Teen girl bullied, shamed, suspended for "sexting" -- eventually commits suicide

villager

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Dec-11-09 12:21 PM
Original message

Teen girl bullied, shamed, suspended for "sexting" -- eventually commits suicide

What happened to Hope Witsell

Look, like I said on Twitter (where I heard about this tragedy via Kate Bornstein), this story is so enraging and depressing that I’m actually not even feeling the rage and depression, I’m kind of numb, so, make the choice advisedly whether or not to read on.

Hope Witsell was just beginning the journey from child to teen. The middle-school student had a tight-knit group of friends, the requisite poster of “Twilight” heartthrob Robert Pattinson and big plans to become a landscaper when she grew up.

But one impetuous move robbed Hope of her childhood, and eventually, her life. The 13-year-old Florida girl sent a topless photo of herself to a boy in hope of gaining his attention. Instead, she got the attention of her school, as well as the high school nearby.

So, here in the lede we discover that it was the showing of her boobs to a boy that — let’s look at that one more time in full — “robbed Hope of her childhood, and eventually, her life.”

Does she get the blame just once? No, no, let’s go down a few more paragraphs.

But Hope got involved in a dangerous, all-too-typical teen game. In June, at the end of her seventh-grade year at Beth Shields Middle School, she sent a picture of her exposed breasts to a boy she liked. It’s an act that is becoming more and more commonplace among teens (a poll recently showed some 20 percent of teens admitting they’ve sent nude pictures of themselves over cell phones).

She got INVOLVED in a DANGEROUS GAME. She gave a boy a picture of her boobs, you see. And that was the dangerous act.

It wasn’t the bullying of other students that put her in danger. (“Friends told the St. Petersburg Times, which originally chronicled Hope’s story, that they literally surrounded Hope as she walked the hallways while other students shouted ‘whore’ and ’slut’ at her.)

It wasn’t the school administrators who responded to this abuse by punishing and further publicly shaming HER. (“Shortly after the school year ended, school officials caught wind of the hubbub surrounding Hope’s cell phone photo. They contacted the Witsells and told them Hope would be suspended for the first week of the next school year.”)

It wasn’t the parents who punished her even more, taking her away from her support network and the things she loved to do, after the school administrators informed them of what had been happening to their daughter and how they were planning to make it worse for her. (“Donna Witsell told Vieira that she and her husband practiced tough love on Hope, grounding her for the summer and suspending her cell phone and computer privileges.”)

It wasn’t the adults at the school again who were more interested in covering their asses against litigation with a written record than actually supporting a suicidally depressed child. (“On Sept. 11, Hope met with school counselors, who noticed cuts on Hope’s leg they believed to be self-inflicted. They had her sign a ‘no-harm contract,’ in which she promised to talk to an adult if she felt the urge to hurt herself. But <...> the school didn’t inform Hope’s parents of the contract.”)

<snip>

http://sylviasproblem.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/what-happened-to-hope-witsell/