u235

Cute international teen is driven to suicide. The classmates that drove her to it now have the opportunity to learn about the court system. The pity is that the school administrators, the ones who could have prevented this tragedy, are getting away without any punishment at all.

The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.[...]

It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,” Ms. Scheibel said, but did not violate any laws. (NYT)

Another article detailed how, more than a year prior, the school had received advice on how to handle bullying but implemented little, and that little haphazardly. But it doesn't lessen my confusion. Regardless of advice, didn't any common sense or desire to make their school a welcome place for kids to learn, register with South Hadley High School bureaucrats? Ok that was a facetious question.

For those that don't know let me tell you a little about why these adults didn't do their job. It has, in a large part, to do with the fact that this took place in Massachusetts. People in Mass are insular, town-proud, priggs for the most part. Proud as hell that for the N-generations after the Mayflower landed that none of their relatives ever traveled more than the boundaries of their tiny town. I've heard plenty of "Oh well all my relatives live in town" stories followed by "You know the first time I left the state was for business?" They're geographically ignorant goons and quite happy that way. The whole rest of the world out there is scary, not intriguing, as most everyone would think. And travel outside of their local sub-shop, liquor store and Dunkin' Donuts is more than they can abide.

It's also a "commonwealth" but don't get me started on that. It's a different rant.

Back to the point I was making, the administrators at South Hadley High didn't do dick because Phoebe was a foreigner. In their mind she probably didn't belong there, and if the other kids were giving her a hard time it was because she shouldn't have come in the first place. True she was white, and Irish, which is completely common in New England, but she was the genuine article too not St. Patty's day, Guinness-swilling wannabes. I mean it's hard as hell to integrate into any community, other than Boston and the college-burbs, in the Kennedy-state. Even when you're an adult. Even when you've lived in a community for more than a dozen years and raised your kids there. They know. They can smell it. You're not of the body.

I like to blame the Pilgrims for some of this attitude. I mean they left England because they couldn't get along in one of the most tolerant nations of the time for a reason. They were stick-up-the-ass anal. Little of that attitude has diminished since then, and "You're unwelcome here stranger" should be the state slogan, right up there next to the state bird: the turkey.