In addition to your accurate assessment, but perhaps even worse, from my 30 plus years in U.S. inner-city public high schols, is the verbal and sexual abuse of so-called White girls by African-American males. These violations generally go unpunished by school administrators who are fearful of making decisions that might negatively affect their promotability. Teachers, as well, look the other way so as not to jeopardize their paychecks.

Gera - I do not understand what you mean by "so-called White girls".

And are you saying that the black males in your school single out these girls for abuse? And why would taking action against such behavior have paycheck consequences?

I'm not surprised.

I wouldn't be surprised to find a social correlation between 'Political affiliation' & one's high school pecking order 'status'.

NeoCon = high school bully or Objectivist.
Progressive = contemplative & less dominant behavioured...

seriously. we all think it, I wonder if its been studied... if NeoCons are more likely to be retaliatory or domineering... not that Karl Rove seems particularly aggressive but he is most certainly deep thinking...

so much for that theory... but...

just a thought.

Spread Love...
... but wear the Glove!

BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
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"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

Deacon,

Bewildered by all the privileges acceded to students from other racial groups, many White students denied these favors, exemptions, and immunities, seek new power labels for themselves. Am I saying that black (African-American) males seek out White girls for abuse? Yes I am, because these girls are less likely to retaliate or to denounce their abusers, knowing that it would be useless.

Why not abuse African-American girls as well. Because they would not tolerate it! If such incidents of sexual abuse should reach the newspapers, administrative heads might roll. Of course, if possible, teachers would be picked out to take the fall for them. This is another reason the guns taken from students at school are rarely reported. For school administrators any news about their school(s) on television or in newspapers is bad news, unless it´s propaganda for raising taxes .

Admistrators don´t like problems with teachers, especially problems that lead to parents complaining. If enough parents protest, especially those who may be the most vocal or violent, a crisis is born. And such a crisis could cost people their jobs, with the union, known to often defend the guilty, abandoning those who become an embarrasment.

Obviously discussing homosexuality is uncomfortable enough for some people that they would rather move this conversation into the infinitely safer realm of ethnic relations. [Safer because if you even cried one tear reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' you passed 'the test' and because to some it seems that while 'black doesn't wash off', gay people 'choose their lifestyle'.]
As a gay person who spent lunch period throughout middle school hiding in the bathroom rather than entering the cafeteria to be harrassed, I can personally atest to the accuracy of these findings. Walking into the morning assembly hall from the school bus, entering a class room, all I heard were the words 'queer', 'faggot' or questions like, 'Are you a faggot?' It took me years to realize that these taunts came from only a small group of people and that most of the kids were indifferant to my presense. I have a happy life and feel I've arrived at a good place emotionally. As a matter of fact, being ostracized from the mainstream culture of middle school is when I began to see the mainstream from a distance and to access it a way that shaped my social and political views as an adult. However, it would have been very affirming if even one of the school faculty [at any level] that frequently were present when these abusive comments were made, would have stepped forward to admonish the behavior or, from a less obtrusive stance, taken me aside at a discreat moment to remind me from a grown up perspective that kids are,after all, pretty mean, but that I was valued for something and could rise above it. Indifference to this cruelty on the part of teachers isn't deliberately neglectful, I am sure, having teacher friends and knowing what they are up against in their profession, but I hope that some teachers who went through what I did [be it because of sexuality, ethnicity, religion, etc] would notice when a student is being bruised daily and try to offer a little help.

Bullying, in all forms, is indeed a serious problem in public schools, yet no one wants to deal with these problems. The schools in which I have taught have varied in their responses to name calling, sexual harrassment, taunting, etc. I must concur, students who are open about being GLBT have others who pick on them in a variety of ways, just as do any students who don't fit into mainstream culture; this would include punks, emos, skaters, geeks, students with various physical and/or mental disabilities. It is disturbing that our melting-pot society doesn't really adhere to the live and let live policy, but then again, just look at the intolerance our government practices as well as the majority of adults.

In high school I was the odd kid who had orange and purple hair with black clothes, dark make-up, and a sardonic sense of humor; most other kids my age didn't think about much of anything unless it concerned them directly. Even though I was constantly chided for my appearance, I always intervened when the popular brats were picking on the dorky, the unpopular, and the easily manipulated kids. For this I incurred much suffering verbally, but it made me realize that in general, most people submit to the herd mentality and that I wanted no part of that.

Now as a high school teacher, I am one of the few teachers who gets involved when students tell me they are being bullied, or I hear someone in class say something like "fag" (not necessarily referring to a gay student) or "that's so gay!". Students are unaware of the power of words and that for the weaker kids, the psychological damage that they inflict upon others.

You are right that the majority of teachers and administrators simply don't want to get involved; sometimes these same people who are in education share these close-minded homophobic and/or racist viewpoints. They should start hiring more teachers who hold less main-stream ideas seeing as this group has much more to offer in the way of being open-minded! But then again, how many people with years of experience and Master's degrees are willing to work 60 hour weeks for a mere 43k per year???

India, I think your observations are solid. It isn't a desireable career for someone whose focus is predominately about financial returns, but more one for an idealist who wants to imprint a positive mark [best case scenerio - we all know jerk teachers]. I did have a teacher who said to me one day, when it was time to pair up for science lab and feeling I would not be requested as a partner by anyone I began to pretend I was sick and needed to call home, "You've got to learn to trust people." I didn't understand her really, though I knew she was tapping into the things under the lie, but over time I came to understand. When I ran into a kid I went to school with who reminded me of a few conversations we had had - just stuff - and who seemed to be treating me as though I was not unliked back then at least by him, and then had a few similar experiences with others, I realized how I had let the behavior of the bullies overwhelm me, convincing me that all of them disliked my otherness. Funnily, I just realized that this is at the heart of grown up life, too, in the way that the right wing bullies muddy the waters and cause us to lose sight of the fact that many of our neighbors are actually just people, too, and not the enemy. This past election was a glimmer of that anyway, for me, and something I hope burgeons.

From my experience, student and faculity homosexuality have been openly accepted, but not without a struggle. School conducted activities and outside group presentations were most successful in bringing this about, although at first protested by students, teachers and parents who thought the school was ¨pushing homosexuality¨on the kids.¨ Open displays of affection (student-student and female teacher-student) were ignored, as were those of heterosexual students. This accepting atmosphere may have come about because of the very small number of homosexual students involved or because of their multiracial composition. Poverty has a way of sorting these things out.