Contributor Opinion By Diane Stuart: The New Norm?
Nov 9, 2010 7:50 - 12 Comments
Last Friday I witnessed the aftermath of an attempted mugging in my neighborhood. It happened as Richard Montgomery was releasing its students, and, as usual, great numbers of them like to take the back path down to the Ritchie Center to get snacks. Usually at least one City of Rockville squad car is parked at the 7-Eleven, oftentimes even two or three. But on Friday, this wasn’t the case, and too bad and sad for the victim.
I didn’t witness the attack, I saw the aftermath, spoke to bystanders, and tried to comfort and assist the victim. What struck me most and the reason why I am posting this here is the apparent apathy of the witnesses (probably 40+ students) and even of the victim. According to one witness who also attempted comfort and assistance afterward, here’s what happened:
“A girl tried to take another girl’s money, threw her on the ground, and kicked her in the head.”
That squares with what I saw: A young girl on her hands and knees feeling around for something which turned out to be her glasses, which turned out to be broken. She found them and walked, tearful and shocked, to a Chinese restaurant where she tried, unsuccessfully to compose herself.
“It’s just high school,” she said between sobs, “I’m fine.” Obviously she wasn’t. In addition to the swelling around her eyes, was what seemed to be the greater wound: She was aghast at being the victim and seemed to want nothing more than to disappear into the Earth.
No, she didn’t want me to call police (I did anyway), she didn’t want me to accompany her back to RM, she didn’t want the attention. So am I making a big deal where there is none? Isn’t this an assault?
Those of you who remember the Kitty Genovese story will know what’s bothering me. In that case 38 witnesses—no doubt all good people—witnessed her murder, but did not try to help her. They were afraid. Stunned and frozen. Here, herds of students did the same. The girl was not among friends, she was alone in a crowd, which I suppose made her a perfect victim.
When the “jumping” was over, two things happened. A group of girls turned back to see if she was okay. Another group who seemed to me to be watching a sporting event, turned away. Back to business for them. And who knows what the one girl who dished out the abuse did. Brag and swagger?
Is it possible she has a hold on the minds of all these other people, such that no one dared to step in? Could she be so intimidating? What if twenty or thirty students had just stepped up, as a group, and told her to knock it off? Would they still need to fear loss of coolness, or some other form of retaliation today?
“Well, this age group…” explained the officer who eventually arrived to take my complaint, “you know.” Yes I do know and no I don’t. I do remember the peer thing from high school, and I also know the fear of stepping up doesn’t leave us when we graduate.
I guess I had hoped for better. It’s been 46 years since Kitty Genovese died, and as the county schools have worked tirelessly to instill the virtues of tolerance and acceptance of groups unlike one’s own, I was simply dismayed by the apathy. Nothing has changed, it seems. The kids and even the officer seemed to be telling me, “We see this all the time. Stuff happens.”
Fear still dominates. We accept the unacceptable. Or maybe this turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to such acts of violence is now the norm.
Diane Stuart
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very well written .
I too remember Kitty Genovese and I have a one word comment about this incident - sad.
I am old enough to remember the Kitty Genovese story. Since that time, there have been a lot of psychology studies performed on determining why people do, or do not, take the initiative to intervene. There is something called The Bystander Effect (here’s the Wiki link).
The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.
The case that you witnessed was among adolescents, which introduces the additional issues of “bullying” (very much a topic of discussion these days), and also “snitching”.
Yes, I am well aware of the bystander effect and of the psychology of adolescents. I daresay that many of these students think of themselves as “adult.” As such, they will need to confront these issues, and, it seems to me, that lacking the basic instinct of helping another human who is being brutalized is a shocking and sorry comment on the state of things. There is “bystanding” and then there’s lacking in all compassion and simply being too deadened or fearful of the world to do the right thing instinctually. Kicking someone in the head? That’s pretty severe. I would have thought it crossed the line even with adolescents.
diane, as the parent of two RM students (and a third already graduated), i thank you for writing this, coming to this young woman’s aid and getting the police involved. my son got into a fight a year ago on school grounds and only disciplinary action was taken. i was unsuccessful in getting the school or the PTSA to address bullying and appropriate responses, tho i admit i ran out of steam on the issue. this incident was off school grounds so i doubt RM would be involved, although it should be.
the girl and all others should be encouraged to come forward and i hope whoever attacked her faces consequences. otherwise she will continue to be a target.
empathy is extremely important and i share your concerns. kids are exposed to so much violence. they can go online and watch real fights on youtube and play call of duty and grant theft auto with no regard for real life consequences of violent actions. i do worry about the effect of this. and there should be two steps-understanding what happened is one, changing behaviors is the second.
i will talk about this with my kids and their friends. thank you again.
When I read this article I had just finished reading an email about a WWII British bomber pilot and crew trying to return to England in a totally battered plane. A German fighter pilot had been sent up to shoot the plan down. When he recognized the impossible condition of the airplane, and saw crew frantically trying to keep pieces together so they could return home, he signaled the pilot to follow him to the Channel from where the bomber pilot could find his way home. (He reported to his superiors that he shot the plan down over the sea.)
The British pilot was told not to tell about this incidence.
It came out years later when the two pilots met, the German pilot said it would have been like shooting a man in a parachute to have obeyed his order.
I interpret his reasoning as offending his core values.
Which brings me back to the children……the pilots were children once….what changed.
One correction for clarity, the German pilot reported that he shot the bomber down over the sea
This violent incident is totally unacceptable. Thank God there are still people like Diane Stuart in this world. I would have helped the girl and understand how embarrassed she must have felt. Of course she resisted help. It is understandable.
No provoking that might have occurred prior to this incident excuses this kind of violence. I am sure that not all young folks are this cruel. If I were the girl’s mother, I would do my best to hunt down the person who did the injury and even file an assault charge. I believe in justice.
I will never understand why an individual would not offer help in an emergency situation. But I also don’t understand cruel and violent individuals.
Of course this type of violent episode should be unacceptable, but we must admit the sad fact that this sort of thing truly has become almost “the norm”. What I find most upsetting is the dismissive attitude of law enforcement officials.
The fact that children increasingly lack empathy is not surprising, since lately I’ve witnessed far too much appalling behavior by their elders: treating others with contempt, dehumanizing those they feel to be inferior, yelling and screaming in public forums. They are adopting a very atavistic and brutal worldview, and they should not act surprised when their childrens’ behavior reflects their own.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this article and bring it to our attention. My heart goes out to this young victim. While this event goes well beyond bullying, the attitude that this type of situation is “the norm” may stem partially from students having witnessed the widespread bullying which unfortunately they may have begun00 to see as early as elementary school. I’ll list here for anyone who might be interested four books on Bullying which some of my students and their parents have found useful in dealing with bullying when they see or experience it themselves: Bullyproofing Children, by Joanne Scaglione and Arrica Rose Scaglione, Raise your Child’s Social IQ, by Cathi Cohen, L.C.S.W., The Unwritten Rules of Friendship, by Natalie Madorsky Elman, Ph.D. and Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Phd, and Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, by Michele Borba, Ed.D.
Thanks for all the comments, everyone. Both the violence and the apathy seem to be continuing trends. At the very least we can continue to fight this new “norm” by speaking out when they occur. Maybe if we are as insistent as they are apathetic we can start the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction and this “Lord of the Flies” situation won’t be the rule, but the exception.
Again, I did not witness the incident but came upon it’s immediate aftermath. Still, to be fair, what the onlookers reported did not suggest any provoking behavior unless you count being alone and looking like you have money. So to my mind this was not a “fight” between two people, or even “bullying” per se, it was an attack or an assault. And I think we do ourselves and our kids an injustice to couch the behavior in softened terms. In another year or two the aggressor could receive jail time for such behavior, and it won’t help her to think of it as making some “bad choices” that day. She attacked another person. Period.