------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From: Andrew Bromage <>
Subject: Re: XMC Media and violence
To: 
Date sent:  Tue, 25 May 1999 00:24:01 +1000 (EST)

CHRIST AND MEDIA CULTURE  - NETWORKING
___________________________________________________

G'day all.

Sr. Kathryn James Hermes wrote:

> I am new to the list.

Welcome!

[Eric Harris' suicide note excerpt]
> >
"Your children who have ridiculed me, who have
> >
chosen not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not
> >
worth their time are dead."

> --are we talking about a specific difference
> that stands out among others here, or a feeling of being different and
> alienated? Are we talking about the teasing that went on when I was in
> grade school in the 70's (which revolved around weight) which resulted in a
> boy committing suicide in high school years, or are we talking about
> various other differences or feeling of being different?

Good question.

(I fear that if I post much more on this, I'm in serious in danger of
becoming off-topic.  Further discussion on this topic not directly
related to Christianity and media culture may be better handled off-
list.)

The perpetrators of this massacre belonged to a clique which seemed to
revel in being different and shunning society.  This is a snippet from
the British Guardian's contemporary report on the incident:


Far from being a united, happy bunch, Columbine

students operated a fiercely regimented social

hierarchy. 'The school was cliquish and extremely

divided,' said one former student. 'There was a lot

of tension between the groups. It was almost

continuous conflict between each one.' There were

the jocks, principally the football team, regarded by

the rest as being allowed to operate as a law unto

themselves by the school authorities. There were

the preppies, the rich kids, despised by their peers

because of a perception that they could buy their

way through life. There were the skateboard punks,

the cool kids envied for their street style. And,

right at the bottom of the food chain, there were

the students who could not fit into any of the

other groups, the quiet, brooding, intelligent ones.


According to pupils who spoke to the Guardian

last night, these pupils were invariably shunned by

the other tribes, and frequently bullied, verbally and

physically. As a reaction, they formed a clique two

years ago and called themselves the Anachronists.

But it was the derogatory label given to them by

the jocks because of their habit of wearing long

black trench coats whatever the weather, indoors

and out, which stuck: the Trenchcoat Mafia.

Although members of the clique are generally the

brighter students, they hold bizarre beliefs to

signify their rejection of mainstream society. In their

yearbook entry, 13 students described themselves

as members beside the message: 'Who says insanity

is crazy? Insanity is healthy.'

This makes perfect sense to me.  Every time you call someone abnormal
or anti-social, it makes it that much more likely for them to BE
anti-social.  If you make them into freaks, they become freaks.

W.H. Auden put it nicely:


I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

A friend of mine, Rowland Croucher, put it even more simply:


Hurt people hurt people.

We saw the same thing on a grander scale under the South African
apartheid regime.  Atrocities perpetrated by the government resulted
in atrocities perpetrated by anti-apartheid organisations, and on the
cycle of violence went.

There is no difference between being beaten up because of your weight
or because of the colour of your skin.  It's no easier to be bullied
because you listen to the wrong kind of music than because you profess
the wrong religion.

> Are we talking
> about specific children who for one reason or another can't cope with the
> teasing, (I was also teased for years for other reasons, yet because I
> sublimated it into a religious dimension, I had a different reaction) or a
> change in the culture in which the children are giving up hope because they
> have nothing else to live for?

There is an element of the latter, too.  One of the dynamics in youth
suicide is the problem of unrealistic expectations placed on them by
parents, teachers or peers.  Bullying probably also plays a significant
role, but there's no research I've seen on just how significant.

> These are just questions that I ask as I seek to direct articles to target
> vulnerable areas and also help children find a relationship with Christ in
> which they can discover meaning in their lives.

They're interesting questions and I'd like to see some more rigorously
obtained answers than mine.

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage
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