In school. Where he should have been learning, and laughing and playing and growing.
Not any more.
And all because of the daily harassment he suffered at the hands of four students at Hamilton Middle School in Houston.
His family says Asher was "bullied to death" because he was a small kid, because of his religion, because he didn't wear the cool clothes, and because people assumed he was gay. His mother and stepfather, David and Amy Truong, say the bullying went as far as other students "performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class."
Asher Brown's parents said that they had complained time and again, over the course of eighteen months, to school officials about their son's abuse, but that nothing was ever done. Amy Truong made numerous phone calls to the school, but they were never returned.
School officials say they never received a single complaint from Asher Brown's parents before the suicide, and district spokeswoman Kelli Durham said no students, school employees or the boy's parents ever reported that he was being bullied.
Now who's being bullied? The Truong's are outraged because they say the school, and the district, are simply protecting themselves, and the bullies, rather than protecting Asher Brown when they had the chance.
Amy Truong: "That's absolutely inaccurate — it's completely false. I did not hallucinate phone calls to counselors and assistant principals. We have no reason to make this up. … It's like they're calling us liars."
And the Truongs aren't the only ones complaining. The website of KRIV-TV, which aired a report of Asher Brown's suicide, has been inundated with comments from parents and students saying that Asher had been bullied by classmates for several years.
One of the last things Asher Brown said, on the day he died, was to tell his stepfather that he was gay. And his father said that was okay.
You want to see progress in America for the LGBT community? See the end of DADT? The end of DOMA? Marriage equality? Simple equality? I wanna see an America where kids don't kill themselves because they're bullied and tormented for being short, or have red hair, or wear glasses, or dress funny, or have accents, or might be gay, or are gay, or...or...or....
source
The anti-bullying curriculum, if they have it, needs to be explicit. And if the district can't find the guts to do it then it has to become financially intolerable to not change their ways.
ReplyDeleteMore evidence that bullying is the best cure for faggotism ever. It's simple, cheap, usually not messy, the school administrators don't have to get involved, and the kids just l-o-v-e doing it. It's a team-building exercise for the bullies, and that's a very important benefit to society. It's a win-win solution to a disgusting problem.
ReplyDeleteThe schools got a good thing going here. Why would they want to stop it?
that school principal and any one involved with this should be brought up on charges and loose their jobs! This is absolutely not right. I'm so so sorry for these parents that lost their son because the school did not act in a professional manner to stop the bullies, suspend them, contact their parents about this and nip it in the bud, no, they ignored the calls and did NOTHING about bringing the bullying under control. THEY are at fault here and should pay for this outrage and injustice, fined, charged and fired from their jobs, period!
ReplyDeleteSomething's not passing the sniff test here.
ReplyDelete"Parents say they made numerous phone calls to the school, but they were never returned."
So they just accepted that? For 18 months?? They didn't bother to schedule an appointment with the principal? To raise the issue further with a school trustee? To DOCUMENT their efforts to make the world safer for their son? To WITHDRAW him from school, for his own safety?
That we're still having to fight this battle in the 21st century is dispicable, but parents, for Pete's sake....a little more meaningful action may well have saved his life.
And to all the school officials--teachers, administrators, trustees--who had a chance to act but chose instead to look the other way, Asher's blood is on their hands. Shame on their inaction.
His letter to his family is really getting to me
ReplyDeleteVery interesting that they deny having been called. If the parents are using a VoIp phone or a cell phone there are logs of all incoming and outgoing calls that can be pulled up in a flash.
ReplyDeleteThat would give the school system pause.
Not all school system run that way. But society as a whole need to pay more attention to their churches that preaches them to hate. We as a whole need to come after the religious right that nowadays are dominating the debate. Our lives are on jeopardy.
ReplyDelete