Being brought up by another post, I would like to share something.

[MiniMandaRuth]

I recently posted on the thread 'What, if anything, could drive you to violence' and I responded with a story that happened about mid january at school.

I was, of course, just minding my own business. I had gotten a sandwich and a slushie (In mid January, I know...) and was sitting down at my table. Pretty soon, my friends thoughtful comments were drowned out by laughter and name calling. For a moment, i didn't realize that they were talking to me. They, being a group of teenage boys (Early fathers, popular jackasses, the lot), were talking about my religion in loud voices. I won't type some of their more hurtful comments but I will say that they called the Buddhists a bunch of 'gay wussies'.

I had enough, grabbed my seventy-five cent slushie, walked over to them, and promptly dumped the full cup of ice cold beverage on the leaders lap. I simply murmured 'idiot' and walked back to lunch table and said nothing more to any of the people around me.

A similar incident happened a few weeks before the end of school. A dear, dear, dear friend of mine got called 'gay' and a variety of other words that I shall not repeat here for fear of this message being deleted. My friend then responded to the taunting group of idiots with 'Hey, (My name here), c'mere for a second!' I then walked over to him and stood defensively at his side. He's very mild mannered nd a total sweetheart that would never hurt anyone. He grabbed my shoulder and held me close and then said, 'So, you guys are all enjoying each others company while I'm the only one with a beautiful woman next to me?' We then walked away and I felt as proud as I could for my friend. He comes from a very fristian family, and recently had told me of his sexual orientation.

Simply what I am trying to say is that the lack of tolerance in small towns is amazing, at least from the school point of view. People are publicly humiliated for their manner of dress and speech, learning ability and intelligence, and several other things. I know that you think that most kids at our school aren't like that, but they are.

In my school it is now very 'cool' to call something stupid 'gay' or someone that is stupid a 'faggot'. It angers me that I cannot take more action than telling a teacher about this. I have, and while my own teachers have taken actions within their own classrooms, the entire school district has NOT.

Washington state has a law against bullies, although I fear that many people are still being ridiculed by fellow students because of the supervisors. At least three teachers are fundies, and I have seen them look on while my friend hs been called a 'wuss' and 'a faggot'. I can stand up for myself, as I am still considerably physically stronger than most of the boys around me, but I worry for my friend who is, like I said, a pacifist who wouldn't hurt you if you called his Mom a whore.

I'm glad that soon I'll be out of this place called 'school', where people are 'encouraged' to act like they feel like, and are told that 'we can go to any teacher and tell our problems and they will be stopped'.

I have not told my Mother for fear that she will go to my school and talk about this. I feel that it is time that other students, black or white, hispanic or asian, tall or short, fat or thin, gay or straight, male or female, need to learn how to stick up for themselves. We need to fight back against the popular belief that it is cool to use 'gay' to describe something stupid, or that it is 'cool' to ridicule someone because of their religion or way of thinking! For many years, ever since society started, stronger people in bigger groups have prayed upon the smarter, more educated people like me. I had my backpack gone through a few times this year and people scribbled all over my binder because of my Kerry bumper sticker.

Anytime that you see a fellow student or co-worker, or just someone on the street being humiliated and ridiculed for their beliefs, intelligence, color of their skin, or sexual orientation, please help them out!

I put this thread in General Discussion because of the fact that people need to take this seriously!

Thank you for your time.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Just a point:

If I see someone being harrassed or ridiculed, of course I'll step up and say something. But no more PC cop for me. If a right-wing nut wants to say idiotic crap on his free time, then that's his right. Of course, I won't sit around and listen to it. I don't even say hello to a parent or two on my daughter's soccer team, because I just don't want to risk listening to that nonsense.