Now I was bullied myself in Junior High made fun of every day as I lived in a rural area of the US because of my half-Indian descent….I’m not in any way demeaning what this girl went through.
This story was first described this way “Irish girl comes to the US, Irish girl is bullied in the US both in school and online, Irish girl commits suicide”….However, when the alleged bullies were charged with a crime, statutory rape was one of the charges against the two male members of the bully squad. Okay, this means they both had sex with Phoebe Prince but it was consensual otherwise they would have been charged with just plain rape….Suddenly this whole situation becomes a lot more complicated.
I have some questions….Everybody is now getting very angry about this but where were the parents when a fifteen year old girl was having sex with two guys? It doesn’t surprise that they didn’t know she was suicidal when they didn’t about what she was doing.
Did she intrude or on any other way interfere with existing relationships between the guys and the girls who bullied her? In other words did she steal their men?
There was originally a lot of anger towards the bullies….They are now facing serious charges….The anger has now moved on to school officials….This is exactly where it should go next in my opinion….Why didn’t they do anything?....It has been proven they knew what was going (both teachers and administrative personnel)….I can tell form my own story that school only want peace and they don’t want to interfere in these type of situations unless forced especially if it involves athletes and popular kids….US School are like prisons in that regard.
For some reason, this story brought to mind that of Kevin Carter, the Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who took this photo while covering starvation in Somalia and then shortly after the winning the prize for it committed suicide.
The story that has become the public canon is that Carter committed suicide because he was viewed as a ghoul and criticized for not doing more for helping the starving girl in the photo….In fact, Carter did much to publicize the starvation situation in Somalia and before that fought Apartheid in his native South Africa….He was more of a hero than a villain.
Truth is according to at least two biographies of Carter his problem was drug abuse as well as all the violence he’d seen in all the different hot spots he’d covered as a photojournalist….The truth is a slippery thing unless you hold on tight and ask a lot of questions, it can get away from you very fast.
Here’s the song by the Manic Street Preachers that introduced me to Carter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7hw5NkSPvs
1 comment:
I feel you are missing a very important point here, that is the vast cultural differences between the parties involved.
The males were Americans, had grown up in the area, had a vast support group of family, friends, teachers and neighbors. They were both seniors, the class of 2010. Sean was one of America's teenage idols, the white, star running back and captain of the football team.
For Phoebe, this was not just a new school, but whole new world. They don't football star running backs in Ireland. Her support group was her mother and a younger sister. She was a freshmen and a 15 year old child. Girls under 17 can not consent to have sex, these soon to be young men knew this, but did it anyway. Senior boys prying on a child lost in a new world.
Post a Comment