An excerpt from a documentary on bullying that aired on PBS a month ago (which I just now got around to watching on the DVR):
YouTube, or if that fails,
the film's web site, click the clip that is 2:08 in length, with the thumbnail of the kid in the red and white striped shirt.
Honestly, I'm shocked as hell that they were able to record that. Not at all surprised that it happened, since that shit happened to me all the time from 6th to 8th grade. What surprises me is that you'd think that people who aren't doing anything about bullying in their schools would have some fucking clue that they're not doing anything about bullying in their schools and not let filmmakers in to record their incompetence so that everyone can see it.
I just don't understand how people can be that fucking stupid. If I hadn't seen that same kind of insanity when I was in school, I'd probably be pointing to the obvious editing points in the video and insisting they are taking something out of context. It just doesn't make any sense that someone can be intelligent enough to form sentences and yet be as stupid as this woman is.
The clip is from a movie titled "Bully" which aired as an episode of "Independent Lens" on PBS. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be available to view online.
...but the film had plenty more where that came from. At one point, one administrator is talking to various kids on a bullied kid's bus, after being forced to confront the issue when the filmmakers decided they couldn't just keep recording it and not saying anything, and so they showed his parents who then went to the school to listen to more of this woman's bullshit. Afterwards she gets someone else to investigate, seemingly not because she wants to, but because she realizes that if she doesn't then all of the other kids will realize they can get away with anything. So this other woman interviews all of the kids on the bus, and finally she ends up talking to the bullied kid himself, during which they have this gem of an exchange:
School Bitch: Do you trust us that we'll do something when you tell us that someone is bothering you?
Poor Kid: Well, in 6th grade you did nothing about Teddy sitting on my head.
Kid's Mom: On the bus?
Poor Kid: Yeah, there's a little knob, you can, once you unlock it you can lift up the seats, and he lifted up the seat, put my head in it, and sat on my head.
School Bitch: How do you know I didn't do anything?
Poor Kid: I don't know, 'cause...
School Bitch: Did he sit on your head, after you told me?
School Bitch: I did talk to him, and he didn't do that again, did he?
...and then the response that anyone with two working brain cells should have seen coming a mile away:
Poor Kid: No, but he was still doing other stuff after that.
...and a transcription doesn't even do it justice. I mean, you have to see the video to see the way that the kid feels threatened and just doesn't know what the hell to say in response to "how do you know I didn't do anything?" You can just tell, he knows he's fucked and nothing is going to change because you can't win an argument with someone who can't fucking think. ...and the fucking death stare she gives him, like "how dare you suggest I failed to address the issue."
It's insane. Everyone knows that when the kid said "you didn't do anything" that it meant "whatever the fuck you did it didn't change anything." ...but no, it's easier to take the kid literally and tell him all about how you absolutely did do something, and he totally didn't get his head sat on again and he damn well knows it. I'm surprised they weren't able to include additional footage of her forcing him to apologize for being disrespectful, but then his mother was in the room. I guarantee that if she wasn't there then things would have been a lot uglier for him.
Even the parents take a stab at being incompetent. They seem to care about him, kind of, maybe. I don't know, it just seems like they've phoning in the support.
Early in the movie, the mother asks him how his day went, and he says everything is fine, then just zombie stares at her for a minute. She then replies with "I'm glad you didn't have any problems today" and follows it up with "Next time I get the whole story, OK?" Not the worst thing I guess, but I just wanted to fucking yell at her "put the baby down and give the kid a hug." The kid is obviously having a hard time and you just kind of bitch at him for not telling you about it?
Later in the movie, the father is talking with him, and well, the first thing that pisses me off is that he asks "what happened this week on the bus?" This
week? Oh, fuck you. Your kid is getting beat up on the bus every day and the best you can do is ask him once a week how things are going? You might as well just tell him "you know what, honestly, I don't really care."
Then he goes on to say "...and who knows, next year, this high school kid, instead of picking on you, is gonna then pick on your little sister. ...and what are you going to do about it?" Oh, fuck you. Just... Fuck you.
I'm left with the impression that the only reason the kid's parents are talking to him at all is because they're in a movie about bullying.
Anyway, the whole thing just pisses me off so much that I had to post about it. I just can't get over the dumb bitch telling the first kid that he's just like that bully because he wasn't sincere when she told him to shake hands with the bully after the bully apologized. ...and then asking if he can just try to get along with the bully.
It's like the administrators are bullies too. They see a problem between two kids, one is obviously weaker than the other, so they solve the problem by attacking the weaker kid. I don't know how else to explain it.