idoubtit

I am thinking about school violence. And not necessarily about what compels misanthropic, alienated students to create a columbine-like situation, but more about what leads them to do so. I am talking about the way American adolescent children treat each other. Some may benefit fruituously from the institution of public high school. It is after all, one of the first places where children network and, aside from the home, arguably the place where they are socialized most. But high school is not all fun and games. Many children suffer horribly from school violence. They are taunted and teased relentlessly because they are not a well-oiled cog in the machine of the system. These children may have diagnosises of learning disabilities, social anxiety, mental illness, all three of which can cause them to have low self esteem. How can the system label them deviant and then punish them for it? I mean some of the most intellectual and creative people in the world's history have been labeled as social deviants and they are still glorified. But these children suffer relentlessly from a system that it is just not possible for them to be part of through no fault of their own.

So children tear each other down. they throw each other into the ground and scar each other for life. the pretty, popular ones asserting their "social surperiority" over the ones that just can't reach their level. This social darwinism of high school politics has created a hate-filled environment in which our children suffer every day. And I am not just talking about those who are considered socially weak, but even the fairest of the fair when it comes to social politics of high school. It is proven that in South Africa, all citizens have been affected by the apartheid, both the oppressed, the black population, and the oppressors, the white population. The same is true for high school. Those on the highest rung of the social ladder may not think that teasing some girl for being "geeky" and "badly dressed" has something to do with why they feel down on themselves most of the time, but it does. By trying to create a darwinistic, capitialist model for the institution of high school, what we really have created is a culture of hate for our children to grow up and suffer in.

I am not saying that an event like Columbine is justified, but how do we create a culture of hate and then complain about the hatred that surrounds us? What the institution of American high school should do is show children that, though they are different, and may be afflicted in different ways, they should all learn to respect each other. I am not saying that this would stop people from treating each other badly in general, but when a child is systematically attacked in an environment that claims to be safe and nuturing, this is a terrorist action. We complain about the terrorist actions of 9/11, as well as those that happen in countries overseas, but what most Americans don't understand is that there is terrorism right under our nose, and it is effecting that who we care about over all others, our children. It must be combatted.

Now most children of high school age will argue that bullying is not a systematic problem. This can be attributed to the fact that our children, like most of American society, hold on to their ideals above most other things. They would love to believe that there's no bullying, and calling that weird girl a dork sometimes doesn't count. In truth, this is not reality. What we all say and do effects one another, and for a popular child, teasing another child may just be asserting their strength and power, and thus, their place in the world, but for the child on the recieving end, their place is being shown to them as the place of an untouchable in a caste system.

Now, just like a crackhead parent that abuses and neglects their child and the child goes to jail, if a child is abused and terrorized at school, how can you blame them for engaging in deviant and destructive behavior. Now the influence that a parent has on a child and the influence that a child has on a child are very different, yes, but both are extremely important in a child's life. And if they are abused or neglected severly in either facet, the child will be more likely to develop self-destructive, angry or agressive tendencies, that may lead to crime, drug use, and other forms of social deviance.

Hopefully there won't be another Columbine, but if there is, then maybe people will not ask God how on earth something like this could happen. Maybe they will actually learn something and look inside themselves and society for the answer.

But I doubt it.