BS: another teen witch suicide

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 01:20 PM

Sky --

I agree. The issue here is bullying, especially in schools (where kids are forced to congregate -- you can't simply stay away from the person bullying you if s/he sits behind you in math class, for example).

We grown-ups tell children and adolescents that they have to accept each other's differences on the one hand, while we put more and more of our energy into creating standardized tests, and state-wide curriculums on the other.

I'd be very surprised if kids don't pick up on the unspoken message that "If you don't fit, you fail", and act on it.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST,Neil Comer
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 07:22 PM

I am an avid fan of Buffy, Angel and Charmed. I wish that I could do/ look like/ be like what some of the characters do. I am none of the above and I accept that. Teenagers don't accept that and no matter how so much they try, whether it be through the way that they look and act, they don't succeed. That is when the mindless bullies get hold. Should TV lessen teenage expectation? Should more emphasis be put on realistic teenage lives ( it might be boring TV) but it may be more productive (rather than less harmful)

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 03:56 PM

Tempest's mother, Danessa Smith, is filing a $10 million against the Lincoln Park School District. Twelve-year-old Tempest Smith hanged herself in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Tempest — a pagan — had endured months of teasing. Classmates taunted for her dark "Goth" clothing, and for her interest in Wicca. Tempest's journal entries document fellow students crowding around her to sing Christian hymns and chant "Jesus loves you."

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 04:42 PM

Where is this information from, Guest?

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST,Susan Casper
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 12:42 AM

A book by Susan Casper

Daria is a little girl with a problem. A very serious problem. A very serious problem in a I-crave-drinking-blood kind of way. Can anyone help her?

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Peg
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 01:18 AM

Susan: that last post seems quite unrelated to this thread, and a wee bit tasteless, considering.

CapriUni; I do not know where the GUEST got that info on Tempest Smith but I do know this story was covered pretty intensively on Wren's Nest at www.witchvoxcom.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 01:19 AM

My kids went through hell at school.

When I was in school I RAISED hell.

My crowd and I were 1%ers, We kept the pose and the attitude of thugs and it kept us from being hasseled by the jocks. We belonged to a gang which was made up of kids from the East side of Milwaukee and not connected to any particular school. We hung out at Francesca's Pizzeria and we rode bobbed harley's and drove "modified" street rods and we "bopped" when the need arose.

We were true shits! But we were also willing to accept anyone, even those kids who were geeky and lame (that is slang for out-of-it, not handicapped) because we knew they were outsiders too. We figured that ANYTHING we did that annoyed the school administration or the jocks (they were P.I.T.) was worth doing.

It was easier for us then because the school officials had strict rules and we knew just which ones to break and when.

My kids were in a discipline vacuum in a way. The jocks were all powerful and encouraged by the faculty to harrass the goths and grungers and gays and other "misfits". When Columbine happened my youngest, who was still in High school at the time, said she wasn't surprised at all. She said that it could happen at her school too. She was commenting on the rampant harrassment and favoritism and it was a legitimate remark but it could have gotten her in a great deal of trouble had it been overheard at school.

Our schools, with a few exceptions, are the best argument for home schooling, ever.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 09:28 AM

The jocks were all powerful and encouraged by the faculty to harrass the goths and grungers and gays and other "misfits".

How did the officials encourage this harrassement, CB? By turning a blind eye? By penalizing those victims who complained?

I agree, that with all the changes in the school systems over the last decade or so (more and more emphesis on standardized testing, the use of ADA and IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] to segregate students to seperate classroom within the same school building), home schooling looks more and more attractive. But it has its drawbacks, too. The main one being that kids don't have the space to create their own culture, free from their parents' control, which, I think, is a main goal of growing up.

Let's face it: "The School System" is, theoretically, not seperate from us. (And here comes the folk tie in) If we citizens could organize to protest the Vietnam war, and the cold war arms race, then surely, we can do something about the education culture. I admit, it's trickier because of mandated local control (at least, in America) so working to change the system would be like trying to wrestle a thousand-armed octopus (Oxymoron, I know ;-)). But if we want to stop incidents like Columbine, and Laura and Tempest's deaths, then I think we'd better start.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST,John 3:19
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 12:23 AM

John 3:19

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Peg
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 12:28 AM

Oh, of course. The BIBLE will make everything all right.

As I recall, it was kids viciously chanting bible verses that made Tempest Smith want to kill herself.

I kinda know how she felt.

Light doesn't exist without darkness. And ignorance doesn't exist without enlightment. Show me a world with no opposites and I will show you a person living a life of illusion.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 11:59 PM

Hey, don't you know it's a waste of your day

Caught up in endless solutions

That have no meaning, just another hunch

Based upon jumping conclusions

Caught up in endless solutions

Backed up against a wall of confusion

Living a life of illusion

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 12:22 AM

Yes CapriUni. by turning a blind eye, by NOT following up when kids complained, by telling the kids who complained that they were "bringing it on themselves". I was unaware of what was happening in my kid's school because my kids were afraid to tell me and their mom. Not afraid that we would blame them but that we would "make a scene" and we WOULD have. With all their desire to "be different" they were afraid of being too different.

When my daughter's DID tell us about their experiences, I was stunned. Repeated questions about how this happened led me to believe that the schools are way too concerned about such things as sports and less so about what sort of socialization is actually taking place. I have no children in my local school system but I have participated in helping to establish school policy by volunteering on various comittees.

I agree that we need to attend to our schools. I mentioned home schooling because where I live it is very popular and often put forth as an answer to education's many problems. MY main criticism isn't that kids don't have the space to create their own culture but that they have less opportunity to experience a social "mix", diversity, if you will.

It is easier in our small town for the community as a whole to be involved in the kid's lives. The Columbine events are the result of a combination of deep psychological turmoil, administrative remoteness, overworked faculty and community disinterest and a "I want it all now" culture which see kids only as consumers.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 10:05 AM

MY main criticism isn't that kids don't have the space to create their own culture but that they have less opportunity to experience a social "mix", diversity, if you will.

Maybe we're talking about the same thing -- that kids create their own culture by mixing bits and tidbits with the culture of their friends and rivals. But if your culture is based solely on that of your parents, then you have only one example of the "right" way to do things.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:57 AM

Need this up next to the other Teenager Thread - dont disturb

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Peg
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 12:16 PM

GUEST: who are you, the thread police???

the two threads are really not related other than the fact that they both deal with teens. Committing suicide because your peers relentlessly tease you about your spiritual beliefs is far different from beig a bit distressed over pimples (which, frankly, nearly all teens go through at one time or another).

You are obviously the same person who suggested these two threads are linked because the girl with pimples might get depressed which could lead her to suicide; this is a pretty pessimistic view.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 02:01 PM

"making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel"

-Bart Simpson-

And well, kids are mean... it's never surprising that they pick on someone... Especially someone who wants to call themselves something as 'out there' as 'witch'...

May as well walk though highschool calling yourself a 'superhero'.. you'll be just as much an outcast...

Some folks have the stones to endure that... some don't...

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: guinnesschik
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 09:46 AM

Ugh, GUEST, quoting Joe Walsh. Couldn't you have chosen someone a little more....relevent?

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 10:49 AM

You all seem to have gone off the point. If you believe in anything, shouldn't you be praying or sending out positive thoughts to the family of the young girl so tormented that she gave her life.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 01:35 PM

How do you know we're not doing that, Guest?

And in my beliefs, part of positive thought is positive action, to figure out how to stop this kind of thing in the future...

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 02:27 PM

One cannot save everyone...

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 11:02 PM

Maybe not, Clinton, but if I try, and end up saving only one person, then that effort made a world of difference to that person, and that person's family, and the friends of the people in that person's family, and ...

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST,kidshealth
Date: 17 Apr 02 - 11:35 PM

http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/index2.html

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 02:05 AM

and in the overall picture, it won't mean a lick...

No more than your or my death...

besides, it's just death... It's nothing worth getting worked up about eh...

"death smiles at us all... all we can do is smile back"

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Peg
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 11:44 AM

This CHILD committeed SUICIDE because she was being TEASED.

That is much more tragic than some poor slob like any of the rest of us passing away peacefully after a full life...to choose to take one's own life is a far cry from being taken by the fates when our time has come. For someone so young to do so is horrible and when this sort of thing does happen, it affects people. People with hearts, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 12:21 PM

I'd suspect that the teasing was just part of it...

It's unfortunate that she didn't have access to the help she needed...

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 10:01 PM

In my school the jocks were bullies...and the anti-jocks were bullies. Kind of hard to tell who was worst, but they hated each other, of course, which kept them busy part of the time when they weren't torturing people like me who didn't belong to either group.

If you build a society on the notion of ruthless competition at every level, this is one of the results. It's the law of the jungle, tied to money and "success".

It is also the road to perdition, and it is truly "embracing the darkness". I see the sickness of it every day of my life...on the TV, in the news, on the highway, on the job. Barbarian ethics have taken over the world, and popular culture echoes that in its commercial advertising.

I once did a search on Ebay to see if people had registered themselves under self-deprecating names. They had! I found people with member names such as "the idiot", "village idiot", "major idiot", "moron", "sh*thead", "filthyswine", "motherf*cker", "Fatass", "Deadmeat" and every other thing like that you can imagine...except for ONE...

Ya know what it was? "Major Loser"

Tells you something doesn't it? In the competitive culture, you can be any kind of total *sshole with enthusiasm, belligerence and pride, but God forbid that you should be...a loser!

Ha! What contempt I have for all those would-be "winners" out there who are clawing their way to the top. I saw their spiritual blood-brothers when I was in school, and I know corrupted, deluded barbarians when I see them. I also know, that deep down...they are scared. I didn't know it then, but I do now.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Apr 02 - 08:40 PM

and the bullying made you into a better person so be thankful

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 02 - 12:16 AM

why "another" have there been more?

Subject: RE: BS: another teen witch suicide
From: WickedLad
Date: 25 Apr 02 - 12:49 AM

Bullying causing suicide Its surprising that noone in this litigeous age has sued The system would change rapidly if that happened But is that the best avenue

For those interested here is a very good suicide support website http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.suicide.html