Category: bullying

Rationalization, thy name is Andrew Shirvell

Quibbling over campaign tactics?

Watch this if you can stomach it. It’s extraordinary. Cooper nailed the guy with the definition of cyberbullying. If you look at Chris Armstrong Watch, a creepy website Shirvell runs, you might agree with Cooper on his analysis of the state of Michigan definition of cyberbullying. With all the caps and hyperbole, it kind of reminds me of another website. Um, it has slipped my mind, oh wait, I had it… Oh I lost it. Could it be? Oh well, I just can’t remember it right now…

Christian citizen?! Please help us…

Shirvell, who is an Assistant Attorney General with the State of Michigan, was critiqued by his boss, Mike Cox, on AC360 tonight. If cyberbullying isn’t in play here, how about harassment?

UPDATE: This is not the first time Mr. Shirvell has gotten bothered over gay. Here is a 2005 article in the University of Michigan paper where he is interviewed due to his outrage over a rainbow flag sticker at a pizza shop.

This 2008 piece in the Michigan Messenger claims that Shirvell was Mike Cox’s campaign manager during the 2006 election as Attorney General. That might help explain why AG Cox is reluctant to investigate Shirvell’s activities outside of Chris Armstrong’s dorm and college activities.

California teen bullycide victim dies

Yesterday, KGET reported the death of Seth Walsh, a 13 year old boy, out as gay, who was bullied constantly. In this report, confirmation of the situation comes from his tormentors.

Tehachapi police investigators interviewed some of the young people who taunted Seth the day he hanged himself and determined despite the tragic outcome of their ridicule, their actions do not constitute a crime.

“Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears,” Jeff Kermode, Tehachapi Police Chief, said. “They had never expected an outcome such as this.”

He said the students told investigators they wish they had put a stop to the bullying and not participated in it.

Friends said Seth was picked on for years because he was gay. 

School administrators said they have an anti-bullying program in place, but schoolmates said staff at Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi offered Seth no protection or guidance.

Broken record, broken system, broken kids. Once again, I call on those who cast suspicion on anti-bullying programs to just stop the culture war long enough to address the real needs of real children.

Be sure to watch the follow up video…it follows immediately after the news report on Seth Walsh.

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Asher Brown – Another bullycide

I can’t think of how to start this so I will just post the link and grieve.

Parents believe bullies drove son to take his life

The eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.

Brown, his family said, was “bullied to death” — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.

The 13-year-old’s parents said they had complained about the bullying to Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns fell on deaf ears.

Please, no debating about why he was bullied, or which characteristic was most responsible. Just action.

Broken arm, unbroken spirit; Ohio boy wants to keep cheering despite bullying

An Ohio boy who loves gymnastics joined a cheerleading squad. Some other, older boys broke his arm over it. Roll the tape:

An Ohio mom is disappointed that her son’s school didn’t do more to stop at least two boys who allegedly picked on her 11-year-old cheerleader son until the bullies beat him so bad they broke his arm.

An 11-year-old says classmates attacked him for cheerleading.

She says the beating didn’t break his spirit however. Tyler Wilson has vowed to continue cheering with hopes it helps him get into college some day.

“I’m going to keep going. I’m going to make a lifestyle out of it,” Tyler told ABC News affiliate WTVG.

According to the mother, the incident where Tyler’s arm was broken was the culmination of previous assaults.

“When I went to the school, about two days after it happened to discuss Tyler’s story, the principal said there was an incident Monday and the Friday before, that the boy who started the fight had jumped on Tyler’s back and tried to start a fight,” she said.

Kristy Wilson said if she had known that Tyler was being physically targeted said she would have certainly stepped in to stop the situation, going as far as removing him from the school.

“I really wish the school would have let me know a lot sooner, so I could have dealt with it sooner,” she said.

I bet now the school folks wish they would have dealt with it sooner.

Bullied student takes his life

Greensburg, Indiana is the scene of another suicide involving anti-gay harassment.

 

In contrast to some advice givers, I would say Greensburg schools need to talk about sexual orientation related harassment in their schools.

Tonight my local school district rolls out a bullying prevention program. I am on the committee charged with making it work and I have already heard concerns that the exercise is just some kind of left-leaning pro-gay thing. My reply is that my children in elementary school have been called anti-gay slurs. I live in a small town full of truly caring people and we still need to discuss respect for all. They do in Greensburg. I bet they do in your town too.

(Hat tip to Timothy Kincaid)