Suicide at 11

My heart goes out to the families and friends of those two boys, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera, who both ended their own lives due to bullying. This comes not only from someone who is compassionate of the situation, but who has been there.

When I was in school, I spent the vast majority of my life in therapy because I was violent in school. My shrink said it was my fault; school administrators said it was my fault. The only people who knew I was being provoked into self-defense were my parents. I was being bullied, tormented from the bus to school right until I get back to my front door, and as the years passed, the forms of torment became more complex, especially since the aggressors had friends who would gladly lie for them. If no physical marks were left, nothing could be ‘proven.’

Well, the marks are left, laid at the headstone of two young boys who didn’t need to die.

The bottom line: children are cruel. They are cruel because they are not truly taught otherwise. They are taught that doing stupid, mindless, mean shit to other people is funny, not wrong. Yet they get angry when it’s done to them. Or worse, they themselves become indifferent to it, not knowing pain until it’s exploding in their face, then they don’t understand what to do with it.

Children fear what they don’t understand. Anything new that is not given to them in a format that they are used to makes them uneasy. And anything they don’t like, they try to knock over, including other children. They think it makes them better; they think it takes the attention away from them when they force others to look at someone else. I was the someone else. I was the target of whole school buildings because I was different. I was the reason they didn't notice (or could at least ignore) the differences in each other.

I recognize now that I was abused by my peers. There is no other word for it. I was used as an outlet for their emotional stress, without consent or regard. Children in my school who knew nothing about me beyond the fact that I was a target taunted me with everything they could find, to the point of physical abuse. I struck back, defending myself, and I was punished by the teachers and administrators set to give us a safe environment to learn, encouraging the situation. I was touched, I was pushed, I was cut, and I couldn't prove it beyond simple accident. Some of my teacher eventually found my constant complaints a nuisance, brushing me aside for my 'important' matters. I was called names I will not repeat, hair was pulled, even cut, because I was too light to be black, but the hair was still there. I was called troll by faces I never knew only because they could. They were told they could by those who had come before them, and they laughed because they thought it made them like everyone else. Short, fat, smart with bad hair, I was beaten down to the point that I didn’t want to burden my family with my issues. At 11.

I do not wonder why students have brought guns to school, unable to take the strain anymore. I too lashed out, biting, beating, breaking anyone and everyone who got close enough, wanting nothing more than to make it all stop. But even then, my abuse had no end. It knew no limit, my tormentors making a game of finding new ways to hurt me, hurt those like me, because it was fun. Even when I changed school districts, I was different, I was DARK, therefore I was a threat, and I was a target.

These two boys experienced that same kind of abuse, and they cracked under the weight of it. I did not, by the grace of powers greater than myself, and because of this hell that was my life, I grew into someone compassionate, understanding, and a defender of those around me. I can only look forward now, the scars covered but never gone, to a future where schools are safe again, safe from bigotry, safe from hatred, safe from abuse.

And is it too much to ask that the fucks who tormented these two boys get brought before their mothers to answer for what they contributed to? Find these children, and have them justify themselves to the mothers of these boys. Let them explain why they thought this was ok.

And in their turn, once they understand what they have contributed to and why this cannot be allowed to continue, let them be forgiven. They are children, after all. Let them learn, let them understand, and let them stand as lighthouses amongst the disgusting darkness that is socialization in schools. Let this be the last time.

Zero tolerance isn't the answer. Understanding of the situation and combating the lack of compassion and the lack of understanding IS.

It has to end.