Arkansas Blog

I don't know what it was like for girls, but for me, junior high should have been named the Gitmo Years. After 6 years of being fairly popular in grade school, my 7th grade years was torture. Every bully at Kimmons Junior High zeroed in on me like I had some kind of tracking device hidden behind a big pimple or something.

It was horrible and I remember I wasn't alone in the cross-hairs, not that that gave me much comfort when the Bloodworth brothers decided I needed my ears flicked until they bled. Gym class was the worst. Never in my life had I been forced to shower naked with 60 other boys. Like laps weren't bad enough. Like boxing wasn't bad enough. Like battleball wasn't straight out of the Spanish Inquisition. My sin, apparently, was being skinny and wearing glasses. Not being in the least athletically gifted didn't help at all. If you were fat, you had a red flag on your head too. I was automatically labeled a fag, even several girls told me to my face that they hated me because I was a faggot. Guess they didn't notice I had an erection all the while they were killing my soul.

Getting home was the hard part. After the last bell I'd hang around the band room (ok, bandie didn't help either) hoping the bullies would go home. But at least 3 times a week I'd be wrong in my assumption and somewhere in the 5 block walk home....they'd attack like Kamikazes out of a cloud. When it wasn't threats of torture, it was ear flicking, and sometimes just a plain ole ass whipping. All for no reason I can figure out to this day. Just mean kids with ample opportunity to be mean. Big boys taking out their frustrations on smaller guys.

Not all of them were poor and behind the 8 ball, some of the worst were nouveau riche kids with Honda 90s and ski boats in their parent's back yard. But I can't say enough about the greaser gang....they'd actually lick their lips while taunting me.

Where were the adults? Where were the adults at Columbine? Where were they for Billy Wolfe? The coaches in gym class knew what was going on. They'd smile as they slipped in their office leaving 60 boys alone to work their evil. They encourage battleball and other activities that pitted the Christians (boy, this is a stretch) with the lions in the Kimmons coliseum. I know teachers have their hands full, but after 15 years of being the parent of children in public school I am amazed at the petty crap teachers and administrators spend their time worrying over while the big stuff goes over their heads like jumbo jets.

I've never been black of course, but I think as close as I got to the black experience was heading off to junior high every morning scared to death at the thought of what might happen to me that day. One bully can do a hell of a job of making someone else feel like a 2nd class citizen at best...like a hunted animal at worst. It wasn't the color of my skin that put a red flag on my head for heaping helping of senseless abuse....in fact it remains a mystery to this day. While I in no way wish to imply I had it worse than the luckiest of blacks of that era, being picked on for no reason feels the same no matter what your skin color. And there should be zero tolerance for such a thing especially in our school system.

Lordy....I sound like a big cry baby! I recovered from junior high right nicely and haven't been bothered with being picked on since...well, except for my wife. But I'll always remember the hurt of being attacked and abused for no reason other than to satisfy someone else's twisted pleasure. I've watched for this in my daughters lives and am very happy this didn't happen to them. I also have the perverse pleasure of knowing that most if not all the bullies that picked on me turned out badly......so nuts to them.

We can stop the next Columbine by paying attention to kids who look and act like a death cloud is following them. Some adult at Billy Wolfe's school could have helped his situation had they paid attention. This isn't like child molesting that happens in a dark, hidden place. Kids in every school know whose being picked on and mistreated. We can do better.

It's the kids who get picked on that end up causing school shootings.
Who did the murderers at Columbine go after? The preps and the jocks. Why? These are the groups which ostracize, beat up, and bully everyone who isn't a part of their clique.

Every teacher that turns a blind eye to this better watch out. The story never ends "...and after the administration got tough on bullies, the victims came back to get their revenge."
The story ends "..and the victim, seeing that the authorities would do nothing to stop the abuse, chose to end his/her own life." or worse, chose to take Dad's shotgun to school.

We all know how this story ends. Most of us make it through, we become better people for it. Some people end up tragedies.

In my honest opinion, if someone at any school gets struck in anger, there should be an assault charge. All those offences are sealed after the age of 18, but we cannot pay the price of letting people become statistics.

Deathbyinches,

We can do better! No child should have to suffer what you or Billy did. I say it all goes back to the PARENTS. Kids see thier parents acting that way, to others, each other, etc and they think its OK. If I found out my child was doing that mess, I would jerk a knot in his head and then make him go and apologize and pay for any damages.

I live on a busy street. One summer there was a maroon, Volvo station wagon that use to pass by my house on a regular basis. There were always several teenages in the car. One day I was in the yard working and they drove by, one of the teenages flipped me the bird and yelled "hey you f--king bit--." I just shook my head. About a week later my sister was leaving my home. She ran back inside and closed the door. She said a maroon station wagon just drove by with some kids in it, and one yelled "hey you f--king bit--." She was shaken. About a week later, I was working in my yard and here came the Maroon Station Wagon, one teenager flipped me the bird and yelled "hey asshole, f--k You". I promptly got in my car and followed the car to a very nice home in the Sherril Heights neighboorhood. Later that evening, after mom and dad were home, I drove back to the neighboorhood and stopped at the home with the Maroon Station Wagon. A very nice women answered the door. I told her my story and she invited me in to tell her husband the story. Two teenage boys were promptly called from the back of the house. One was the son and the other was a friend. The Friend had a smirk and apparently thought it was funny. Within two hours all of the teenages appeared on my door step with thier parents to apologize. They even asked for my sisters phone number. THE POWER OF PARENTS!

We let these types of bullies become President Bush Jr. of the United States.. and we now fund industries of torture, securing employment opportunities for bullies..

All American children are growing up in a pre fascist pro bully society today.. Look at what the LR young Republicans (mentioned in past blog posts here) think leadership should act like..

DBI nailed the points where it all starts, is even encouraged, in day to day life at school.

Maybe when we end torture and needless mass murder as the number one effort of our nation, we will be able to address the violent teachings/encouragement of our youth.

America: Lord of the Flies are us.

The outrage is that Billy's parents must sue to help protect their child. Isn't this the responsibility of
the school?

The real wimp in this saga is not Billy. The real wimps and pussies are the adults, like Alan Wilbourn who should have already put a stop to this. But the wimps and pussies at Fayetteville High are too busy to see to their students while they are pimping out for land developers for a new school way out- away from 75% of the students.

You're right that the NY Times article never makes it quite clear just why Billy Wolfe is being tormented. It suggests in one place that he has been identified as slow--as if that would justify tormenting any child.

Even so, the article also notes something that is an all-too-common feature of these incidents of school bullying: Billy Wolfe is being tagged as gay, though it appears he does not identify himself as gay.

The article reports that one of the bullies has built a Facebook site called "Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe," where there's a picture of Billy as Peter Pan. The site says, "There is no reason anyone should like billy he's a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES."

We simply cannot avoid talking about the endemic problem of school bullying in our society, without talking about how gay people (and gay youth, in particular) are considered fair game for such abuse. Therein lies the primary reason--in many cases, the sole reason--that coaches sit by while boys identified as less than ideally masculine are beaten up, that principals turn a blind eye or even blame the bullying on the one being bullied, and that parents refuse to curb their belligerent children.

I'm not saying every boy bullied is gay. I'm saying that all too often, those bullied are identified as gay. And I do know, too, that many girls are bullied, often cruelly so by networks of other girls who can be intensely cruel with their taunting.

The problem of bullying of boys who are deemed gender-inappropriate deserves special attention, though, in light of the murder of Lawrence King in Oxnard, CA in February. No other child needs to be murdered again in an American school--for this or any other reason. We will not solve these problems until we deal with the endemic problem of homophobia in our society, and the role of the churches in promoting, justifying, and covering over this odious form of disrespect of some of God's children.

DBI, I wanted to thank you for sharing a very painful story. It can't be easy to revisit those memories. I speak as one who has them, too. In my case, the coaches stood by grinning while L. Post, the vice-president of the "Christian" prayer group at my public school, repeatedly knocked me down when I made a mistake in volleyball games--which was frequently.

Like you, I was tagged as gay, and in my case, the tag fit, though at the time, I had never even heard the word "queer," which was the tag used to justify the bullying of this particular non-athletic male. Nor did I begin to understand what the word meant even after asking my mother and receiving a very unenlightening answer to the question, since it had something to do with the unspeakable topic of S-E-X.

Thank you for having the courage to tell your story. I hope that it's telling will make some folks think about these experiences. What has changed since I was in school (and you, I suspect, though I also think you may be way younger than I am) is the possibility that children can now take a gun into the school and murder the boy they're taunting.

If you want to REALLY become outraged, attend a school board meeting when bullying comes up!!! If your SB is like ours, the members are all 'born & raised' and have the attitude "it's just part of growing up." This stuff doesn't go on OPENLY in "civilization" that much, mostly just in the Bible Belt - an interesting juxtaposition... Sadly lawsuits, esp. if joined by the ACLU, only inflame the Morons.

THANKS DBI and others!!!! All AR (especially rural) school administrators should be introduced to this thread...

I spent several years listening to teachers and administrators telling me "Well, kids can be cruel." Nothing changed until my son grew to over 6 feet and attacked a kid who had been provoking him for month. My son was suspended, but the assistant principal told me, "I don't blame him, but rules are rules." Kinda puts the lie to all that "Character Education" crap they sell.

The worst part to me is, it's almost always preventable with measures that are already in place.

You can't watch kids all the time, but you can sure as hell watch them enough to keep harassment from becoming more than the usual kids picking on each other.

Junior High is hard for a lot of people. If it wasn't hard for you, you 'probably' were one of the ones making it hard on someone else, whether you were aware of it or not.
The people who turn a blind eye were probably the perps of their class, not the scrawny kids that got picked on.

Also, MuddlingThrough, I totally understand.
Sometimes the most righteous people can be the most destructive. It's like the 'gay' tag gives them the right and responsibility to pick on you, and harass you, and beat you. It's all in the name of toughing you up, so you won't be a wuss. Right.

Times have changed since I went to high school in the 60's. I was an average size kid, and I got bullied a few times. I got beat up maybe twice. And maybe I intimidated some other smaller kid in return. Not sure. I got over it.

But today, kids kill. They go over the top on a regular basis. Like the jock at that Middle School in Oxnard that shot a gay kid in the head last month in computer class. Two tragedies. A kid from a broken home in foster care dead. A kid from an abusive family trying to get his life straight who makes a tragic choice. He is being tried as an adult and will likely spend the majority of his youth in prison. Two young lives wasted.

For the conservatives who say, "Bullying is part of life", and to liberals who say, "Sue the school and parents of bullies", I say, "Zero Tolerance for bullying." Make it the law of the land for school children - in or out of school. Do it, and you get suspended. Period.

Why? Because I don't want some innocent kid killed, and I don't want some hyped-up, irrational kid tossed in jail for the rest of his life for something he wouldn't have done with five more years of maturity.

Well, a whole lot of good it does to figure out where and how young people learn to bully when our political leaders pursue an adolescent foreign policy invading soverign nations unprovoked and lyng about it. The herd learns how to behave from the top down. There's your family values.

JK, you're right, many parents (and the schools) seem to regard the bullying process for children tagged as gender-inappropriate--especially boys--as a toughening up process.

I knew better than ever to let my parents know about what was done to me in junior high. They'd definitely have blamed me and told me to use the occasion to "become a man." When I did mention these experiences to my mother after I was an adult, she was outraged, not that the bullying went on and was approved by the coaches, but that I didn't fight back.

And maybe I should have, though one scrawny little boy against big galoots who are still in junior high because AR law won't permit them to drop out until they are beyond 16 (I think that was the law when I was in junior high) couldn't have put up much of a fight, and I took the coaches' complicity as a signal that I'd probably be blamed if I didn't submit to the gauntlet.

And in the end, the internal fight--to be stronger inside, to be who I am without apology, not to submit morally to people whose sense of morality is at the level of troglodytes--probably did toughen me up.

It also made me determined, as an adult, to fight in any way I can to make it less possible for this to happen to other young folks in school. I think I am angered and saddened most of all that the churches, in this church-ridden state, not only do not speak out, but in many ways facilitate this kind of bullying of gay-identified youth. This needs to change.

There should be no place for bullies or bullying.
I was picked on for years (from third grade to ninth grade), mostly because I would not fight back because I knew that I was usually stronger than my attackers and could hurt them badly. I was usually the tallest and strongest kid in class up until I hit high school. People also picked on me because I was overweight.

All this bullying went on for many years until I got sick of it and snapped in ninth grade. One person who had been bullying me constantly for almost a year just pushed me too far. I hit him a few times and started banging his head against a concrete wall. Fortunately, the vice-principal saw everything and stopped me from really hurting the kid. I did not get in trouble thankfully. The parents of the bully were informed that their kid had gotten what he deserved that day for bullying and that the principal and vice-principal had been telling the kid to lay off me all year or something like this was going to happen. From that point on, no one bothered me.

I saw bullying all through junior high and high school. It was almost constant in gym class. Any non-jock (black or white male) would be picked on by the jocks and the gym teachers. It was hell. I almost flunked gym because 1) I refused to go out for the football team again after tearing up both knees -- this really pissed off the gym teachers-- and 2) because I refused to play basketball in gym (a game that I despise) -- basketball was the only option in gym class because the coach wanted to train his ball players during class.

Bullying doesn't just come from the kids, it can come from teachers too.

Well, you know the old saying: When guns are outlawed only victims of bullies will have guns. So there!

Early on in my elementary school years my family moved out of state to a new town about the size of Little Rock. I had been there just long enough to figure out who the bullies were and who their favorite targets were as well.. As a kid who moved frequently, learning these things were far more important than academics. Anyway, one afternoon i came home to a quiet house alone.. and suddenly I heard a scream and banging on my front door.. it was the school "fat girl" being beaten up by the several year older male bully.. She was hurt badly, the bully threatened me only if I helped her in any way and then he proceeded to burn her with his cigarette. There was only so much I could do at the time, mostly try to distract without allowing it to escalate. He finally left but I never could look her in the eye because i felt like I had not been able to help enough.. and we both knew better than to report it.. it was a very rough school (but I learned over the years equally horrific things happened in nice areas as well).. much like Booker was rumored to be when I later moved back to LR.

I don't know why I am telling this story, but I guess what I wish had been different after the fact most of all would be strength in resolve of parents and teachers alike in support of victims or witnesses who report such violent activities.. it says a lot when the fear of the bullies even wins over the adults for whatever reasons, complicity or not giving a crap.

Though I was neither a nerd nor a big athletic type, I do think the mentality in gym class and contact sports in school promotes far more destructive behavior from coaches on down to group dynamics of kids long after school.. A lot should be addressed there as well.

DBI - I know how you feel. Let me share a story with you.

And up front, I was a jock. All State lineman in Texas in High School.

When we moved to Texas in the forth grade I met this kid at recess on the playground one day. He was sitting alone playing with something while the rest of us were playing kickball. When recess was over I walked by him and noticed that he had this little portable record player and was playing a Beetles 45 on this machine. I was fascinated! Now as best as I could, I introduced myself because I was a new kid on the block. Over the next three years we became long and fast friends. He had frizzy red hair and glasses! A 1960's techie! ( If you have ever enjoyed the music at Friday's, this is the guy who did it as his part time job in college and into his first ten years of business.)

One day he comes up between classes and is scared to death and confesses that there is a bully who is going to beat him up after school. I have only seen terror written on someones face a couple of times and this was my first. My common sense is, I'll walk you home and later your Mom can drive me back to my house. His logic is, let me walk home to your house and your Mom can take me home. By the end of the school day the word was "fight at the Lutherine Church". Problem was, no one told me.

Now, I must say that I know right from wrong. And the watch word here is Parents! I know that if I get in a fight, I might be subject to the Fraternity Paddle by nightfall. As we crest the hill of the Church there are probably 30 kids waiting to watch this fight! And my good friend has failed to tell me it's 3 guy's not one! And DBI, they are Greasers as you put it. And worse, I played PeeWee Football with 2 of them. As we try to walk around this crowd the three step forward and announce that they are going to beat the crap out of my good friend.

I must say that at the ripe old age of 6th grade I must think on my feet and fast for the first time in my life! Eureka! Guy's, neither my friend or I are here to fight, we're going to get a snowcone. Well, we are going to beat the crap out of him. Nope, remember, I'm the lineman who likes to tackle the tailback and the fullback at the same time so whoever the third man is, you better be able to run like hell or I'll catch you. Crisis averted. Now for the next 10 blocks home, my little you know what was puckered up tight. And I learned a very valuable lesson that day. No one needs to be bullied. I can still see that scared face after 43 years. And as years progressed into Junior and High School, he was the glue to our group that consisted of baseball, football and golf players.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. No one needs to bully another person. No matter what their status in this world is. Most people are different from us and that's where we find our lasting friendships. Thank you to my parents.

Most importantly, when everyone else has to call India to help them with their palm pilots and gets put on hold for 45 minutes, I can call my best techie friend in Texas and he has me up and running in a matter of minutes!

Some bullies are made icons and have sreets named in their honor. ConsiderGeorge Tribou.

Tribou's creative brand of discipline exacted upon kids at Little Rock Catholic High for decades; even upon the current principal who still idlolizes the late Tribou and considers him a model for those who understand the needs of teens. Consider the examples below:

a boy was throwing rocks from the garden while another was clapping and encouraging him. The boy had to pick up sticks after school and the other boy had to clap and encourage him throughout the punishment.

making a boy smoke an entire cigar if he was caught smoking cigarettes

making a boy carry a door for a day since he had such a fond habit of slamming it

allowing boys to settle their disputes with boxing gloves. The following day, they would serve in-school suspension together and would not be allowed to talk to anyone other than each other the entire day. If boys fought in the school without being sanctioned, they would have to sit in the main lobby during lunch, holding hands, feeding each other their own lunch with the one free hand.

announcing to the class that he had discovered the identity of the boy who had been seen smoking on school grounds and that if he didn't show up at his office in a certain amount of time, his penalty would be severely worsened (upon which a long line of boys would manifest in front of his office)

giving haircuts to boys whose hair was too long for the school's regulations

making girls and boys hug the pillars of the school lobby all night if they were caught dancing too close during prom

having boys wear a plastic bowl taped to their heads when coming to school with a "bowl" haircut

making a student wear a sandwich board that said "careful, I spit" if caught using chewing tobacco.

Examples Of Tribou's, " Words To Live By "

The measure of a man is his ability to control the animal within."

"We don't offer AP classes; we offer M&P classes. Meat and Potatoes."

"Christ is the reason for this school."

"Be good, boys."

"It doesn't matter how many doctors and lawyers we produce, but how many good fathers and husbands come from here that measures our success."

"To have destroyed the defective infant, Helen Keller, would have been to destroy also the teacher-humanitarian who was Anne Sullivan. In countless cases throughout the world a defective child has not been an expensive, heart-rending burden but a priceless gift that has brought out the hidden strengths of a father, a mother, and sisters and brothers." (unpublished speech, January 31, 1980)

"We don't make rules at Catholic High unless they are needed. We have found the need to make a new rule--you may not flush sweaters down the toilet."

"Many schools have talked of installing metal detectors. That would not work here. These boys have too much lead in their asses."

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tribou"

Whew....long day! I've been thinking about this thread some today. It was so long ago the hurt is gone and none of it is painful to me today. Best I can remember, I never told my parents what was going on. They were typical 1950s parents, but would have been at school the next morning if I had told them I got beat up on the way home. So that was probably a big mistake on my part.

My own father was a bully at times, so probably that had a lot to do with it. The guy tried a little, but he just never really got kids and expected 40 year old behavior from a 10 year old every hour of every day. So I already felt pretty bad about myself before I got to junior high and met the bullies. My dad was raised by 2 orphans who had no example of a normal family life to pass on to him. Now that I've been an adult for a good long time I look back and am amazed my father and his brothers and sisters handled or mishandled married life and kids as well as they did.

I don't know much, but I do know that 99% of the time if you have a bad kid you can lay the blame on the parents. You have to have a license to drive a car, but anyone can have a baby...and lots of em. If I ever did anything right, it was reflecting on my own childhood and making sure that I never ever torn down my kids for any reason. Telling them that something they did was stupid is very different from telling them that THEY are stupid. Kids believe whatever their parents tell them, if you tell them they're an embarrassment, or that they're dumb and will never amount to much......it will usually turn into self-fulfilling prophecy. Ask a child molester, they'll tell you kids will believe anything. They do.

Your time is the best thing you can give your kids and whose got any time these days? But hanging out with your kids breeds trust and when you have trust your kids will tell you everything. I have to admit a lot of what my kids tell me is not the least interesting to me. LOL Cat is cute, but the first 100 pictures was enough for me. But that's the price you have to pay if you want to know your kids. It took me a while to figure out that about the same amount of stuff I talk to them about isn't interesting to them either. But they smile and nod and are nice enough to pretend they're interested...like I did when Jackass was all the rage.

I doubt the shooters at Columbine hung out with their parents. As I remember their parents acted like their own children were from the planet Pluto. If you don't know what you're kids are doing or what they think or why they dress crazy or stay in their room in the dark......you got problems. And as we've seen, in rare cases these problems take a bunch of weapons to school and kill people. Of course this is the worst case scenario, chances are nobody on this blog will have to face CNN because your kid blew up the school. But if you don't know your kid, you're doing them a disservice and you're missing out on one of the best things, if not the best thing in life.

Because my father wasn't such a hot parent, it's driven me to be the best I could be....maybe just to spite him? My record isn't perfect, but it's my best accomplishment and at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging....I have the best 2 kids in town and each year just gets better. I bet Billy Wolfe turns out OK. But I doubt we'll say the same about his bullies 10 years from now. Check their parents out and I bet you'll find the basis for their problems. Bullies don't form by accident.

As a mother of 2 highschool aged kids, I have seen it all. From the time children begin to socoialize with one another (prior to attending school). Parents, community members and school staff have and continue to drop the ball. If you want to rehabilitate the bullies and find out why they do what they do? Do it at the expense of your own kids or yourself. Anybody remeber the term 0 (Zero) tolerence? Yes figuring out why and treating the root cause is hopefully going to rehabilitate the offenders, however every individual has a right to a safe environment and a right to an education free of threats and harrassment. My goodness in a world gone awry with political correctness, we surely can't step on the rights of a widespread group of individuals. The school district should be ashamed of itself for continuing to support such an atrosity, as should all school districts around the world. Stop the offense before you try to molly coddle the offenders.

How is this anything but a case of assault and battery, and why is the school protecting the attacker? The assault occurred on campus, so the school has a responsibility to assist in the prosecution of the little criminal. It doesn't matter that someone lied to the attacker, he chose to assault the victim. Is the attacker a star football player or something?

The story of this child being bullied is heart wrenching. I believe that this goes on nation wide, but I also see that there are certain areas of the country where bullying is modeled by the adults in the schools. The children simply grow up thinking that this is normal and acceptable.
Arkansas educators model violence and bullying every day in the classroom by hitting students with wooden paddles. Anytime the educated sector in a state or community models such misconduct, it sets the tone for the area. The message is clear that bullying and violence are the answers in schools. The bully has simply moved to the head of the class.
It is past time for all educators to model the very traits that we wish for our children to have. We need character education, anti bullying campaigns, healthy school initiatives. Let's start with the very adults who are modeling violence, and demand that educationally sound and research based practice start at the head of the class.
How can we expect teachers to know how to protect children from being bullied, when they too, are the cause of bullying and violence in the classroom?

Go Billy, my years at Bates, Ramey and West Campus wasnt as bad as yours but I had the same treatment from the staff and harassment from the students.

DBI - did you by chance get to see the interview that Matt Lauer had with Billy and his Mom this morning on the Today Show?