TheBanyanTree: The convenience of blaming the victim

[JMoney]

I've just heard the most extraordinary thing.  Not that Arnie won the
election.  That's not extraordinary, and frankly, I see no reason why a
former body-builder and actor shouldn't make just as good a politician as,
say, a continuing liar and adulterer or, perhaps, your friendly local
used-car dealer.  I had an uncle who was a used-car dealer and, apart from
being a very brave, generous, kind, tolerant and wise man, he also used to
read his Bible every night in bed.  In Australia, in my experience, the last
is quite unusual.

No.  The extraordinary thing is that a woman in the USA has been found
guilty of being a bad housekeeper and may go to jail for ten years over it.
Of course it's actually a little more complicated than that; her young son
committed suicide.  Apparently he was picked on at school.  Apparently
that's because he was ill kempt and smelly.  The mother, being a very bad
housekeeper and, by extension, a bad mother, didn't train her son either
directly or by example to be neatly turned out and fragrant.  Therefore she
is the one who is culpable in her son's suicide.

So there she is on the TV screen, silently bearing her humiliation and
condemnation, flanked by lawyers and looking, as she well might, utterly
crushed.  Her eyes are puffy sinkholes of misery.  She's overweight,
uncoiffured, uncoutured and has the sort of collapsed mouth that suggests
she may have no teeth.  See for yourselves.  She looks, if one goes by
appearances, like just the sort of person who would make an excellent target
for blame - undoubtedly poor, probably under-educated, most likely not too
smart and, chances are, someone who had a pretty lousy childhood herself.

I wonder what the school bullies look like.  I wonder what the other people
look like - the school counsellor, the dead boy's teachers, the social
workers, the mental health experts and whoever else - who might,
conceivably, have had some role to play in supporting the family and
preventing this boy's death.  They weren't on show for the cameras so I
can't say.

There are, unfortunately, quite a few children who get picked on at school
and subsequently commit suicide.  Most of them are kept perfectly clean and
well-dressed.  I knew one boy who shot himself dead because of the teasing
he was suffering over his family name.  Perhaps his father, a man of some
importance and good income, should have been sent to jail for refusing to
let the boy change it.

I also remember a girl at primary school whose uniform was a bit old and
scruffy and who was smelly in a distinctly unpleasant way.  I recall having
to sit next to her in sewing class and not enjoying it but I don't recall
anyone in particular picking on her and making her life miserable.  She had
friends she sat with at lunch time and with whom she played hopscotch and
rope skipping.  I know for a fact that this girl survived to graduate from
high school - she and her group of friends.

There is no way to prevent the suicide of someone who has settled on
accomplishing the act.  People are not driven to suicide because they're
continually dirty and smelly.  If it were so the cause of much complaint in
this community (people generally referred to as 'intinerants' or 'long
grassers') would soon cease to be a problem.  But people, including young
people, are driven to suicide because other people continually pick on them,
using some characteristic of theirs (smell, skin colour, size of nose,
wing-nuttishness of ears, bad hair, studiousness, whatever) as an excuse,
but really because the bullies - wicked, nasty people that they are - enjoy
the thrill of superiority they feel when they succed in making other people
miserable.

Well.  That's what I think.  I hope that poor, sad woman gets off.  She's
already lost her son and I find it hard to believe that she's rejoicing over
that even if she is a slatternly housewife.

Janice