An Ohio boy who loves gymnastics joined a cheerleading squad. Some other, older boys broke his arm over it. Roll the tape:
An Ohio mom is disappointed that her son’s school didn’t do more to stop at least two boys who allegedly picked on her 11-year-old cheerleader son until the bullies beat him so bad they broke his arm.
An 11-year-old says classmates attacked him for cheerleading.She says the beating didn’t break his spirit however. Tyler Wilson has vowed to continue cheering with hopes it helps him get into college some day.
“I’m going to keep going. I’m going to make a lifestyle out of it,” Tyler told ABC News affiliate WTVG.
According to the mother, the incident where Tyler’s arm was broken was the culmination of previous assaults.
“When I went to the school, about two days after it happened to discuss Tyler’s story, the principal said there was an incident Monday and the Friday before, that the boy who started the fight had jumped on Tyler’s back and tried to start a fight,” she said.
Kristy Wilson said if she had known that Tyler was being physically targeted said she would have certainly stepped in to stop the situation, going as far as removing him from the school.
“I really wish the school would have let me know a lot sooner, so I could have dealt with it sooner,” she said.
I bet now the school folks wish they would have dealt with it sooner.
Zoe Brain,
I’m going to disagree with you. He was bad.
When the vulnerable are entrusted into your care (for pay, no less) and you allow harm to come to them out of your own laziness, that is the very definition of evil.
The most interesting set of comments I’ve yet read here.
The effects of bullying seem to me to be twofold. Most often it seems to be kids policing correct masculine behavior. Boys who can’t, or won’t, adapt their sissy ways get it worst. And if it doesn’t kill them it can often make them strong. Which is not to advocate for the persecution of effeminate boys but it was sissies, after all, who began to fight back at Stonewall. And a woman. Bullying teaches straight-acting boys to hide who they are and introduces them at an early age to the closet. An experience that often – though not always – proves crippling. I didn’t experience much in the way of bullying at the all-boys’ school I attended in London. Some boys were picked on, and one had his arms broken after being relentlessly bullied by the jocks but that wasn’t because he seemed queer but because he was awkward and geeky and given to inappropriate social reactions. Now I might suspect him to be somewhere on the Aspergers scale. But European men don’t have the same fetish over masculinity that afflicts American men. And almost all boys who attend one of Britain’s boarding schools has enjoyed some form of homosexual romance.
A few days ago I asked a simple question which was met with a great silence: is bullying more prevalent in American schools? (I suspect that it is) If is is more prevalent why is that so? Does the bullying we’re discussing here, the bullying that caused this boy’s arm to be broken and the recent suicide in California, represent the gender standards of our society being directly and violently expressed by the bullies? I believe that it does. So what does that teach us about ourselves? And what is different about the culture of the US today and that of, say, Denmark?
While gay kids get their Gehenna in Jr High and beyond, for Intersexed and Trans kids, often it’s in Grade school that they learn how to hide or evade. They “smell funny” you see, the body language and vocabulary subtly off.
By the time they reach Jr High school, they’ve usually acquired survival skills so have it easier than Gays.
I guess… my objectivity when it comes to the whole question of bullying of kids who are “different” – gay, redheaded, lefthanded, fat, short, black, studious, thick… in schools is questionable.
That treatment didn’t make me tough – well, strike that, I think it did. It gave me strength for later in life. It didn’t “make a man out of me” though.
It did make me into a thug, a brute. The thing I was fighting against. Niezhe had it right: stare into the Abyss too long, and the Abyss stares into you. Those who fight monsters often become monsters themselves.
One of those 3 kids? I later caught him alone, sucker-punched him from behind, and quite deliberately broke his collar-bone. Just so he wouldn’t be able to hurt me any more. I’d read up on the anatomy so I could disable him for many months without “really” hurting him – blinding him or killing him – because that would have gotten me into trouble. And I’d just turned 8.
He was the smallest of the three, not the worst. The easiest target. With him out of the way, I could hold my own against the other two without getting ribs broken.
That was the kind of person I was turning into. Someone who would coolly and coldly, deliberately take a helpless 11 year old boy, pinned on the ground, and break his bones. OK, I was only 8, but I was big for my age, and I fought with desperation.
A little while after that, my mother walked into the bathroom as I was having a bath – and freaked out. You see, without clothes, the cuts and bruises that literally covered nearly every inch of my body were visible.
My mother was a teacher, and had contacts in the Education administration. She contacted a friend – who, when told what school I was in, advised her in no uncertain terms to get me out of there, now, within the hour. There had been “incidents” with others. An investigation was underway. And he recommended a school that might help heal me.
I was yanked out of that school immediately, 2 weeks before term finished, and went to a boarding school afterwards. That redeemed me. I became human once more, no longer a rational hunted animal.
Being beaten, victimised and terrorised is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Not even suicide. The worst thing is to become a monster yourself. A monster to whom no crime is impermissible, no cruelty unacceptable, because you have ‘Right on your side”.
45 years ago… and there’s tears in my eyes now. My hormones must be out of whack. Or maybe Dr T, as a psychologist, might have an opinion on that. No matter.
I just want to help these kids, you know? For the terrorised, brutalised and above all desperate girl that I was. I can do nothing to help her, but if I can help others, then that will make it better.
Go Tyler!
Dealt with it… by covering it up? By making sure that he only got repeatedly beaten, without any bones being broken?
Been there, done that. Or had that done to me, before age 8.
One day, as 3 boys, all age 11 or 12 were beating the heck out of me, we got sprung by a teacher. I’d taken refuge in the school buildings you see, but this time a door had been locked, so they trapped me.
They got 5 strokes of the cane each from the headmaster. I got 6, for starting it. Well, it was 3 words against 1, wasn’t it? It happened every day anyway, though usually I could evade.
We were told never to fight in school buildings again. Do it elsewhere.
How three 11-12 year olds, one pinioning each arm of a 7 year old while the third throws stomach punches could be considered “fighting”, that I don’t know.
The cane strokes on my hand didn’t hurt. Too many endorphins from the bruises I guess. But that 6th stroke… that hurt. The injustice of it.
May God forgive me, I hated that man then. Not the predators – they were just in it for their daily tribute, the lunch money from smaller kids. Nothing personal, strictly business. I hated him because he was supposed to be in authority, the dispenser of Justice. The “Responsible Adult”. And he took the easy road instead.
He wasn’t a bad man. I remember, the last time he caned me. I’d been summoned from the class I was in, the teacher escorted me to his room – and I received 12 strokes for vandalising bikes during lunch-hour. I denied the charge, and demanded to confront my accusers. The usual mob of extortionists. Hence 12 strokes rather than 6.
But my teacher came in to take me back to class, and asked why I’d been punished. Then told the Headmaster a few things. You see, that Lunchtime, she’d been supervising me as I took an advanced literacy test for gifted kids.
He apologised to me. And I, being seven years old, and red with rage at the injustice of it, told him that while I completely respected his office, and his authority… I didn’t care what he as a person did or said.
His face crumpled. I remember that. To have a 7 yr old kid courteously and politely tell you that – in front of a witness.. and with such obvious sincerity.. that you were irrelevant, not even worthy of contempt – must have wounded him.
I had justice on my side – but I was 7 years old, and had no mercy. 45 years ago, and I still remember what I did to him that day. With deep regret, for Justice without mercy is over-rated. I hope I’m forgiven for that. I hope even more to merit forgiveness, whether forgiven or not.
He wasn’t bad you see – just wanted to take the easiest path. I think many school administrators are like that.
I think this is true – sadly even today.
Nicholas – I assume you forgot the <sarcasm> tags.
You see there are Christians, the genuine variety here. And while your words are meant as chastisement for the (expletives deleted), they’ll wound some who least deserve it.
And as for those who do deserve it – they’ll just call your words “Homosexual Propaganda” and ignore them as “promoting the Gay Agenda”.
Could someone please help me? I am trying to find a statement from any of the major (or minor) pro-family organizations about any of the 3 suicides of gay or gay-perceived teens in the past week. (Newsflash: The third happened yesterday when a 13-year old boy blew his brains out after having been thrown down the stairs and repeatedly called faggot.) I have been to all of their websites, but I can’t find anything. Not a press release or a blog entry or even a link. Not a solitary expression of acknowledgment, let alone grief.
It makes no sense, given the daily attention these groups pay to the issue of homosexuality and their expressed Christian love of the sinners- by which I presume they mean bullied and dead gay 13 year olds. If a single wayward teacher used “King and King” in a single lesson 5 years ago, all of these websites light up for years thereafter with expressions of urgent concern. Therefore, it simply cannot be that 3 dead gay teens and 1 injured 11-year old would go unremarked.
I can only assume that there was such a great outpouring of grief and further expressions of Christian love that these organizations were forced to create a separate website to accept postings without prompting a server crash. As I understand that many equally loving Christians visit this site, if any of you could direct me to that website, I would greatly appreciate it.
That treatment didn’t make me tough – well, strike that, I think it did. It gave me strength for later in life. It didn’t “make a man out of me” though.
It did make me into a thug, a brute. The thing I was fighting against. Niezhe had it right: stare into the Abyss too long, and the Abyss stares into you. Those who fight monsters often become monsters themselves.
One of those 3 kids? I later caught him alone, sucker-punched him from behind, and quite deliberately broke his collar-bone. Just so he wouldn’t be able to hurt me any more. I’d read up on the anatomy so I could disable him for many months without “really” hurting him – blinding him or killing him – because that would have gotten me into trouble. And I’d just turned 8.
He was the smallest of the three, not the worst. The easiest target. With him out of the way, I could hold my own against the other two without getting ribs broken.
That was the kind of person I was turning into. Someone who would coolly and coldly, deliberately take a helpless 11 year old boy, pinned on the ground, and break his bones. OK, I was only 8, but I was big for my age, and I fought with desperation.
A little while after that, my mother walked into the bathroom as I was having a bath – and freaked out. You see, without clothes, the cuts and bruises that literally covered nearly every inch of my body were visible.
My mother was a teacher, and had contacts in the Education administration. She contacted a friend – who, when told what school I was in, advised her in no uncertain terms to get me out of there, now, within the hour. There had been “incidents” with others. An investigation was underway. And he recommended a school that might help heal me.
I was yanked out of that school immediately, 2 weeks before term finished, and went to a boarding school afterwards. That redeemed me. I became human once more, no longer a rational hunted animal.
Being beaten, victimised and terrorised is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Not even suicide. The worst thing is to become a monster yourself. A monster to whom no crime is impermissible, no cruelty unacceptable, because you have ‘Right on your side”.
45 years ago… and there’s tears in my eyes now. My hormones must be out of whack. Or maybe Dr T, as a psychologist, might have an opinion on that. No matter.
I just want to help these kids, you know? For the terrorised, brutalised and above all desperate girl that I was. I can do nothing to help her, but if I can help others, then that will make it better.
Zoe Brain,
I’m going to disagree with you. He was bad.
When the vulnerable are entrusted into your care (for pay, no less) and you allow harm to come to them out of your own laziness, that is the very definition of evil.
I think this is true – sadly even today.
Go Tyler!
The most interesting set of comments I’ve yet read here.
The effects of bullying seem to me to be twofold. Most often it seems to be kids policing correct masculine behavior. Boys who can’t, or won’t, adapt their sissy ways get it worst. And if it doesn’t kill them it can often make them strong. Which is not to advocate for the persecution of effeminate boys but it was sissies, after all, who began to fight back at Stonewall. And a woman. Bullying teaches straight-acting boys to hide who they are and introduces them at an early age to the closet. An experience that often – though not always – proves crippling. I didn’t experience much in the way of bullying at the all-boys’ school I attended in London. Some boys were picked on, and one had his arms broken after being relentlessly bullied by the jocks but that wasn’t because he seemed queer but because he was awkward and geeky and given to inappropriate social reactions. Now I might suspect him to be somewhere on the Aspergers scale. But European men don’t have the same fetish over masculinity that afflicts American men. And almost all boys who attend one of Britain’s boarding schools has enjoyed some form of homosexual romance.
A few days ago I asked a simple question which was met with a great silence: is bullying more prevalent in American schools? (I suspect that it is) If is is more prevalent why is that so? Does the bullying we’re discussing here, the bullying that caused this boy’s arm to be broken and the recent suicide in California, represent the gender standards of our society being directly and violently expressed by the bullies? I believe that it does. So what does that teach us about ourselves? And what is different about the culture of the US today and that of, say, Denmark?
Nicholas – I assume you forgot the <sarcasm> tags.
You see there are Christians, the genuine variety here. And while your words are meant as chastisement for the (expletives deleted), they’ll wound some who least deserve it.
And as for those who do deserve it – they’ll just call your words “Homosexual Propaganda” and ignore them as “promoting the Gay Agenda”.
While gay kids get their Gehenna in Jr High and beyond, for Intersexed and Trans kids, often it’s in Grade school that they learn how to hide or evade. They “smell funny” you see, the body language and vocabulary subtly off.
By the time they reach Jr High school, they’ve usually acquired survival skills so have it easier than Gays.
I guess… my objectivity when it comes to the whole question of bullying of kids who are “different” – gay, redheaded, lefthanded, fat, short, black, studious, thick… in schools is questionable.
Dealt with it… by covering it up? By making sure that he only got repeatedly beaten, without any bones being broken?
Been there, done that. Or had that done to me, before age 8.
One day, as 3 boys, all age 11 or 12 were beating the heck out of me, we got sprung by a teacher. I’d taken refuge in the school buildings you see, but this time a door had been locked, so they trapped me.
They got 5 strokes of the cane each from the headmaster. I got 6, for starting it. Well, it was 3 words against 1, wasn’t it? It happened every day anyway, though usually I could evade.
We were told never to fight in school buildings again. Do it elsewhere.
How three 11-12 year olds, one pinioning each arm of a 7 year old while the third throws stomach punches could be considered “fighting”, that I don’t know.
The cane strokes on my hand didn’t hurt. Too many endorphins from the bruises I guess. But that 6th stroke… that hurt. The injustice of it.
May God forgive me, I hated that man then. Not the predators – they were just in it for their daily tribute, the lunch money from smaller kids. Nothing personal, strictly business. I hated him because he was supposed to be in authority, the dispenser of Justice. The “Responsible Adult”. And he took the easy road instead.
He wasn’t a bad man. I remember, the last time he caned me. I’d been summoned from the class I was in, the teacher escorted me to his room – and I received 12 strokes for vandalising bikes during lunch-hour. I denied the charge, and demanded to confront my accusers. The usual mob of extortionists. Hence 12 strokes rather than 6.
But my teacher came in to take me back to class, and asked why I’d been punished. Then told the Headmaster a few things. You see, that Lunchtime, she’d been supervising me as I took an advanced literacy test for gifted kids.
He apologised to me. And I, being seven years old, and red with rage at the injustice of it, told him that while I completely respected his office, and his authority… I didn’t care what he as a person did or said.
His face crumpled. I remember that. To have a 7 yr old kid courteously and politely tell you that – in front of a witness.. and with such obvious sincerity.. that you were irrelevant, not even worthy of contempt – must have wounded him.
I had justice on my side – but I was 7 years old, and had no mercy. 45 years ago, and I still remember what I did to him that day. With deep regret, for Justice without mercy is over-rated. I hope I’m forgiven for that. I hope even more to merit forgiveness, whether forgiven or not.
He wasn’t bad you see – just wanted to take the easiest path. I think many school administrators are like that.
Could someone please help me? I am trying to find a statement from any of the major (or minor) pro-family organizations about any of the 3 suicides of gay or gay-perceived teens in the past week. (Newsflash: The third happened yesterday when a 13-year old boy blew his brains out after having been thrown down the stairs and repeatedly called faggot.) I have been to all of their websites, but I can’t find anything. Not a press release or a blog entry or even a link. Not a solitary expression of acknowledgment, let alone grief.
It makes no sense, given the daily attention these groups pay to the issue of homosexuality and their expressed Christian love of the sinners- by which I presume they mean bullied and dead gay 13 year olds. If a single wayward teacher used “King and King” in a single lesson 5 years ago, all of these websites light up for years thereafter with expressions of urgent concern. Therefore, it simply cannot be that 3 dead gay teens and 1 injured 11-year old would go unremarked.
I can only assume that there was such a great outpouring of grief and further expressions of Christian love that these organizations were forced to create a separate website to accept postings without prompting a server crash. As I understand that many equally loving Christians visit this site, if any of you could direct me to that website, I would greatly appreciate it.