By now you have seen the video bullies on a bus saying horrible things to Karen Klein–she was a bus monitor as teenage kids were hurling insults at her about her weight and age, mocking her for crying at their words. She is a mother, a grandmother. A special fund was set up after the video went viral.. it started at $5,000 to send her on vacation and is now in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Clearly, sentiments are not on the teenage bullies’ side. The troubling video has been viewed by millions of people billions of times.
But it opens up a whole new door of intrigue: We think of bullying just hurting kids. We fail to realize that often the subject of bullies and kids in general are adults. Sure, adults are paid to put up with a bit. Think back to high school.. I am sure you will regret some things done to teachers or officials in your school.
However it seems to be taking on a new life of its own in the Twitter era. Facebook posts can be made hidden.. but damage can be done. The AP posted this unsettling snapshot of our time: Bullies and how they hurt teachers more in this new online era.
The AP explain what Klein faced on the bus this way:
Students poked the bus monitor with a textbook, called her a barrage of obscenities and threatened to urinate on her front door, among other callous insults. One student taunted: “You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they don’t want to be near you.”Klein’s oldest son killed himself 10 years ago.Eventually, she appears to break down in tears. A cellphone video of the incident posted on YouTube went viral.
There is freedom of speech. I am often troubled by the attempt to slam ‘bullies’ with fines or penalties. To a degree freedom of speech can be hindered if a crackdown on bullies occurs. But on the flip side, what has gone missing in the mind of American kids? What went away that stopped them from the crudest and rudest of insults? What made their brain chemicals swirl to allow them to maim, insult, and sometimes even kill for fun?
It is becoming commonplace to reach stories from international media (often about America) of kids calling in food orders, the delivery person showing up, and that person being killed–and the kids still eat the food while the corpse lay motionless in death.
The kids are not alright. They seem to be getting less alright with every passing day, and every bus ride into the great bastion of hate and mental sickness: Modern American high school.