I can’t seem to contain my frustration any longer. I especially feel this seething rage deep inside because I have two little ones I need to protect. And protect I will.
Like a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I read about a young lady named Whitney Kropp in Michigan who goes to high school. Recently, there was an election for class representative in the Homecoming Court. This young lady won for the sophomore class. She was elated until she found out the truth on why she won…
Such a beautiful young lady
Not because she’s got a ton of friends, which she might-I’m not assuming anything here.
Not because she is beautiful, which she really is.
But because the students were playing a practical joke on her. She was voted as the class representative because the students made voting for her a prank.
Afterward, the “male” representative from her class withdrew his position, leaving this girl without someone to stand with.
Is she alone? Hell no because the community she lives in STOOD UP AND STUCK BY HER SIDE when this became public knowledge.
A parent (not hers) found out about this incident and posted the story on her blog. Then this parent created a Facebook page called Support Whitney Kropp. Shortly after that, a petition on Change.org.was put up. All people who were standing up to bullying and those bullies that still think it’s o.k. to hurt, tease and make fun of others. Like the cowards they are.
Remember what happened when the chaperone who was bullied and it was recorded on the bus? People saw the video and responded with support and donations. She’s retired and sitting pretty on a sweet pile of money raised by strangers who didn’t want her to have to work with those kids again.
The community rallied and got Whitney a dress, tiara, shoes, professional hair, makeup and nail services for her and has bought her dinner for the evening of homecoming. According to news reports, she is expected to appear at the football game. The lesson here is standing up to those bullies with your head high and that’s exactly what this community wants Whitney to do. What any community would want someone who was bullied to do.
Bullying is getting out of hand. This situation was probably helped before something would’ve happened. Too many other stories about bullying end in children committing suicide. Each one I hear makes me wish I would’ve done something. Here is where I’m grateful for social media. Sometimes the unity created online can speak with the sound of a million voices. The Facebook page started with 4,000 fans within hours of it’s launch. Right now, the current tally of fans to Support Whitney Kropp is at 42,125, double its number from last night when I, myself, became a fan.
If only the social media was around way back when in history. Think of how many horrible events we could’ve avoided by the power of community.
Bullies are nothing but modern-day Nazis. People hurting other people for no reason. People who cause suffering, tragedies and death with their words and actions. And it needs to stop NOW.
If you would like to be a part of the community on the Facebook page created for Whitney, go here.
If you would like to sign the petition created for Whitney and others who have been bullied, go here.
Lance
09/25/2012
done and done
My heart breaks for this girl. I hope she can learn to hold her head up high from this.
Andrea
09/25/2012
yes, agreed.
I was certainly bullied in school and it gave me a thick skin. not that I’m condoning bullying; I’m just saying that some of us learned from the experience. I hope she can do the same.
Jessie
09/25/2012
This one leaves me with so many emotions. I was bullied as a teen, and I’m not sure the current response can fix the problem. Clearly, one of her bully classmates read Stephen King and failed to realize Carrie was a nasty prank that backfired. I SO wish Whitney could whip together some telekenetic abilities. And I’m so happy the community stood with her against the jack-ass-fuck-wipe-douche-canoes who did this.
And yet.
She has to stand up there on that podium in front of those kids. It will not show them she is brave, though she will be. It will not show them she is bigger than they are, though that will also be true.
Instead, it will put her right in front of them, and all of this response has focused on the community adults. What the hell are the KIDS WHO FUCKING DID IT saying about it. When that girl gets up there, will they cheer for her, or will they quietly snicker to themselves because the prank achieved its end goal? And what will happen the next week, when she has to go back the fuck to school with them? The majority of those kids voted for her AS A PRANK.
Why the hell isn’t the school taking the whole fucking sophomore class aside and talking about the kids who killed themselves over cruelties like this? Not all of the class participated, and some of them had the guts to tell her to not let the prankers win. But before the community rallied around her, she described herself as feeling like a piece of trash, as wondering why she was a part of that community and WORLD. It doesn’t take many steps from that kind of despair to suicide.
So why the FUCK aren’t those immature idiots being called to examine their own attitudes? I haven’t read one article where a sophomore came forward and said, “I participated, and I’m so damned sorry.” And until that happens? That girl is still in the exact same position she was in before, albeit with more wherewithal to withstand the bullshit.
Sarah
09/25/2012
I’ve thought the same thing. As much as I hate blanket punishments, I would (if I ran the world, that is) dis-invite the entire sophomore class from homecoming festivities of any kind. That seems fair, even if some innocent kids get caught up in the mix. Maybe it would also help some of the kids who didn’t participate, but also didn’t speak up, to notice that we don’t find this shit to be acceptable as a society any longer.
Kristi
09/26/2012
Would the sophomore class learn the lesson? What about the rest of the school? Where are the officials adopting some kind of no bullying policy?
Jessie, I agree with you about the school not getting more involved. What’s worse; taking time out to show the class that their actions were wrong and handing out some severe punishments or having to hold a memorial for a student?
Angie
09/25/2012
What a painful story with a fantastic end result. I can’t help but think that the finger still hasn’t been pointed in the direction it should be pointed. There are parents who raised these kids, and I don’t believe for a second that some member of the school staff/faculty didn’t hear about this before another parent stepped forward to bring light to it.
Handflapper
09/25/2012
Parents can’t be blamed for all the bullying that goes on, but undoubtedly parents who bully or condone this sort of behavior tend to perpetuate it in their children. When I was in high school, there were two girls in my class who were minor bullies. They would have been much, much worse but the rest of us we pretty good kids and didn’t go along with their crap. I saw one of the girls at my 20th reunion, and she had grown up to be a perfectly nice person. I told her frankly that I was scared to death of her when we were in school. She burst into tears and apologized, saying “I have no excuse except that’s the way I was raised. My whole family is like that.” Her husband, who was and still is, one of the nicest boys in the whole school (and we couldn’t figure out why the hell he was dating HER way back when, but they’ve been married some 25 or so years now), nodded his head and said, “Yep, they are.”
Parents need to be included in whatever consequence the bullies merit, because they are at least part of the problem.