By Selena Roberts
"All the jocks stand up."
-- Words allegedly uttered by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they began a shooting rampage at Columbine (Colo.) High, leaving 15 dead, on April 20, 1999
"Those motherf------ jocks."
-- Passage in the online diary of Kimveer Gill, discovered after he opened fire at Dawson College in Montreal, killing one and injuring 19 before killing himself on Sept. 13, 2006
Jesus Salavar can spot the outcasts. They walk carefully enough not to bump anyone -- not to draw any stares -- as they try to slip through the low-slung hallways of Del Mar High in San Jose. There is a look the vulnerable possess: haunted. "You see the faces, and you see the expressions," says Salavar. "It makes you wonder, Is it happening to them?" Did they receive the text message about the hot girl who likes them only to find out it was a hoax? Did someone create a phony social networking profile of them that lists their turn-ons as Star Wars and animal porn?
The subjects of high-tech bullying are everywhere: In a Harris Interactive survey from March 2007, 43% of teens reported being targeted by online attacks. Salavar recognizes some of the victims. He looks for them, but not as a teacher, counselor or administrator. He is a 17-year-old student interested in political science. He is also an athlete -- a jock, if you must -- who played wide receiver and cornerback at Del Mar High last year, proof a helmet doesn't necessarily obstruct a teenager's ability to look beyond himself. "I don't see [much bullying] at Del Mar, but in other places kids gets angry at [athletes] because they may say, 'Oh, you're a football player, you think you're better,' " Salavar says.
Michele Livingstone is a swimmer who is not self-immersed. She notices the nervous tics of the lonely during lunch at Branham High, located in the same Silicon Valley region as Del Mar. "You see them wandering around, going to their lockers six times at lunch," she says. "And they don't have to go to their lockers six times, but it's something to do. I feel for them."
Empathy isn't always a staple of the popular crowd, but the likable Livingstone, bubbly to the point of being carbonated, is turning 17 this week with the kind of perspective some adults don't possess. "Something simple -- like saying hello -- can change so much for someone who feels isolated," Livingstone says. "It's like they can say to themselves, O.K., not everyone hates me."
Along with Salavar and other athletes, Livingstone recently attended a three-hour antibullying workshop called Expect Respect, organized by Project Cornerstone, a Bay Area alliance developed after the Columbine massacre. Members of different school-age status groups are enlisted -- from club leaders and prom queens to quarterbacks and wrestlers. The goal of the six-year-old program, which has extended to more than 300 San Jose–area schools, is to engage students in solutions. Be aware, be inclusive, be willing to alert someone if you sense that bullying has reached a crisis point.
Digital harassment can lead to tragedy. Last October, after a cruel Internet ruse, 13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., hanged herself in her bedroom with a belt. "It's devastating for a lot of people," says Salavar, a Mexican immigrant who can remember being on the receiving end of racist slurs before he joined a football team at age 12. "The workshop made me even more aware. I watch for signs [in ways] I never did before."
The workshop dialogues aren't so much about squares and geeks but about kids who have no one, who can't find any label to fit but loner. They are often the targeted. "If it's a physical confrontation, you have a chance to fight back," Livingstone says. "It's the emotional stuff -- the online stuff -- that leaves the scars."
We've moved beyond stolen milk money to the Mean Girls who post slut lists on MySpace. And yet, the go-to bully of blame is still seen as the jock of movie lore -- see Heathers or Revenge of the Nerds. Did catcalls of **** and lipstick twins hurled by jocks at Columbine really push Klebold and Harris too far, or were the killers simply narcissists in trench coats? Did Gill, at Dawson, feel alienated by the glamorization of the jock culture, or did he seek an easy target for his rage? He posted this on Vampirefreaks.com: "Why does society applaud jocks. I don't understand. They are the worst kind of people on earth."
Though the hyperbole is agony being banged out on a keyboard, it is true that some tormentors do wear jerseys. At least in the hallways of Del Mar and Branham High, some athletes try to wear capes.
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My comment is on my blog since it was too any characters to write here. If Ms. Roberts reads this, I hope she reads my full comment.
This article doesn't do the issue justice and needs to address the problems of school underfunding that allow such bullying and harsh social hierarchies to exist and proliferate. It is downright un-American. The lack of funding combined with the already dominant high school caste system surrounding sports provides a far too narrow way for a generation of high schoolers to express themselves and join a community. We need more clubs, more activities, more sports. More inclusion, not just 3 hour seminars and a few nice students who act respectfully in a sea of long-accepted frustration.
-C.T.
CRTucker1
Suffern , NY
Total Comments (2)
My comment is on my blog since it was too any characters to write here. If Ms. Roberts reads this, I hope she reads my full comment.
This article doesn't do the issue justice and needs to address the problems of school underfunding that allow such bullying and harsh social hierarchies to exist and proliferate. It is downright un-American. The lack of funding combined with the already dominant high school caste system surrounding sports provides a far too narrow way for a generation of high schoolers to express themselves and join a community. We need more clubs, more activities, more sports. More inclusion, not just 3 hour seminars and a few nice students who act respectfully in a sea of long-accepted frustration.
-C.T.
CRTucker1
Suffern , NY
Total Comments (2)
This article confirmed the emotions I've been having for awhile.
I have been following sports and been a huge fan for several years now and once I started attending games, I began to realize how horribly athletes tend to treat their inferior. They lose their humbleness and forget it's the fans that buy their jerseys and buy tickets to the game that make them the superstars they are.
I have recently finished my first year in college and was truly disappointed and heartbroken to see how cruel college athletes are to their fellow peers. I have always aspired to be a sports writer/reporter but the more I think about it, the less I want to deal with jerk jocks everyday. I stopped going to sporting events because I couldn't bear to cheer on these guys and treat them as Gods as everyone else as the insitution did.They weren't nice and everyone was ok with that...I have a problem with that.
This problem was the same in high school. Any athlete who gave the school great publicity was praised and favored as they often only associated themselves with the popular crowed whom were of course, mainly bullies. Instead of going for the smart girls, they went for the Mean Girls.
Perhaps I will have a change of heart, but for now, I wish not to write sports.
JKelliM
Chandler , AZ
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Per Ms. Roberts, "And yet, the go-bully of blame is still seen as the jock of movie lore - see 'Heathers' or 'Revenge of the Nerds.'"
That's not lore Ms. Roberts, that was the actual state of our High School in Upstate New York 1982. The Jocks (esp. the Football players) were very large, ferocious bullies, and egomaniacs to match. (Our average Class size was 650, and our Senior Class was 681, so you can imagine the size of some of these guys due to the large populace from which to pull players).
To get back at some of the worst offenders on the team, myself, with a couple of friends who were on the school newspaper, used Opinion Columns and a comic to display who these guys were.
The result, a bunch of them gathered the newspapers in bundles, banged down the newspaper office door, and threw the papers in bundles at the staff.
By year's end, I finally confronted one of the worst bullies on that team in a physical confrontation. I didn't back down (much like the Nerds), and he backed away with his tail between his legs, FINALLY. It was a moment that could have been filmed.
Movie Lore, my asterik, the stereotype that Jocks have has been well earned for decades. It's great that currently, some of them are realizing that it's time to make a difference, but these current do-gooder jocks have A LOT of ground to cover due to their evil predecessors.
It would do you well to focus on what the majority of jocks were, not what a couple of handfuls are. Per your quote, "though the hyperbole is agony being banged out on a keyboard, it is true that some tormentors do wear jerseys."
GIMME A BREAK!
BettyBetty
Boston , MA
Total Comments (2)
The article was well written but I disagree with a lot of what was said.
By suggesting that the Columbine duo were being "narcissists in trench coats" is absurd. Are we suggesting that there is an path out of accepting some responsibility for what happened and that we can move along because these two kids desired it and the attention that came with it? I don't think anyone feels self-centered when they're called a "****" or "lipstick twin" often. Narcissists also like to make it know that they are a little egotisitical.... like jocks, more than other cliques. I'm not saying all jocks are, first-hand I can say that. But not every geek is a bully either.
A program to try and solve this in a corner of a state isn't going to really see any changes, long term or widespread. You can lay some of the blame to lack of care the media shows or assists with. These geeks (sorry, now 'bullies') are aware of the program too. While some might think "not everyone hates me", they also might think that they are being seen as a threat to anyone and that the person who's saying hello and is being social to them for 10 seconds think they, alone, can make that difference. If that's all that happens than something that's recurring, it's a waste. I would hope this program promotes creating networks with people, not just approaching people and then washing their hands clean of responsibility for when something goes wrong.
I've been on both ends of the jock treatment. I've dished out my cockiness to geeks, and I've also been on the receiving of some brutality. In my high school, my head was elbowed into a concrete wall playing indoor hockey by Vern Fiddler, now a Nashville Predator. As I collapsed and was trying to get up I looked at him for an expression or gesture like it was a mistake or perhaps it went further than expected... all I saw was a menacing face with a satisfied grin, heard his snicker that was followed by the jeers and praise of this other hockey-playing buddies.
I've seen worse, but at that moment I finally had a moment of self-realization that I was not going to be like that. Maybe that's what contributed to quitting my baseball aspirations, my complete overhaul of who I'd become social with, I don't know.
Back to the article, it angered me that it seemed like we're now calling these geeks who put their foot down and do something once, are bullies. I couldn't help by think the the author of this article has never been on both sides. Either watched or was a participant on the athletic side.
The "go-to bully of blame" is still typically the jock for common cases. For more severe cases we try and blame it on everyone, including celebrities like Marilyn Manson - someone who's likely been on the receiving end of jock-treatment himself.
Until caring goes beyond skin-deep and we can embrace all walks of people and say hello more than once and create some recurring activities that can help everyone, nothing will change to a level we'd like to see.
Survival of the fittest. The difference now is that the word 'fittest' is become a flexible term.
Skeff
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