Public education in America is one of the most strangest things on the planet. From the time a person is 4 or 5 up until they can be 19 or 20, they are forced to attend an institution against their will. People have committed no crime. They have done nothing to be treated they way they have and continue to be.
And if they resist in any way, they can get in more trouble. It is the epitome of the “best intentions” paradox where some people think are beneficial but they can actually be damaging. Worse, it’s credited a Catch-22 where most can’t get out of it unless they do something wrong or something very awful happens to them. Yet even then, there are alternatives to subject them to the same or worse conditions they’ve experienced. Even at 18, you’re old enough to enlist in armed services to be go around the world. However, if you’re found outside of school, you can be charged with truancy.
I mean, just think of explaining this to people or a species unfamiliar with the concept. Wasn’t it in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan’s character gets in trouble for wanting to go to the restroom during the middle of a class? I think it fully explains just how fucked up schools are and have been since the creation. I used to have some teachers who said plainly, “If you have to go, go!” If you’re having an emergency that can’t wait until the class change, they didn’t want you to be embarrassed. Also, some said if you feel sick, go to the restroom. Yet you can also get in trouble for vomiting during a class or messing yourself.
The administrators didn’t like this mentality of leaving the classroom in the event of an bodily emergency because they thought the students would abuse it. Yet, I can count on my hands the number of times in high school someone just stood up and walked out the classroom without asking. That’s four years, about 180 days each time about seven hours a day. That’s over 5,000 hours of which it hardly ever happened. Wanna know how many stupid “Moments Of Silence” we had to appease the Christian people?
We didn’t have hall monitors but we did have a few administrators who made Gestapo look like hall monitors. Did the taxpayers help keep the schools open for this? Why the hell can’t they walk from the classroom to the restroom without some stupid piece of paper with chicken-scratch signature on it?
This isn’t about classroom/bathroom etiquette. But it’s about how a lot of bullying happens in restrooms, classrooms, gymnasiums and hallways while the administrators, faculty and staff do nothing about it. Most of the time, they don’t know. But even if they do, they try to minimize it for their own good. With the exception of the restrooms in the lobbies of the gymnasium and the auditorium, none of the men’s restrooms had stall doors. The girls said their stalls did have doors but no locks so they had to press their hand up to make sure something didn’t walk in on them.
I literally knew people like in American Pie who got parking spots on the edge of campus, so they could maneuver their ways to their vehicles to drive home and back if they really had to go and didn’t want a bunch of people walking in to see them on the toilet. They may have skipped a class but it was a lot better than being pointed at and laughed. Because, it’s in the restroom where a lot of bullying happens. That’s where on Feb. 7, Nex Benedict would be drawn into the international spotlight.
Details are still sketchy about what happened with some people defending the three young woman (who may or may not be 18) from getting into a fight with Nex, who was non-binary. Nex had reportedly been the target of bullying at Owasso High School, in a northern suburb of Tulsa. Some people saying they instigated it by pouring water on the three young women. And because of Oklahoma confidential laws regarding students (even if they 18) and the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office stating they won’t prosecute, we may never know what really happened.
Nex told authorities they were jumped and they were later treated at a medical center where a school resource officer spoke. The next day, Nex collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where they were pronounced dead. An toxicology report indicates that she overdosed on diphenhydramine, allergy relief medication, and fluoxetine, antidepressant medication. No suicide note was found by investigators but there were indicates Nex had been bullied for years. President Harry S. Truman once said, “How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who’s hitting you.”
Tulsa County D.A. Steve Kunzweiller released a statement indicated it was “an instance of mutual combat” and the injuries Nex sustained were “superficial.” Kunzweiller said it would be hard for prosecutors to show a burden of proof. Or the office just doesn’t want to do the leg work because it is an election year. The Owasso Police Department issued a statement they had suspected from the start it was a case of an overdose, they didn’t issue anything until the findings from the medical examiner’s office. Yet, it seems all officials in Owasso are just doing a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking and CYA.
Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD, criticized the reports from Owasso police and the Kunzweiller’s office saying the Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t been accredited since 2009. “It is critical that an independent investigation is completed and the truth about what happened to Nex, and what all marginalized youth in Oklahoma schools endure, is brought to light. We will never stop seeking justice for Nex and we will never stop holding leaders accountable to serving their communities fairly and with compassion,” she said in a statement.
The family of Nex has called on all schools to come together to prevent incidents of bullying like this on other families. “Reforms creating school environments that are built upon the pillars of respect, inclusion and grace, and aim to eliminate bullying and hate, are the types of change that all involved should be able to rally behind,” the family said in a statement released through their lawyers.
The Department of Education has opened an investigation into Owasso’s school district following a complaint from the Human Rights Campaign. However, at the state level, both Gov. Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent Ryan Walters have been adamant in their anti-LGBTQIA legislation, even going as so far as appointing Chaya Raichik, a controversial anti-LGBTQIA advocate to an panel to examine school curriculum and books in the state. Raichik used to be a real estate agent from Brooklyn.
The problem of bullying goes father from school. There’s social media now where as in my days, it usually ended with someone vandalizing a yard with rolling toilet paper. But here was a problem in which many people did it knowing the bullied person would get in trouble by their parents. How many were forced to clean up the toilet paper even though they didn’t do it? No wonder kids are bullied at school. Their parents are the worst.
However, there have been incidents in which parents and homeowners went after the youth. In the Fall of 1996, a prank committed by Sprayberry High School students outside of Atlanta resulted in the death of three students when they sped away from the residence of a student when their parents chasing them. They slammed into a tree. The incident divided the town with some people pointing fingers at the students and others pointing fingers at the parents.
I’m of the opinion is someone pulls any prank on your property that commits any type of vandalism, it’s a crime Maybe the homeowners should’ve called the police. Or maybe they knew it would be reduced to a “kids will be kids” excuse. And that’s how bullying is continued to be allowed. And it continues in the workplace after school ends.
The problem is we’ve never been fully able to do something that would be the correct course of action. Instead of more counselors, schools have elected to hire more police officers. The idea of a school district even having its own police department seem the type of thing you’d see in the inner-city schools not in the suburbs a few decades ago. Now, some schools have adopted zero-tolerance policies that punished the bullied students just as much as the aggressors. Even corporal punishment is still a course of discipline at many schools in 2024. We’re not trying to educate students. We’re trying to control them as much as we can. The best way to control that is to make them afraid to get out of line or even think they might get on a teacher or administrator’s bad side.
This shouldn’t be where our tax dollars go to. I don’t have kids. But if I do, I will refuse to send them to a school where corporal punishment is practiced. No matter what we think. Public education is very biased even still. And while Kunzweiller may say that all involved in the fight are juveniles, he knows state law can keep their identities secret even if they are 18. Considering that many adults are still biased and prejudiced against the LGBTQIA community, bullies know they have an edge over their victims.
That’s all they see elsewhere. People criticized David Hogg and other students of Stoneman Douglass for wanting stricter gun laws after they watched their fellow students get gunned down back in 2018. Adults have gone after Greta Thurnberg for wanting a greener and cleaner climate. The Republican Party has attached themselves to Donald Trump and bullies like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But imagine how Greene would’ve been screaming foul if at the time she harassed Hogg, he turned around and hit her. Or worse, he turned around and shot her. I mean, there are strict laws in Washington, D.C. But imagine if this had been her district in Georgia. She wouldn’t dare get up in someone’s face there or follow them taunting them. She knows she’d get her ass whupped or shot.
Bullies know how to get away with things and they love exploiting it to their advantage. In the workforce, it’s even gotten worse. When I worked at Dollar Thrifty, there was a supervisor who was the absolute worse to people even mocking them as if they were deaf. Part of the problem I’ve realized is that bullies think a 50-cent more an hour raise and a silly supervisor title makes them the Master of the World. The tragedy is eventually, someone pushes back. Nex said they were tired of people making fun of them so that’s why they poured the water on the students. It’s always that one last straw that people put up with until they can’t no more. And the worse part is the bullied is now the one in trouble.
It doesn’t help matters that the same people who support Trump or go on social media and incite violence were the same ones who would’ve gotten on to their children for making fun of others. Sadly, no one wants to help sideline it before it gets too far out of hand. No, they just want a one-sided argument where they’re always right and everyone else is always wrong. We may never know what happened but ask yourself what would have happened if someone had poured water on Nex and she fought back violently. How do you think people would’ve reacted?
I’m pretty sure they would’ve told Nex it’s nothing but water and she should get over it. The students probably wouldn’t face suspension either. But it’s all about who’s doing the hitting, President Truman.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 