If you were reading an opinion piece in a newspaper, would you expect or be bothered by personal details?
If you were reading an opinion piece in a newspaper, would you expect or be bothered by personal details?
Pretty much every living being has, at some point in their life, been bullied with varying levels of severity. A majority of people are able to get to adulthood in two or fewer pieces even if they still hold that feeling of inadequacy with them.
But what about the ones that don’t?
The most recent case that comes to mind is the 10 year-old Ashlynn Conner from Illinois. According to Huffington Post, Conner’s classmates had been calling her “fat, ugly, and [a] slut.” After getting her hair cut short, children referred to her as “pretty boy.” It got to a point where, unable to handle their cruel taunts, Conner hung herself in her bedroom closet.
Plenty of questions went through my head when I heard this story: how did a 10 year-old know how to tie a noose? Where did her classmates hear words like “slut” and where did they get the idea that Conner was anything close? But the most pressing question was “Where were the adults in all this?”
Well, Chicago Tribune says that when Conner went to her teachers for help with the harassment, they told her she was being a “tattle-tale” and did nothing.
For me, that hit pretty close to home. My middle-school tormenters all went unpunished despite my multiple attempts to get help from the adults around me. Everyone told me to just suck it up, including my parents. While I was never at a point where I was ready to hang myself in my closet, it hurt. It was a bleak time with very few bright points.
And my taunts were extremely mild and pretty short-lived compared to what some kids go through. Some spend all their teenage years being sent cold-blooded anonymous messages through websites like Formspring and Tumblr, physically and emotionally beaten up in the locker rooms, catcalled and harassed sometimes in the streets, but mostly in school. All for having a socially unacceptable body shape, for being queer or transgender, or for just enjoying things that are stereotyped as things only queer people like, for being a certain race or religion or dressing a certain way. The dedication that people put into their bullying may outweigh the dedication some teachers put into ignoring the fact that their students are real people who need help and can’t just “put up” with the torments they’re subjected to. There are some clubs on campus specifically meant as a refuge for the bullied, Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) being the main one. It is meant for people of all orientations and genders to join together and discuss serious and interesting topics, primarily of those involving gay rights, but all topics are welcome. Unfortunately, there are some students who are too scared to partake in clubs like this for fear of how other people will judge them.
These sorts of suicides are not far and few between. Teachers and students need to start stepping up; if they hear derogatory slang being thrown around in classrooms, they shouldn’t ignore it, because kids are taking those words to heart. When we think there’s something wrong with us, we let that feeling fester and take over our lives until eventually it leaves us a lifeless hull. Everyone feels that way. Shouldn’t we doing something about it?
In the beginning, there were arranged marriages, and unfortunately, there still are in far too many places. Marriage was originally a way for fathers to sell their daughters off to other men to bear grandchildren, but sometime a few hundred years ago as the patriarchy began its slow descent into the subtler form it uses now, some select few people were lucky enough to choose who they wanted to marry, and it tended to be other individuals they had strange “love” feelings for. It’s a tradition we’ve had for so long that those who don’t participate in it are often treated as if there’s something wrong with them. In the world we live in, you don’t have to have a successful marriage, just a marriage at some point in your life. Considering how important it seems to be to some people, it’s strange that there are still so many places where gay marriage isn’t legal. For some reason, the fact that there are two men or two women on stage rather than the traditional one man and one woman sincerely bothers some people.
Some say allowing homosexuals to wed would ruin the sanctity of marriage. As long as Britney Spears is able to divorce her husband after only 55 hours of marriage, there is no such thing as the “sanctity of marriage.” As long as there is divorce, there is no such thing as the “sanctity of marriage.”
The primary reason given by Prop 8 supporters tend to come from religious reasons. Let’s forget for a second the whole separation of church and state thing and look at their main argument: gay couples can’t procreate, therefore their relationship is a sin. If this is really a problem, sterile couples shouldn’t be able to marry either, and it hardly seems fair to deny two consenting adults the ability to marry just because something they can’t help prevents them from adding to the world’s population.
Some think that if we allowed gay marriage, we could start marrying dogs and trucks and things other than consenting adults. If you think of your spouse as an object or lower being, please consider why you are marrying them. Still others believe it would bring about the legalization of incest, as two brothers marrying would not arouse fears of deformed children. If you are worried about there being a sudden surge of gay, incestuous couples, you are probably projecting your own feelings onto other people and might want to see a psychiatrist.
If you compare this to what people said about interracial marriage, you’d see a lot of similar arguments, and if you came out against interracial marriage nowadays, you’d never be given the light of day. So why doesn’t the same apply here?
WE ARE FINALLY AT THE JOSEPH SMITH CHAPTER IN APUSH. THIS IS SO EXCITING I AM POSTING THIS HERE. HOLY FUCK I AM READY.
I totally didn’t mean to post that last thing, but anyway, that’s who I am and I guess if you don’t like it you don’t like it?
But pit hair, yeeeeaaaaaaaaah, bro, pit haaaaair.
I LOVE MY ARMPIT HAIR.
Like every where else I would rather be permanently hairless like everyone else seems to be, but my pits are like “Yeah! I’m here and I don’t give a fuck!”
It makes me feel like an Alison Bechdel character. I am like a less politically-aware more-artistically-inclined Mo. Except I don’t have a Sydney. There’s no way I’d put up with a Sydney. I want a Lou. Or a Ginger.
Or just an Alison Bechdel would be nice because she’s amazing oh my god we are so meant for each other.
Editing drafts for the newspaper is sort of painful, but I get so much joy out of it. Maybe this is my calling. I was born to be critical of writing.
Can you get used to all-nighters? Is that just going crazy?
Rock ‘N’ Roll High School—The Ramones
I don’t care about history
‘Cause that’s not where I wanna be!
Tomorrow is 80s day for the juniors and what I want more than anything is to be a junior and to have a skinny junior friend who would be the Linnell to my Flans. But no. It can never be.
Fuck it, tomorrow is Punk Day for sophomores. I’m gonna Ramone it up.
