The Bullies of South Hadley

In January, we read the news that Phoebe Prince, a 15 year old girl from South Hadley (Massachusetts) High School, had killed herself in despair after months of bullying-beyond-bullying.  Since then, I have been thinking, off and on, about Phoebe, her family, and about the fellow students who brutalized her on a regular basis up until the hour of her death. And perhaps even beyond. Allegedly, some of her tormentors posted mocking comments about Phoebe on a memorial page that was set up for her. Shortly after her death, someone reportedly wrote “accomplished” on Phoebe’s Facebook wall.

All this, supposedly, because she had some brief involvement with two boys – both now charged with statutory rape – whom some other girls had their eyes on.

No way these girls were going to let this upstart Irish bitch – Prince’s family were recent immigrants from a small town in County Clare – get away with dating the football hero that they or their friends wanted.  So the mean girls just went into an overdrive that apparently brought at least one of the boys charged with statutory into bullying cahoots with them, and they all set out after Phoebe.

Three months of what seems to have been a relentless routine of name calling, Facebook smearing, nasty texting, and physical threats culminated in Phoebe’s sad decision that she could take no more.

On the day she died, she was subjected to seeing her face scrawled out of a publicly posted school picture, and having someone hurl a can of Red Bull at her from a passing car as she walked home – while others in the car called her names.

The South Hadley bullies were in the news again last week, as 9 students have been indicted on charges ranging from criminal harassment, to statutory rape, to civil rights violations, to stalking – a brew of felony counts that we’ll be hearing about in more detail shortly. Several of the students are scheduled for arraignment later this week.

No criminal charges have been filed against school faculty and administration. There’s been plenty of ‘what did they know, and when did they know it’ speculation, but, apparently what they did or didn’t know, and did or didn’t do in response, didn’t rise to the level of criminality in the eyes of the DA who brought the charges against the students.

It’s hard not to think about the tortured existence that Phoebe Prince led during her brief time in America.The heartbreak for her family, who thought that they were doing what was right for their kids by bringing them to The States…The nightmare for her younger sister, who found Phoebe hanged in a closet…

How on earth did things go so wrong, get so out of hand?

I’ve read a lot of the articles and comments on Phoebe’s death.

Most are – of course – heartfelt and sympathetic to Phoebe and her family.

But there are a fair number that make the point that the sort of treatment that Phoebe endured is routine. That Phoebe should have toughed it out. That there must have been something wrong with her that she chose suicide. And that stuff like this happens in the workplace, so you have to get used to it.

First off, if behavior like the taunting and harassment that Phoebe suffered has become routine in our schools, I’d say we’ll have a) more and more suicides, and b) more and more Columbines on our hands. (And is it completely naive of me to wonder why the decent kids can’t just lock arms, stand up to the bullies, and protect those who are being bullied? Probably.)

How did we go from snubs, snottiness, wedgies, and name calling to a posthumous taunt of  “accomplished” on a web-page?

There have always been mean kids, snobs, bullies. And I was, admittedly, quite fortunate that in my childhood I had precious few encounters with them. Some of this was good luck. Some of it was walking around in a fog-bank of oblivion about certain realities of life having to do with prettiness and popularity. But most of it, I suspect, was because there just wasn’t all that much of it going on.

Sure, when I was in first grade, at Hendy’s Pond one afternoon, Brian R – a third grader – made fun of me because I couldn’t skate very well on my first pair of single-blade skates. (Fifty-plus years later, I can still remember how embarrassed I felt.)

Sure, when I was in second grade, I left a note for my friend Susan that said “You stink” and signed it “Ginny.” (Fifty-plus years later, I still feel guilty.)

Sure, if I had wanted to join one of the pretty-girl-nice-clothes cliques in my high school, I might have been given the cold shoulder. But who wanted to hang with them? They weren’t all that smart! Give me the brainy, club-joining, non-dating nerd girls, any old day.

But the thought of any girl at my high school defacing another student’s picture, let alone hurling a can of Red Bull at her head while calling her a whore. Well….

Never in a million years would that have gone down, or been tolerated if, for some preposterous reason, it had occurred.

So what’s changed, beyond the general coarsening of our culture?(Oh, that.)

Are parents too willing to excuse bratty behavior? Teachers too willing to turn blind eyes?

What about the asinine TV shows and movies that show trash-talking mean girls as the norm? I used to point out to my nieces that nobody actually behaves that way in real life, but now I’m not so sure.

And about that point that the workplace is full of bullying behavior…

I have absolutely worked with and for my share of a-holes, but nothing that came close to that hurled can of Red Bull.

And at work you have recourse. If you’re being harassed, you can go to HR or sue the bastards. You can always quit. Since you’re a grown-up, you can find workarounds for dealing with jerks.

I have seen my share of mean, thoughtless, dispiriting behavior at work. That’s life.

But systematic, persistent bullying?

I’m sure that there have been cases of such, but I have to imagine that they’re somewhat rare.

And, as I’ve said, as an adult, you’re presumably better able to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous bosses and co-workers than you are when you’re 15.

But back to the South Hadley bullies, some of whom as early as tomorrow have to start facing up in court to the repercussions of their behavior.

What’s to become of them?

Rotten, mean, and – in some cases, no doubt – sociopathic as some of these kids are, it’s hard to believe that any of them will actually do time, beyond probation and community service. There is, after all, no smoking gun that directly ties the acts of bullying to poor Phoebe’s death. Circumstantial evidence, there is indeed, but how will that hold up? (Actually, probably pretty well if these cases go to court and the jury is stocked with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, big brothers, big sisters, victims of past bullying… Which is why I’m guessing none of these kids opt for a trial.)

And statutory rape for what was consensual sex between a couple of teenagers? Hard to believe that holds up – as much as you might want to jump across a barrier and slap silly the boy who went from sleeping with Phoebe to joining up with a group that deliberately and maliciously bullied her. Some football hero.

So they don’t go to jail.

But they will likely end up with something on their records. And, one would hope, enough guilt and remorse to last a lifetime.

Helping along that remorse (if not the guilt) will be the fact that their involvement in this sad and sorry incident will follow them for that lifetime.

I’m guessing that the dream colleges for these kids will be a lot less willing to accept them than they might have been if the bullying episodes haven’t come to light. Decent students, decent athletes. Maybe you thought you were going to UMass, or Holy Cross, or Lehigh, or wherever. Dream on. What admission’s counselor is going to see “South Hadley” and not google a candidate’s name? What guidance counselor or teacher is going to write anything but a reservation-filled reference for one of these kids?

A more likely college scenario for this crowd is a couple of years at community college while they work on rebuilding their lives and reputations. Or at the not-so-hot college that takes a chance.

And friends? How fast do you think it took for the “good kids”, or even the marginally nice kids, at South Hadley High to defriend the bullies?

How fast do you think that, even within the ranks of the bullies, these kids started distancing themselves – parent over shoulder, no doubt – from the “worst” offenders? How many of the nine are now trying to cop a plea in return for turning on their bullying-buddies?

Moving forward, how do you make new friends, find a roommate, or get taken home to meet the ‘rents, when all the bad news about you is a google away?

Who is going to want to be associated with anyone in this bunch?

As for prospective employers. Caveat emptor. Certainly in the short run, the career prospects for this crew are tarnished. Why take a chance?

Of course, maybe some – maybe even all - of these kids are truly innocent of anything that’s truly criminal. Maybe what they did was what passes for “kids’ stuff” these days. Maybe they’re just mean-spirited, vicious little a-holes. Maybe they’re just weak and petty. Maybe they’re caught up in popular hysteria because a sweet and pretty girl from Ireland found her life so horrific that she chose to take it.

Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, the bullies of South Hadley crossed a line. It may not have been a criminal one. And it may be one that many other kids are crossing every day.

But cross it they did.

Maybe the best outcome we can expect that at least some of the potential bullies out there pause for just a sec and don’t cross the line. If not for moral reasons, then for practical ones: this could end up f-ing my life up.

Indeed it could, as I suspect the South Hadley bullies are finding out more and more every day.