truth?
My wife has gone so far as to threaten to turn me in for sharing many of the non-mainstream-media views expressed here.
Getting this message out is, however, worth any personal marital hell I may face for my views.
In Liberty, Rene
I remember the saying, but I don't remember who said it. "It is important in the process of fighting monsters, that we ourselves do not become monsters." This is the most important thing. Pointing the finger is not what will solve the problem - that's what got us here in the first place. Instead, offer solutions. Yes, school administrators, jocks, teachers, and parents are part of the problem, but that doesn't mean that we should just blame them and expect them to fix it. We need to stop letting ourselves be the victims. We need solutions. Suggestion: Read "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine" by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. That book has done more to help me understand our society's dysfunction than 25 years of living in it did. The first couple chapters are really the most awakening, then for the rest of the book, I was saying "Uh-huh, right, yeah, that makes sense..."
InThane
I was perhaps the skinniest kid in junior high, but also had red hair. Talk about getting attention. Physical education was mandatory and one of the activities was football. I can tell you about getting flattened into the ground by some big dudes. My interest in electronics and comptuters got noticed and was able to help others. People knew I was worth something and I was looked at more than some weakling.
What saved me was getting any jobs I could and getting money for activities and later a car. Money makes it possible to do fun things and people like to join fun activities. When I turned 16, I did my time at Burger King making $100 to $200 a week part time at minimum wage. Had a nice car too. The jocks knew I was working hard and came to respect me. One insisted that I date his sister (unfortunately, I refused as I was dating another at the time.)
The best way to enjoy school is to be a fun person. The person who has the most fun, wins. It helps to have money and squander some of that precious time after school. After all, there is a lot of stress and there needs to be places to go and people to see. We didn't have the internet back then, we had the telephone, CB, cars, public parks, cruising strips, parties, etc. Nowadays, its too easy to find someone to talk to. Back then, we had to really get inventive to meet people.
After reading the cover of the latest Time, The Monsters Next Door, I thought "oh no, more persecution". Imagine my surprise to see a balanced look at the issues:
- The Curse of Cliques
- Page 2 of the cover story goes over the daily treatment received(bottles/rocks thrown at them from moving cars, persecution from jocks and teachers, etc.)
- Coverage of the Goth scene in We're Goths Not Monsters
- Flash: movies don't kill people from Bang, You're Dead
- The computer age may be giving kids a new outlet for their dark fantasies, but that hardly means it is turning them into killers. from Digital Dungeons, an article covering software.
I suggest that Time is commended by our community for covering the truth behind the issue.I just wanted to briefly thank Jon Katz for all of the hard work he's done on this story. Millions of kids across the nation know the pain of being abused by their peers and thanks to Jon and Slashdot, this message is finally getting out.
For those of you in High School, be careful but vocal. Don't let other students trample over your rights. Physical and mental abuse is something that shouldn't be tolerated in any environment, espically by young people. Hopefully by getting the word out, we can make a change.
United we stand, Divided we fall.
Yup, Katz's article (including a few choice quotes) is mentioned in the LA Times today. Follow the link to read it.
-mike kania
>Anyone have their familiy not get it or actually
:>
>turn on you for telling them the truth?
It's kind of funny that you mention this. I personally haven't talked about it with my girlfriend (of 4 years), as I'm not really sure what to tell her.
Like a lot of people, I guess I was kind of living in a shell throughout most of my school career. School was hell, but I eventually got out of it.
When I met my gf, I had finally snapped out of it. No, I didn't take on jock-like characteristics by any means, but I learned to be pretty happy with who I am, to accept who I had become, etc. She never knew the 'old' me, really.
From her perspective, I'm just a guy with geekly leanings. I admit it, we both laugh about it from time to time, it's no big deal. She wasn't the most 'popular' kid in her school, but by no means was she a geek. She was well liked and for the most part made it through with no hatred toward her or those like her. I don't think she would understand that part of things.
Sure, she knows I spend WAY too much time in front of a computer, but at least I get paid for it. She knows I prefer reading to a lot of TV, and science fiction impressed me more than the average romatic comedy Hollywood spews out. Yeah, I even used to play RPGs (gasp!) on occasion. No big deal. She loves me anyhow, which is great - but she doesn't know what it was like way back when, either.
Strangely enough, though, after I left high school everything changed. I had slain the worst demons of bad self image, and that was the end of that. Now I'm a 20 year old part time college student with a '96 Eclipse, a beautiful girlfriend, and a job that I enjoy (please don't consider me a yuppie, as I'm not - honest! *grin*). I see these shmucks on a regular basis and realize that they'll never leave this town. In a way, that is the greatest revenge.
To those of geekly leanings still in school - hang in there. Your time will come. You'll "fill out" as a person, become more attractive (even if just in spirit), and learn to live with yourself and even enjoy being who you are. For the time being, find some people outside of high school who can understand you - they're out there. The denizens of Slashdot have real life counterparts, you know. Ride the rough seas of high school and you will eventually be just fine. Trust me.
Anyhow, I now carry on my quest to show my gf the beauty of the geek world. She's taking May 19th off with me (why, you ask?!?), loves video games (mostly RPGs), and is learning HTML as we speak - without a wizzy-wig editor. Much can be said for a 'late bloomer'.
I guess being a geek really is an outward manifestation of the best things humanity can offer. Tolerance. Curiosity. Creativity. Passion. Rest assured, these are not qualities to be ashamed of... Be proud, be safe, and be yourself.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I don't know what to say my friend. It's been gnawing at me like crazy as well.
My wife sounds a bit geekier than yours (and hey, that adjective is by no means a perjorative, thank you very much). She endured some of this #$%^ in jr. high, but went to a high school where honors classes etc. were actually valued. Did the same problems exist @ her high school? She can't say; either they didn't exist or she was oblivious to them. (She can be brutally honest about people, including herself. That's one of the reasons why I married her.)
There's a reason for her trepidation. Both of us are getting involved in anti-discrimination workshops as of late, and there's one thing that's very peculiar about members of any privileged class (i.e. "normal people", whatever that means). They'll not only deny that a problem exists; they'll be TOTALLY UNAWARE that the system has favored them (or at least never counted against them). No clue, zip, nada, nobody home. Your wife may be completely naive to everything, and it may not necessarily be her fault. (Just as you can be a racist without being a Klansman, if you catch my drift.)
I'd keep at her, though. It's not too much to ask the person you hope to spend the rest of your life with to understand (and to confront?) the issues that are important to you. And that is not too much reading for one day.
Again, take care; I hope she sees the light someday..
-----
".sig,
There are people who never will understand this.
They are simply incapable of it. Not necessarily
because they lack empathy - though the empathic
ones will at least sense your pain - but because
they so utterly lack any kind of frame of
reference. Virtually all of them were either
part of the "in" crowd, or were the wallpaper,
not popular, but never targetted to the same
extent. From your description, your wife is
very much the former, who will never get it
because she lacks the empathy to realize what
impact she has on others. I suspect that because
it is clear from your post that she is _still_
like that - and I'm sorry to say that I also
suspect your marriage might face some long-term
trouble over such a basic divide. Whether you
can bridge that, I can't tell - but I do think
you very well might have to to have a happy
marriage.
-- Larry Smith
The main thing about the net sites is that they are full of the people who are being targetted by this wave of anti-geek reporting, so the web sites will have most of the debunking of the stories. Unfortunately, the web sites don't always reach the people we want to speak to; your average Joe Bloggs in the street, who sees the newspaper and TV news stories about how bad these games are for childrens' psyche.
What we need is for someone (or a small group of individuals) to volunteer to appear on some chat show and for the show to accept just to give another view of the story. Unfortunately, I can't see it happening...
--
TV and other media can help raise awareness of these important issues, but we do run the risk of this turning into a personal Gerry Springer show. Do you really want to be paraded in front of the world - just because someone is telling your story doesn't mean they are doing it for your good - dont be pawns in the next ratings war.
There ARE producers/programmes out there that will take on some of these storys because of thier value and truth but I dont think there are many.
"Some of these reporters get it, some don't."
None of them get it, yourself included. Who didn't feel left out in high school. It wasn't just the geeks. Even the 'popular' kids had problems. No one is numb to this.
I'm tired of writers fixating on the geek. Writers like you, Jon, perpetuate the issues. Who really gives a fuck who is a geek and who isn't. Most anyone that you'd call a geek really doesn't even care. It's writers like you and the entire media that create the geek, that breath life into it's lungs, that have given him the dirty label he has.
And then two high school kids go out and try to blow up the school. A place where they felt foreign, unliked, whatever. Violence is never a way to deal with one's problems, I'm not ever going to say that what these kids did was right. But shit, the best you can fucking come up with is that they knew how to use the internet, that they used it to distribute information, and that they enjoyed Quake, Doom, and Duke'Nukem. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
It means that you have as much a clue as anyone else. And I'm not speaking just to you Jon, you're not the only one to blame here. It's the entire media. Why don't you stop grasping at straws and get the real fucking issue for once.
Making generalizations based upon a video game and internet use stains everyone.
Until we start getting to the real roots of the problems, kids are still going to be the same way they've always been. Violence will be more pervasive. I doubt if we've seen the last of this. Lest we forget, misery loves company.
jp hackworth hackworth@newstrolls.com http://www.newstrolls.com
Once a reporter has interviewed you, you lose control over your words. What you say and what gets printed can easily get misrepresented, misunderstood, or taken out of context. The printed/aired story becomes "Truth".
I've been interviewd twice - once as a teen by the local paper after I won an award to attend a science honors program at Columbia, and once as an adult regarding a subject area and program I worked on. The local interview was OK, although I didn't like how I was described ("flippant"? - I'd have to ask my parents for the clipping if they've kept it for 30 years!).
The "professional" interview quoted me at length, made me appear to be an authorized spokesman for a government program (I wasn't), and never told me I was being quoted vs. providing general background. After the story ran in an industry newsletter, I was almost fired at our customer's request, which would have permanently ended my employment in that industry! Fortunately, I was able to convince my bosses that I was taken advantage of, and my track record with them backed up my claims. (The "reporter" later called me to ask how I liked the story he had printed! Fortunately, yelling and cursing on a phone call in 1988 was not then a felony)
There is much to be said for annonymity over noteriety. If you DO get "lucky" enough to be interviewed, I'm sure John can offer specific advice; here's my 2 cents:
1. Get the topic and "slant" of the story before agreeing to be interviewed.
2. Make clear what is for quotation and what is not.
3. Present yourself as you want to hear/see/read about yourself.
4. Keep your own record of the interview and have someone else present (a parent or trusted adult if you are a minor).
5. You lose all control over your words the instant the interview ends.
6. The reporter is interested in getting a story and benefiting themselves, not in helping you. This is reality, not cynicism.
7. Be helpful without becoming vulnerable. Some of these people WANT to be educated and will listen to reasonable words.
Good Luck!
You know, just like alot of you my school years up until university were utter hell. I can't begin to describe the overwhelming emotions of fear, anger, hurt and bitterness that consume me when I think back on them. I learned to harden myself and I pushed all of those emotions down deep. It never affected me and I didn't think it would because, like I told everyone "I don't care what people think about me." After such a long time of keeping that burden pushed down inside of me I thought nothing of it.
However, after reading all of the postings and the hellmouth articles it finally started to hit me. Those emotions finally rose up and I can honestly say I shed a few tears. In post after post I found people I could finally relate to and who were feeling what I was/had felt. Call it geek therapy, or whatever, but it was nice to not feel like an outcast.
The part that hurt the most is that my wife and I don't see eye to eye on this issue. She bought into the media hype and fanatacism and not only tries to justify it but defends it too. So I printed out the two articles and some of the comments and took them home for her to read. I really needed her to understand. First of all I had to almost force her to read it, secondly she got only past the first page and a half and said that that was too much reading for her for one day. I felt like saying "What not enough pictures for you?" She promised to read more of it later, but I doubt that she will. That made me feel even worse.
I guess that's what you get when Mr.Geek marries Ms.Popularity.
Anyone have their familiy not get it or actually turn on you for telling them the truth?
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
I sit here reading the posts, remembering the pain I went through in High School. I still go through it to this day. Am I going to bore you with yet another account of it? No. I'm going to make you think about this whole situation.
This is wrong. The amount of media attention given to this is astounding. Every day there are gang wars in cities across the country. Kids in the ghetto are being shot everyday, and they maybe get 30 secs on the news. Nobody seems to care. Just because they are poor, or black, or asian, or mexican, or gay, they don't get the same attention as upper white class kids in Colorado did.
Think about it for a second.
15 teenagers lost their lives to stupidity, yes, this is horribly tragic. But how many kids lose their lives each day to alcohol, gangs, drugs? Why don't we hear about them for days on end?
Stop and think about Bosnia and Serbia. This is going on every day there. Somebody's kid, father, mother, brother is dying. Do we hear about it?
America has it so good, and many here don't even realize it. If you hadn't been born in America, there is a very real chance that you wouldn't be able to post to Slashdot, because you wouldn't have a computer, or the right to post what you thought. In some countries, you can be persecuted (I don't mean just discrimated against either, I'm talking being forced to leave your home, or shot even) for the color of your skin or what religion you follow. Why isn't this on the news for hours upon hours at a time?
I'm tired of day after day of Littleton stories and half-assed reporting. I'm sick of memorial services. Where is the rest of the world? What about them? This is the real tragedy.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
One thing that it seems "visitors" may be taking away from all this on Slashdot is the idea that the connection works both ways: Just because people can understand what might drive those kids to commit mass murder and might even admit to having those feelings themselves does not mean that they're defending what was done or saying that murder is ok.
Just like I could say I respect Hitler's leadership abilities without being a Nazi or that I can understand why immigrant Irish workers and sharecroppers hated blacks without being a racist, I can say that I understand what might drive those kids to kill without having a trace of the urge myself. These were not normal people. As many people have pointed out, they were in many ways like us, but they were not us.
Many people here may spend countless hours looking at the pentagrams id shows us, but the vast majority of these people don't worship the devil. These kids, however, had the racist feelings to stand behind their swastikas and the guns to back up those feelings.
As one of the emails to Katz showed, some people think we're defending what was done or saying that it's understandable. It's not. It's the emotion behind the actions that's understandable. I would hate for visitors to Slashdot to think that we all think what was done was somehow justified.
It's really tough having to live through all the persecution, and I can really relate and I feel sympathy for every one else who had to suffer the same. It's easy to blame the schools, because they turned their backs, looked the other way, were understaffed, and were too jaded to care. It's not that they didn't care, actually, but that there were too many issues, too many problems, and no real solutions for them to do anything but give up.
I don't want to justify their behavior in creating this kind of situation, but I would like to explain some of the their reasoning in all this.
At least in my schools, there were overcrowded classrooms, aged and retiring teachers who just didn't have the energy or youth to deal with us, and and not enough funds to do anything they would have liked. In order to handle and deal with a class, conformity was stressed over performance, individuality, or creativeness. How could a teacher handle 20 wildly independent, unique, creative, inquisitive students? Whether intentional or not, they managed to convey to us the idea of conforming, of not rocking the boat. They were happy and excited whenever one of us showed initiative or intelligence, but they did not actively try to push us towards that goal.
Kids picked up really quick; they became the enforcers of the norm, and if you were different of race, of behavior, of attitude, of anything, they'd target you for this.
This was a school system which actively recruited for GATE students, but didn't have the resources to actually do anything with/for us once we were identified. They actually used us to gain more funding for stuff such as books, repairs, maintanence, etc. They didn't have the training or resources to manage a handful of gifted students, so we were left to our own devices, and then resented for it by all the other children.
This goes on all the way up to high school, in which I finally figured out how to look cool, how to act cool, how to be cool. I also happened to gain a foot in height and 40 pounds of bulk, so I guess people didn't figure I was such an easy target either.
Something does need to be done to change the system. We live in a society that does reward innovative unique and creative people, but the system we use to train and manage the kids tries to destroy and contain these things because they cause too much trouble.
I was talking to my dad about this, and he mentioned that even private schools have this fascist need to maintain conformity, except that they raise the bar and expectations much higher than in our public school. Are there any real solutions available?
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
" Reading Yesterday's article helped me realize how absolutely lucky I was my last two years in H.S. ...in our school it was the "in crowd," e.g. the "snooty rich snobs" who were marginalized. In fact, the easiest way to join the margins wasn't by being different -- it was by trying too hard to be like the "Snobs". They existed in their little world, we existed in ours -- but "we" were 75%
of the student body, including the overwhelming majority of the athletes and 90% of the cheerleaders, valedictorians, etc.
What makes this all the more special in reflection is that I come from a city high school that had 3,000 plus students, with a perhaps 35-40% minority student body. Talking to a few of my friends at a recent class re-union, I was surprised that some of
them never felt like part of the crowd back in school -- until I asked them if they had ever felt left out. Jaws dropped as they realized just how good it had been. The main theme in the follow up conversations I had with them were about normal teen insecurities, something like "you're right, we really did ALL belong. I just wanted to be more like...." (fill in the blank with the appropriate 'popular' person or group)"
O.K., so we were lucky. Big deal, right? No, the big deal is WHY IT WAS THIS WAY.
The difference between my HS and many of the others was that about two dozen young people of all economic backgrounds, colors and popularity levels decided to MAKE A DIFFERENCE by speaking out for friendship, openness, and diversity from the time they were in the ninth grade, then sticking to it. This was in contrast to the going average in the a community -- racially driven riots a couple times of year every other Sr. High school for several years running.
So who were these two dozen or so people? We're talking about folks like the head cheerleader, starting quarterback, middle linebacker, basketball center, student body president, a couple of the more popular members of the choir, a pretty good H.S. rock band and even even the occasional "shy-but-somehow-trying-to- stay-involved" odd ducks like me.
Led by a school administration that taught them that they could make a positive difference and then mentoring them in how to get it done. I find myself wondering if instead of hearing positive values like this, what today's youth are hearing is the echoing and empty sound of silence."
--end of e-mail--
I would be interested in hearing from /. readers, etc. regarding both the pain and the positives so that I can make the information available via the 'Net. Please feel free to respond.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I am not a Sociologist nor Ethnologist i.e. I am not a scientist specifically trained to analyse an alien culture. But I am a scientist (Phycisist) from Germany and part of my motivation to come here is to understand the American culture.
The most scary thing I observe in the mainstream culture is a disdain for intelligence: "Dumb is good!" a slogan I saw in the TV movie "Brave new world" could be almost the banner for mainstream (white) America (may be a little bit different for the black American culture). I talked to a white American psychologist about it (a professor of mine at business school) and he told me he perceives a teen attitude that equates "being smart with being uncool". What a weird culture. In Europe being a university student means to be someone special, somebody with the potential to outstanding intelectual achievment, somebody who favors scientific truth over a big paycheck. Copmpare this to the frat boy as student role model.
I was a geek as kid. And I was an oddball but I had some respect from my peers, because I didn't suck up to the teachers, and I helped them out when I could. I don't know how many geeks had experiences like this in the US. This good geek school experience seems to me rather the rule than the exeption in my country. I hated school just because I wasn't free to do with my time what i wanted.
My fiancée is kind of an American geek girl who went through school by escaping into permanently reading SF. She hated Junior High and High School, and I think it did some severe damage to her. If we have children we don't want them to go through the American non-academic school system.
I try hard to figure out what is going on in this culture and why it is so different from Europe. Since I haven't gone through the US school system I don't know what it is from the inside but it seems to me to be a prime problem of the American society. I am aware that this is certainly no new insight, but it is concerning to see that nothing seems to be done about it. I remember that Bush senior put it on the agenda when he ran for presidency. I know that Steven Jobs, in an interview I once read, was delighted about the idea of organizing public schools privately, but I don't think he had the time to follow up on this.
In Europe it is good common political practice to compare your own national society with other Western countries in order to learn how to improve. That is something completely missing in the US (political) culture. Why invent yourself if you can copy good practices? The open source movement showed that this works for all sorts of matters. Nevertheless the US are just roasting in their own juice. The US society might figure out something the hard way, but it will produce a lot of unhappy American geeks along the way (and some dead students).
That in the midst of all the kids being stripsearched for wearing black and expelled for not parroting back group think, concerts being cancelled and movies being blamed, not ONE, not ONE case of a school instituting an zero tolerance for bullying. Not even a prominent voice. Just our scream of anguish -- and for all it is loud to us, it is barely heard in the wider society, which sees only flowers, sorrow and comprehension of thirteen and not of two.
Oh, there's the occasional article discussing cliques, but they are almost invariably wrapped up by quotes from smug little experts going 'oh, it's all a part of growing up, it's *good* for them'. Here, shall I show you the scar on my head from the time (one among hundreds) that someone tripped me on the way to my seat and I smashed my head against the corner of the desk? Go on, tell me how good it was for me. Or perhaps we'll seat you, Mr. Expert, in a room with 25 other people and have them whisper abuse and throw things at you for an hour a day. Oh, and you can't skip, or we'll arrest you. Go on, tell me how it improves your self esteem.
Fuckers. And they wonder why we feel alienated from the majority.
Laura
Over the past few days, people here on
Do you really think that the primary reason for the ostracism of these two kids was because they were especially intelligent or geeky? How many geeks do you know of who are car theives? How many Nazi geeks do you know of? Even if you knew a car-stealing-racist-Nazi-geek, do you think you would be especially compassionate towards them? I try to be compassionate to everyone, but for kids such as these, I don't think I could even muster that. There had been reports of these kids walking down halls yelling "nigger" at any black person they saw. If I was faced with this (I am black), I have little doubt that I would be downright hostile towards them. I was ridiculed for many things back in highschool, but whenever someone insulted me because of my race, I could always count on 99 percent of the rest of the school to stand behind me in my defense. Although the students of Columebine HS probably regret it now, I'll bet that many of them acted similarly.
I seriously doubt that these kids were really geeks. I find it pretty odd that so many of you here consider them as such merely because they played Doom and had a home page on AOL; even my mom has played a few video games and is working on a homepage on AOL -- of course her page isn't likely to be filled with death threats, pentagrams, and/or swasticas. So many people here have objected to the fact that the schools are now (after the killing) "cracking down" on geeks because they think they may have homicidal/suicidal tendencies. I'm sure I don't have to remind any of you here, but geeks tend to have FAR more self resect than that. Despite the ridicule geeks receive daily, most geeks I know carry a huge amount of dignity with them; some are even a little egotistical. As far as I can tell, these killers hated both themselves and everyone around them. A person who is confident in their ability to eventually succeed isn't going to shoot up their schoolmates and kill themselves. If you want the schools (both the administration and other students) to stop scapegoating geeks, you should emphatically remind them that geeks have absolutely NOTHING in common with someone who is capable of amassing a stockpile of weapons, walking into a crowded room, and shooting anyone present.
These two killers have been described by other students as being "freaks." Only the media has tried to portray them as "geeks." Which account do you believe?
EVERYONE feels lonely, alienated, picked on, and an outcast in high school. With the POSSIBLE exception of the captian of the football team and the prom queen. It's part natural teenage emotion, and partially just the general cruelty that kids at that age treat each other with.
..., in high school, because I sure didn't. I had a great time in high school. Sure, I wasn't the most popular kid in high school, but I still had a great time with my friends (and my bong... heh heh heh) I dated a fair number of girls, all of them attractive, some even "popular," one of which I'm still dating and in love with after almost 2 years together. I took computer classes, I programmed in my spare time, I looked at MAD porn on the internet, did all these "geek"-like things. I managed to be myself in high school, not worry about fitting in (even though I seem to have a natural ability to), and not worry about being the most popular kid in school. I had a great time in high school.
Ummm... or not. In high school (which ended last year) I was a crossbreed geek/druggie/hippie type. I don't agree with you that everybody feels alienated,
Of course, I can definately understand how much it would suck to be fat, ugly, acne-covered, whatever, in high school, because I saw these kids get picked on a lot. I made an effort not to pick on these kids (except the ones who I was friends with, I picked on these kids constantly, but they knew I was just kidding around.) If I saw one of the popular kids picking on one of the unpopular kids, I'd try to step in and do something about it. Once one of the most popular members on the football team was harassing a nerdy freshman coming out of the library (I was a junior at this point). I stepped in and told him to leave the kid alone. He assaulted me, and I beat the living PISS out of him. I broke his nose and bruised 3 of his ribs. Once the story got the administration, I was actually PRAISED by my housemaster. (the other kid attacked me so I was able to play it off as self defense.)
To all those people who are geeks in high school and feel unpopular, picked on, whatever, I have advice for you: Don't worry about being popular, don't worry about being accepted. Just do your own thing, let the popular kids know you couldn't give a shit about their opinion of you, and they'll start to respect you. Because the popular kids are really just as insecure as you, but for some reason they are accepted by everybody else. They really wish they could do their own thing and not act like everybody else, but are too chicken to do it, and as a result feel a need to persecute those who have the guts to be independant. I know, I was friends with many of these people in high school, and this is exactly how their minds work. Once you show them that you can stand up to their persecution, they'll stop, and begin to respect you.
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
This is going to be a interesting week.
:)
The first week after the Littleton killings, we were blasted with all the standard cut and paste tragedy news in the mainstream media.. All the "the community is coming together" crap that always happens after a tragedy such as shit. But this is different. This really struck a nerve in the geek population, because many of us relate to the killers. As sick as I am sure it makes us all feel, its true. There is a little bit of them in a damn large population of us. We are doing someting about it, as a community, we _have_ come together.
Week one was everyone putting the peices together. I was watching it on several dozen mailling lists I administrate. I was actually waiting for someting along the lines of what was going on there to happen here on Slashdot. It has, and the Slashdot effect in its own little way is taking effect, but not on someone's website today, but alot of people's minds. A place were we are all happy to see the load averages cranking up.
"Thinking about these things can't help but make you smarter." -- Jello B.
It applies, big time. Although, this goes even farther. Jon is right, we should be carful what we ask for. Actually, scratch that. We would be _aware_ of what we ask for, and be ready for it when it comes.
On the Internet (as Jon put it at some point), a story rides is its own merit. This one has some real issues behind it, people are intrested/scarred/concerned/effected.. The action here WILL have an effect. Even if it is just to show some of the people truly effected by this that they are not alone.
As I see it, no matter what happens here, we win. As a community. The role the Internet has teken in this... is good.
...
. "The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and
...
. "The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and
. intelligent. The machine easily m
There's a growing trend, as the internet and/or AOL becomes a popular place for kids to hang out, for computers to not just be for the 'geeks' anymore. Although most of these people may not have the same knowledge I have, it's a start. If this someday leads to the geeks being more accepted because of their skills I'm not sure, but it's a start.
How does this all fit into the grand scheme of things? The media will NEVER have it right, I think that's the bottom line. A good example (non computer related though) is that a video rental store opened up in my home town (a fairly small city of 26,000 in New Hampshire) that happened to rent out adult videos. Some people threw a fit over this, and some students from a private school that was right across the street from the store spoke out against it. Not that they cared, but it was worth some extra credit or something along those lines. The teachers all made them do it basicaly, and they said hey what the hell if it gets me on the teachers good side. I am close friends with someone who was a student there while it was going on.
What I'm saying is the media will get some tool student to tell them what they want to hear. Does this mean all media? Of course not, but enough to further mislead all the adults out there. To tell them to lock their kids up in their rooms and not let them use the computer because it's the devil incarnate. I'd love to give the media my point of view but I don't think it would change anything, or at worst they'd twist my words all around.
At one time I thought being a teenager was just a pain in the ass. I couldn't wait to get out of school, but as I look ahead of me I see 2 more years of highschool and 4 of college that I've got to deal with - I just try and take things as they come now. But the bottom line about school is that at least 99.9% of students (and I'm not exadurating, at LEAST that many) don't like school. If you ship someone off to what is basicaly a prison to them for the first 20 years of their lives you're bound to have someone act out, in whatever way they can think of. Sometimes that acting out goes way too far, and thats when we get the Columbine situation. Everyone feels neglected at one point in their life so that's not the issue. Hell if so many people were in this 'Trench Coat Mafia' they had each other to socialize with.
The issue is if we look back in history people longed to go to school. Kids just don't give a damn anymore, once they hit middleschool they think they know everything they need to know. I should know, I thought I knew everything I needed to know and to be honest right now I think I probably know everything I need to know. With 2 more years of English, Science, History, and Math ahead of me that is so usefull all my elders have forgot it already? If everyone forgets their Highschool math courses why are we learning it? I want to do something in computer science as an adult - I know that now - but I have to learn 6 more years of proper etiquet when writing a letter? I have to memorize the periodic table for what? This is the frustration people get with school, the social groups is just the icing on the cake.
- tred
So, while geeks seem to be the target of the recent witch-hunt in schools around the country, and we are right to feel indignant, remember that we do NOT corner the market on alienation.
No sig.
Errr, actually no. Words can hurt no matter who says them, it just hurts more when someone you care about/love/respect says them. Why do I say this? Because there's been a lot of psychological research done on these topics. Mainly in regards to how/why brainwashing works, also in studying things like boot camps and cult recruiting. Even if you don't care at all about the other person ,their constant and repeated verbal assaults will change you. If you're constantly told you suck, you're stupid, you're ugly you will have serious mental problems as a result. If you're constantly interrupted, never allowed to respond, it does bad things to the logic circuits in you're brain. There are whole bodies of literature out there on these kinds of things. Granted if you're mentally prepared for these things you'll weather them better.
This is especially true when a large group of people is doing this to you. A concerted action by a large group of people over a longish period of time, like at a cult 'retreat', a boot camp, or a High School. A toxic atmosphere like this is unacceptable at a POW camp, so why do accept it in a HS? Hell if I know... I know I'm planning on running for the school board whenever I settle down.
So sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can also hurt me.
There was a segment on _Today_ this morning mentioning something like 16 bomb scares nationwide in one day in the wake of the Littleton shootings.
They did not say how many are normal, especially at this time of year. 16 might be a few more than normal, or a few less. Or it might be much more than normal and a reason for concern... or maybe not. An event which was quietly handled two weeks ago, rating no more than a 1" column on page 37A, will now appear as the lead story on page 1.
More to the point that Katz and others have brought up, it's reasonable for the administrators to take strong action when a student possesses a pipe bomb, posts a detailed "hit list", or has written plans for placing a bomb in the school.
But what on earth does the students' choice of clothing material have to do with this? So what if a student wants to wear all black? Or combat boots? Or funny makeup?
(I can accept that banning dusters and trenchcoats might serve a public good... but why strip search a student wearing one? Does the principal expect to find a shotgun stuffed in the student's undergarments?!)
Clearly these events are totally different, yet we've had numerous reports from students of authorities seeing no difference between a tube of eyeliner and a pipe bomb. We know this is insane, apparently a few reporters sniffing for stories know this, but why isn't it in the mainstream press? Do the editors somehow think that a bit of mass panic is good for everyone?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Today I read the LA Times; an article about the "COLUMBINE MASSACRE" piqued my interest as its heading was something to the effect of "Geeks Empathize".
In it, I read of one student in the Southeast who was threatened with expulsion for expressing in a guidance class that he could understand why they did it.
Of course, many of us can "understand" why it happened. In my school system I was as much a menace as I was a victim of others' menacing. I knew both sides. Neither produce healthy attitudes about oneself. But the feelings of having hurt other people still linger. Seeing the pain and embarrassment in another's eyes to the satisfation of a few friends is still so revolting that I could again lose sleep over the depths of my evil, the obvious hypocracy of so easily turning my pain into anger and using it against another.
The fact is, there are outcasts within "The Trenchcoat Mafia" who leave school each day feeling rejected by the rejected.
So when the principals in our lives offer threats of expulsion for having a deeper, more rich and human understanding of pain, we must be strong, be wise, and be forgiving. If we hate the principal, the boss, the girlfriend, the guys in the car or row behind us, we perpetuate this desease.
I write this because I read the article and immediately thought about getting back at the ignorant Southeastern principal (I scanned the article for the name of the school so I could give him a piece of my mind); I thought about killing the ignorant South. I thought, "Crash into New York City, bomb the repugnant hypocracy of LA, rid the world of hypocrits and evil, and anger..."
...And then I thought better.
Subtraction tells me I'm 30 now, but Junior High will never seem very far away.
I grew up Mennonite. Most of you who have even the faintest idea what that means are probably thinking "horse-drawn buggies and no electricity". Maybe this will clarify: Amish:Mennonite~::~Hassidic:Jewish The main point is this: my family had a slightly different set of values than that of most of the kids I went to school with in suburban Wichita, KS. I wasn't dressed in preppy clothes. I was taught that violence was unequivocally wrong. I was taught to treat others with love and respect. That made me just slightly different from those around me, in a not-quite-identifiable way.
Fine. Grade school was generally tolerable, though by the end of it I was starting to formulate some ideas about why the education system sucked so bad, especially for the creative individual. Isolated experiences with bullies started making me a bit cynical about the kids I went to school with, but it could be survived.
7th. grade -- the beginning of Junior High. Hell opened up its stinking, wretched maw and puked all over my little world. Instantly, and for no reason I could conceive of, I was singled out for systematic derision and abuse -- not by one or two people who happened not to like me, but by tens of people from all different cliques and social groups. People I didn't even know would call me a fag as I walked down the hall. Food would be thrown at me in the cafeteria. Stuff would be smeared on my locker. I was spit upon. I was shoved. This was not teasing, or good-natured razzing, but systematic abuse. I can remember screaming obscenities at a whole shop class.
It wasn't just because I was in the "gifted" program -- there were lots of others who didn't get the shit I got. It wasn't that I was some kind of teachers' pet -- I really didn't get great grades -- I was always more interested in my own projects than whatever it was the teachers happened to be saying. It wasn't just because I was into computers -- there were plenty of geekier geeks than me that weren't singled out in the way I was. Everyone I knew read science fiction/fantasy if they read anything at all, but they weren't called "space-cadet". I wasn't a racial minority, I wasn't the ugliest person in school, or the fattest, or the skinniest, or the richest, or the poorest. I wasn't gay, and though they called me a fag, I don't really believe that anyone actually thought I was homosexual. That's just the Junior High code word for "We f'ing hate you!"
The point was not that I belonged to the wrong group, but that I didn't belong to any group. Though we pay lip service to "Individualism" in the US, what we really mean is "selfism". Society doesn't really respect the individual as a social entity. The naked individual is truly the most hated, isolated minority there is. Racism, sexism, and homophobia, are all instantiations of the one great hatred: The hatred of the Individual by the Group.
I've played more fantasy/sf role-playing games than I can count. I've played Doom. I've played Quake. I've seen plenty of movie violence. I'm still committed to pacifism. What you get out of what you see in the movies or on your computer screen depends more on the values and experiences you bring to it than the content. In High School, my friends and I would play elaborate wargames with toy guns that shot plastic tracers and rubber bullets. Later we graduated to paintball. Did it desensitize me to killing? No. Paintballs can sting. You can pump up a lot of adrenaline and fear in a paintball game, even though you know the most that can happen is a little welt or bruise. But if you come to the game with a healthy dose of common sense, empathy, and respect for life and others, you learn how utterly unthinkable real violence is.
I learned something profound about the world one day in ninth grade when I was being taunted by a couple of the more popular girls in the school. There was a girl in our class who had skipped a grade or two and was developmentally behind everybody else (physically, at least). She was almost as much a pariah as I was and was dumped on unmercifully by the conformist majority. So the popular girls were goading me to ask her out to some dance or something. Clearly, the implication was that here were two geeky freaks that were perfect for each other. Not wanting to be associated with somebody that was so despised, I began insulting her. She wasn't present to hear it, but I later started to feel really uneasy about what I'd done. She had done nothing to deserve that from me, other than being another outcast. So why did I do it? It suddenly occurred to me that I could understand why the other kids treated me like shit. I had done the same thing to someone else (behind her back, at least.) It wasn't that they hated me as an individual. Some of the same people who trashed me in front of their friends were on occasion at least civil to me on an individual basis. It wasn't personal. It was all about the all-mighty Group.
I resolved to be the ultimate anti-conformist -- I wouldn't do what the f'ing conformists wanted me to do, but I wouldn't reactionarilly do the opposite, either. I would do exactly what I wanted to do and be exactly who I wanted to be. I had been through Hell. Nothing they could say anymore was worse than what had already been said. For me, it wasn't a choice of whether to conform to this clique or that, but a challenge to survive Junior High and High School without belonging at all.
I was taught not to hate others, and after seeing that I was fully capable of being just like them, it was a little easier not to. But I had to have some object for the hatred that my classmates were pumping through me, so I hated the Group and the System. I constructed an elaborate fantasy world where Weird Energy would ultimately triumph over the numbed, mindless army of conformists.
I can't say that I emerged from Jr. High/High School without a scratch. I can't say that I always perfectly lived up to my ideals. Despite my convictions about violence, I beat the shit out of one kid a couple times. But I can only imagine what I would have done if I hadn't had some pretty strong moral beliefs restraining my hand.
I never had a date till my sixth year of college (out of seven -- I was still more interested in my own projects.) We've been very happily married for 3.5 years now. But it took a revolution in my thinking before I could ever ask her out. I was so afraid of rejection, and I'd built up this idea that I was such a unique, nonconformist individual, that only a few, extremely rare women could ever see me for who I was. So I'd get infatuated with a girl, and think "this is the only one who could understand me -- this is my only chance for a meaningful relationship, so I'd better not screw it up" -- and would be parylized into inaction. I would think that I would have to make her want me, by being so charmingly quirky that she would come to me. It was bullshit and it never worked. I finally had to decide that this one shot was not my only chance, and I could take a risk.
But before that were many hours of "The Wall" on video and as a midnight movie. There was lots and lots of misery, self-pity, wretched poetry, and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" in those college years. Yet I did not kill myself or anybody else. To do so would have been dumber than a shitsickle stick. It would have meant that the bastards had won, that the System had ground me under it's wheels. Finally, I learned that wallowing in self-pity wasn't the most attractive trait I could have, and after I dumped that, things did get better. I still listen to Pink Floyd though.
The Politics of Exclusion is what creates homicidal lunatics. Conformism is the root of all evil. It's certainly why Uncle Bill is so filthy, stinking rich. Ultimately, we have to hold people accountable for whether or not they give in to the assumed desires of the conformist majority and become part of the problem, or think for themselves.
That's part of what makes the Open Source movement so compelling. Generally speaking, it's not filled with a bunch of me-too consumers, but rather people who have at least half a brain, and are interested in being part of a better solution, popularity-be-damned. It's about thinking for yourself, being creative, and being inclusive. No wonder this issue has generated so much traffic here.
So what's my point? I dunno. There's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.