Inglés. Sticks and stones

STICKS AND STONES

by Stephen L. Wessler

Language can hurt. Educators, parents, and community members must help students become the solution to the problems of bias, prejudice, and harassment in schools.

parrafo1  During a recent student assembly at a suburban high school, I asked the students to raise their hands if they believed that dangerous weapons were brought to school daily. Not surprisingly, not one hand was raised. I looked around the auditorium, paused, and told the students that I believed that each one of them was wrong. One particular kind of weapon is brought into their school, and into every high school and middle school in the United States, every day: degrading words, slurs, and put-downs. Recent cases in Maine schools illustrate some of the critical and destructive characteristics of degrading language and slurs.

Párrafo 2 The first case began sometime in early January when four boys began targeting another boy- "John" with antigay harassment. The harassment began with whispered slurs and comments as John walked by in the hallway. Then the four boys became more brazen. They began making graphic antigay slurs directly to John. By the end of January. the boys had taken their harassment to another level, tripping John when he walked by or pushing him into a locker while yelling slurs.

3 Sometime in early February, the four boys significantly increased the seriousness of their conduct. On two occasions, several boys jumped John during the school day. While one of the boys put him in a head lock, the other boys continuing to call him names- kneed him in the stomach and groin.

4 Three additional incidents occurred between late February and early April. John was jumped in the boys' bathroom by several of the boys who, while yelling antigay slurs, pushed his head into a urinal. In another incident, one of the boys came up behind John at school and put a rope around his neck. This was not a string or a piece of fiber, but a rope tied as a noose. The boy pulled the rope so tightly around John's neck that it took John about 35 seconds to force his fingers underneath to pull the noose over his head. Sometimes, when we look at the second hand of a wall clock and count to 35, the time goes by quickly. For John, however, those seconds were probably the longest moments of his life. Up to this point, no adult in the school was aware of any of the harassment and violence directed at John.

5 The final event occurred when one of the boys told John that he knew where his father kept a handgun and that he was going to bring it to school the next day and shoot John, another boy who was John's supposed boyfriend, and then himself. A student overheard and told a teacher, who told the principal, who called the police. The police immediately reported the incident to me as director of the civil rights unit in the Maine Attorney General's office.

6 Two points from this sad series of incidents bear emphasis. First, the age of the boys. Each boy, including John, was 12 years old 7th graders. Every year since 1992, the number of hate crimes and bias incidents involving teenagers and younger children reported by police to the Maine Attorney General has increased. Second, the escalation of degrading language and slurs to more focused harassment and threats and then to violence was the pattern in virtually every case of serious hate violence in middle schools, high schools, and colleges in the seven years I directed the anti-hate crime enforcement effort for Maine. Another case started with a phone call from a high school principal. He called to tell me that a student had used a permanent marker to write "Kill the Jews" and to draw a swastika near some lockers. The principal asked for advice, and I suggested several concrete steps that he should take. My last words to him were that he should expect that some Jewish students would be terrified. When I hung up the phone, it rang immediately. I picked it up thinking that it was the principal calling back with another question. Instead, It was the mother of an 11th grade Jewish girl calling to tell me about the incident. When I told her that I already knew about it, she said that her daughter had taken off the Star of David necklace that she had worn since 2nd grade. The girl believed she might be harmed if other students knew she was Jewish. Even when incidents of bias, prejudice. harassment, and violence do not escalate, they can terrorize some students.

7 These two incidents are on the surface unconnected, but a common denominator exists: the destructive power of degrading and violent language. Each incident illustrates a distinct effect of hateful words and symbols. The incident of the boy taunted by four classmates shows the escalation from language to violence. The incident of the anti- Semitic graffiti shows the fear that hateful words and symbols can create for our students.

Pervasive Use

8 How pervasive is the use of degrading language? Derogatory language has been commonplace in schools for a long time. Most of us heard degrading language and slurs when we were students. But the use of language that degrades specific groups- particularly groups that appear different in some way appears to have increased. Specifically, we are talking about words that degrade others because of their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, economic status, and physical and mental disability. A second set of words appears to have increased in usage and intensity: words that threaten violence. It is unusual how quickly often in a matter of seconds a mild argument in a hallway can escalate to violent and threatening language.

9 Not every student uses degrading and violent words; many do not, but all young people today hear hateful words, slurs, and words of violence every day as the background noise of their lives. They hear them at the movies, on television, from radio shock jocks, and on their CDs. Sadly, some young people hear them from their families. But most important, they hear them from one another on the bus, in the hallway, on the playground, and in the locker rooms. They hear them 24/7. The use of degrading and violent language is pervasive and endemic.

10 Unfortunately, the routine use of slurs and other degrading language has desensitized too many students. They stop understanding or hearing the real meanings of the words they use, and often the only students who truly realize their impact and meaning are the boys and girls who are the targets of the slurs, jokes, and put-downs. The impact of humiliating language on these students is powerful and destructive.

The Toll

The toll students suffer from their exposure to derogatory language is profound.

11 Escalation. I learned from seven years of investigating and prosecuting hate crimes in colleges, high schools, and middle schools that the violence was never the beginning of anything. Rather, the violence was the end of something, and that something was an escalating pattern of harassment that started with degrading language and slurs. It should not be a surprise that if it appears acceptable to constantly denigrate and slur, some students will conclude that it is also acceptable to take words to the next level Some students will then conclude that it is acceptable to go to the next level, and the

[20/03/2024 05:32 p. m.] Javier Gómez: next. Words do not exist in a vacuum. When left unchallenged, words create a culture and an environment that appear to tolerate bias, prejudice, and violence.

12 Fear. This is the hardest point for many of us to understand. Many of us do not identify with a word or symbol what can elicit a strong fear, but many of our students do experience this kind of fear. The 11th grade Jewish girl I described earlier is not an exception. Antigay comments, racist slurs, and sexually degrading language all carry an implicit threat of violence. If you are a 16-year-old African American girl and someone scrawls "the KKK is back" on your notebook, what do you believe will happen next? If you are a gay high school student and a group comes up to you and yelis "get out of our way. What do you think will happen if you do not get out of the way? The answer to both questions is violence.

13 The fear of violence generated by degrading symbols and words based on race. ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation can be terrifying and paralyzing. This fear can lead to other consequences. For some young people, the fear that slurs, degrading language, and harassment will get worse if they tell anyone about them leads them to deny that the incidents ever occurred. Unfortunately, this denial intensifies the fear.

14 Fear can also lead to declining grades. I have seen too many young people whose abilities to concentrate and study declined dramatically in the wake of harassment. You cannot learn if you are focusing on whether you will be safe walking down the halls of your school. Finally, fear can lead to physical and emotional problems such as weight loss, sleep disorders, anxiety, and depression.

16 Rage. Some students who suffer slur after slur, day after day, week after week, reach the breaking point and snap, hitting back at the attacker. There is no more difficult situation for school administrators to handle. The victim has now committed a serious act of violence. The student who has engaged in the harassment has participated in a far less serious act of misconduct as defined by school disciplinary policies and the criminal justice system. When harassment has proceeded to this point, it often is too late to do anything but to pick up the pieces.

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