Comment Re:Afraid of losing oppressed status (Score 1) 277
It also sounds like the same old crap about how middle-class white kids can't
possibly have problems because they are part of the alleged white male conspiracy
against all minorities and women.
I've seen comments akin to this one several times in the course of this discussion and they really bother me. There is the implicit assumption that the oppression which was the subject of Jon Katz's article was directed only at white men. How patently false. It may be hard to be a smart sensitive non-jock male, but the repercussions of being the same and being female are just as horrifying. After all, we are supposed to be dumb, 15 pounds underweight, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed and made-up. Strike out on all of these (as I certainly did) and you become the subject of the most hateful epithets and nasty treatment. (and not always from the popular kids)
My point is not to start a war about who suffered more in high school -- that is a truly self-defeating path, but to note that the treatment these poor boys went through is not just their experience. They simply get the attention because they responded the most visibly. This points to how we teach our young men and women to deal with the crises in their lives. Our culture tells young men that they have to fight back. It tells young women to grin and bear it.
We can decry the treatment that non-mainstream students get in the schools, and that is a good thing as long as we don't limit ourselves to the most visible cases. However, we must also face the fact that part of the problem which results in events like Littleton is the manner in which we teach our youth to confront adversity.
possibly have problems because they are part of the alleged white male conspiracy
against all minorities and women.
I've seen comments akin to this one several times in the course of this discussion and they really bother me. There is the implicit assumption that the oppression which was the subject of Jon Katz's article was directed only at white men. How patently false. It may be hard to be a smart sensitive non-jock male, but the repercussions of being the same and being female are just as horrifying. After all, we are supposed to be dumb, 15 pounds underweight, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed and made-up. Strike out on all of these (as I certainly did) and you become the subject of the most hateful epithets and nasty treatment. (and not always from the popular kids)
My point is not to start a war about who suffered more in high school -- that is a truly self-defeating path, but to note that the treatment these poor boys went through is not just their experience. They simply get the attention because they responded the most visibly. This points to how we teach our young men and women to deal with the crises in their lives. Our culture tells young men that they have to fight back. It tells young women to grin and bear it.
We can decry the treatment that non-mainstream students get in the schools, and that is a good thing as long as we don't limit ourselves to the most visible cases. However, we must also face the fact that part of the problem which results in events like Littleton is the manner in which we teach our youth to confront adversity.
