• pleasejustdie@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    So, the school board is bullying him into not doing an anti-bully talk. I think maybe the school board should have been the one getting the speech and not the kids at the school…

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      All that anti-bullying bullshit is that. Bullshit. They encourage bullying. They claim they don’t, but they do. If you’re not “normal,” you’ll get bullied and the school will do very little about it.

      • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 months ago

        Typically they just let the bullies continue until somebody snaps and hits back, at which point the kid that snaps gets punish and the bullies get a stern talking to (maybe. If they don’t have the teacher thoroughly gaslight into believing they’re angels)

        • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Ah, I see you’re familiar with my last 2 years of HS. Finally just got my parents to transfer me to a local vocational school instead of dealing with it, because it was clear the school wasn’t gonna do a damn thing.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        7 months ago

        My kids’ experience has been pretty good in the schools they’ve been in, especially in the high school. I’m not saying there’s no bullying, but I’ve heard plenty of stories from them where they and/or others stepped in right away and put that shit down.

        I’m also plenty aware that this is unusual, and am quite thankful for my school district.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Well I don’t know about your district, but in mine, we had to take my daughter out of public school and put her in online school because her bullying was so severe that she was having self-harm thoughts and the school did virtually nothing.

      • thantik@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        That’s because out of everything, we’re kind of creatures of conformation. Every nail that sticks out gets hammered down. It’s a part of our biology at this point, given how tribal in nature we have become. Success came from everyone working together, and when something goes against the status-quo, it’s normal for people to shun it. You’ll find this in literally every possible ‘division’ you can create for society. Dyed your hair blue? Some people’s instinct will naturally kick in and shun you for it. You don’t even have to be gay or anything - just out of the ordinary.

        • randomname01@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          Working together doesn’t require conformity. Perhaps there is something to your point, but you’re not arguing it convincingly.

          • thantik@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That’s good, because I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything, just spouting facts.

          • thantik@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I excuse many things that people do; because I realize that no person can ever be absolutely perfect – to expect perfection of them is to preordain disappointment in them.

          • thantik@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Of course we can do better – I’m telling you, it will never go away. It will forever be something we have to educate people on, and keep at the forefront of their minds, because we are literally of two minds. We have a prehistoric brain that can control low level impulses, and people have to be taught to override those impulses.

  • ChokingHazard63@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    My oldest friend is gay. We met in kindergarten I think. I don’t remember meeting him, he’s just always been there. Cut to last year when my parents were saying they “don’t approve of that lifestyle” and I asked them “Well, what about [this friend]?” They know he’s gay, but since he doesn’t have an accent or a limp wrist they don’t seem to care. He lives down the street. We both went into the tech field. We hike. We’re each married to our own spouses. We have pets. I pointed all this out and told them “if you disapproved of his lifestyle, you’d also disapprove of mine. It’s not the LIFESTYLE, it’s the IDENTITY you don’t approve of.” I haven’t talked to my parents since. I’m ashamed to be related to them.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      haven’t talked to my parents since. I’m ashamed to be related to them.

      Know that feeling. Welp if it is any help we can’t choose our family, we can choose our friends. If we both decide to start talking to them again maybe we can setup a racist playdate for our parents. You know bring them to the park, pack a lunch of bacon and cheap beer.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        One of the biggest idiots I ever met in my life said one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard in an argument with his sister.

        “I’m your fucking sister!!”

        He replied, “Yeah, well. I don’t like you! I didn’t choose you! The good lord put you assholes on me. I’ve chose all my friends and I choose to call them family. Y’all can get fucked!”

  • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    “It’s not discriminating against his lifestyle — that’s his choice,” Potteiger said in the meeting. “But it’s him speaking about it.”

    Mental gymnastics gold medalist

  • Clent@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The irony here is it not being highlighted.

    School board bullies unanimously agreed to bully anti-bully activist by removing him from anti-bully event.

    • aleph@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      All they heard was the word ‘activist’ and it sent their tiny minds reeling.

        • aleph@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Actually, it’s both. They can’t imagine that a gay person could be any other type of activist than a “gay activist” hellbent on turning all their precious “normal” children queer.

        • aleph@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Anti-bullying activists are precisely the kind of people that we don’t want leading anti-bullying campaigns!

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      People keep fleeing to the cities for some crazy reason.

      But then its time to redraw the districts and you still end up with a State Senate Seat represented by the five angriest racist grandpas a computer can draw a line around.

  • Vytle@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    God I fuckin… Like dude the fucking right gets upset when the fucking left wants to increase gun laws when there’s a school shooting, but the fucking right is too stupid to fucking realize that if they stop being literal facists than maybe, just fucking maybe, kids won’t be as depressed. Maybe if these kids could actually fucking see that its okay to be different, they’d be fine. And it fucking sucks because anti bullying shit like literally never features LGBT scenarios. Like actually fuckin run it back in your mind, cause I know damn well I never saw ANY anti bullying thing for gays. Hell, I fucking got suspended from highschool because a kid called ME a [that one really mean word for gay people D:]. If I wasn’t such a narcissist I legitimately would not have made it out of highschool.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      if they stop being literal facists than maybe, just fucking maybe, kids won’t be as depressed

      A lot of these school shootings involve a kid from a very conservative family getting utterly blackpilled on some QAnon conspiracy bullshit and going off to do an adventurism against the PoC in school who have been bullying him merely by existing. And I can’t help but feel that conservative adults are quietly thinking to themselves “Good, I wish more people would behave like this” as they publicly shake their heads in disapproval.

      Whether its Dylann Roof or Patrick Wood Crusius or Kyle Rittenhouse or Daniel Perry, this is just a Kristallnacht by drips and drabs.

      • Vytle@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The mind of a conservative is actually insane. They will hear someone say the most vile, bigoted thing about minorities and just go “well we were all thinking it” like honestly it is insane. Its like they think that conservative views are the default, and any white person who disagrees with them is either “brainwashed by the left” or just acting like they disagree with conservative views because muh “woke society will kill you for agreeing with the truth”

  • CannedCairn@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I grew up 40 minutes away and let it blows my mind because mechanicsburg is 15 minutes from Harrisburg and both areas are generally more liberal than where I even live. I’m sad now.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I grew up in Harrisburg and everybody called the west shore of the Susquehanna the “White Shore.” Harrisburg is a perfect example of redlining and the racist interstate highway system, but it’s a lot more diverse than the west shore. Moving away from the river you find quietly racist blue collar people, quietly racist white collar people, and then just plain racists.

      Though if you really want to start hearing banjos you head up to Perry County. Or Clearfield shudder

  • bean@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    “What if we have to stay over night, and there aren’t enough rooms, and we have to share a room, and I forgot to bring a shirt to sleep in, and the stores are all closed…”

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    from speaking at a middle school anti-bullying assembly after concerns were raised about his political activism

    Anti-bullying assemblies are political activism, at least two of them were open about it being because he’s gay