I think you hit the nail on the head a little while back, Laurence, when you said
Phoebe is just one huge inconvenience for the people in SH. I'm not gonna say all, and I'm not even gonna say the majority
although it could be, but
for far too many she was and is an inconvenience and that's all.
Too many don't care that a 15 year old lost her life too early or that a family is in an enormous amount of pain. They just care that their lives are being disrupted and that the whole country is looking at them,
and that's it.[/QUOTE]
Underlining and bolding mine.
I hope that I contribute to eventually clearing this up so that we can devote time to the realities of this case and also focus our energies upon what each one of us can do to get bullying addressed as the serious issue it is, get it classified as the Hate Crime that it is, the violation of Civil Rights that it is
and most especially get it treated as the child abuse that it is and get it punishable (
harshly) by law ZERO FREEKIN TOLERANCE so that some sense can be slapped into some willful little deranged BRATS
and as few kids as possible have to suffer what Phoebe did and so that hopefully no more kids will kill themselves as result of this stupidity.
And so that people who choose to create little replicas of themselves, to inflict upon the Earth and society tiny copies of their own ignorant selves
will hopefully be encouraged to do some actual PARENTING or to surrender their kids to people capable of this via Legal adoption.
Rather than investing time on stuff that is just totally inaccurate.
Underlined parts above just...I don't even know where to begin really.
If you genuinely believe those things to be true...within your heart, intuitively, rationally this is what you've concluded to be true.....wow.....theres prolly not alot anyone can say to convince you otherwise cuz those things are........they defy logic completely....I can't even think of how to try and refute that stuff cuz its just so
ut there"...........just wow.
Good news is
Bolded part is accurate though!!
It was hard as HELL because reporters have hounded people beyond what you can imagine then only reported stuff that made SH appear to be a den of wolves but I managed to make contact with some students, residents and even a couple family members of the accused bcuz I was totally baffled by the lack of sadness in SH being shown by media. I'd never seen a situation wherein a community could be
expected to be grieving but apparently was not so I was forced to contemplate if SH was a town without a soul.
Its really not. The media has chosen to focus upon things other than how South Hadley residents and damn near ALL of the kids at the school feel about and this and how it has effected them.
SH is indeed feeling inconvenienced but NOT in the least by Phoebe Prince, not in any way this.....the overwhelming majority of residents...nowhere even close to what you describe. Most people there, students and non they can't even comprehend how any one with a brain could reach the conclusion that they feel anything but deeply saddened about what happened.
A question kept coming up and its a good one, from people in SH:
"How would YOU feel if the little town you lived in, at its only High School a girl from Ireland,
the country our own ancestors came from and us Irish just like Phoebe and she was called "Irish *advertiser censored*" by some kids you don't even KNOW and they torment her so bad she hangs herself??"
They wanna know
why you would think they feel any differently than how you or any non-crazy person would feel about this!!!???.
They wanna know how you got the idea that
they are....everyone in the town or just MOST OF THEM,
like the kids who tormented Phoebe seem to them to be....just like seem to many of you,
sociopaths....they wanna know how in God's name you reached the conclusion that they are for these kids they don't even know when these kids tormented a girl Irish like themselves and called her Irish *advertiser censored*?.
I kinda wanna know that too. Cuz its fairly "strange" how people have bought in so totally to this concept of "evil little town".
Just, like I said, defies all logic....like episodes of twilight zone or outer limits it makes no sense or like any episode of LOST...totally nonsensical, insultingly implausible and completely and utterly ridiculous.
People in SH felt inconvenienced by 4 things, pretty much in this order:
1). an extremely aggressive media who from the start of this chose to air/report only that which would frame the school and, to a lesser degree, the town as having considered Phoebe an outsider and having chosen willfully to not protect her then when she died sought only to shelter "their own". These kids, in the opinion of most within the town and at this point pretty damn close to ALL except for the accused families and their friends consider these kids....well...that brings us to inconvenience #2:
2). A group of poorly raised and/or spoiled brat kids who caused hell to reign down on the town. If you can honestly get yourself to believe that a town of 17,000 most of whom have no association whatsoever with these kids or their families are somehow involved in a sort of "cabal" or allegiance that has them, as if they are Stepford Wives, zombified walking to the beat of some mysterious drum thats causing them to be blind to the evil that took place and to be unable to reject this with every ounce of their being and feel the same about these kids as the most the rest of America and The world DOES then you have allowed yourself to become brainwashed by the media. They just want this over with, so would you. They want these kids punished, just as you do.
A great deal of students at SHHS on a day soon after Phoebe's death wore stickers memorializing her and they refused to speak, total silence except for the sound of crying when kids broke down which even the "toughest" kids on campus did you can't imagine what it was like unless you have been through something like that. The media showed nothing of this. The only images you'll see of the area set up in the library that kids covered in candles and notes to Phoebe are those belonging to kids. The media was there. They showed nothing of this.
People cried in the streets, broke down in public. People who didn't even KNOW Phoebe. Parents. People who didn't have kids. This went on for days and even got more intense as knowledge of what a few kids had put Phoebe through got around the town. The town, like the school was engulfed in an air of sadness, total "strangers" shed tears for a 15 year old girl they never knew, alot of people left candles, stuffed animals, cards, letters all kinds of stuff all over the front and side area of Phoebe's house. The media showed you a picture of 1/50th of that.....a gated area of the front fence.
3). and this is at worst TIED for "inconvenience" with #2 above...The administration of South Hadley High School. At the most recent meeting of the school board, when those who attempted to speak against Sayer and Smith were tossed out of the meeting some who support Sayer/Smith were allowed to speak. Of these a late 30 year old- mid 40's I don;t know exactly what age but living with his mom, unemployed tools around SH on a BICYCLE has no kids guy....
That outta tell you something. People in SH ain't clamoring to support these guys...just the opposite. Its a small town though and people have to deal with the realities of that.
One of those realities is that there are people so ashamed and saddened by this situation that they want to move away from South Hadley but...and this is the FOURTH INCONVENIENCE prolly not FOURTH in order of inconveniences to MANY current residents of SH...
4.) their property values, already low bcuz the housing crisis, foreclosures tight credit recession etc,
have plummeted even FURTHER bcuz ain't no one with a KID coming anywhere NEAR South Hadley...people who have to pass through to get to Springfield you can hear their cardoor-locks plunk down as soon as they see the South Hadley sign.
Most people in SH believe that they'll get past this, no time soon mind you but they
strongly believe that Sayer is not gonna weather this storm, Smith prolly not either. Theres a good number of people in SH who don't have a clue why the hell Sayer was brought in from Amherst anyway....in the first place and they recognize him as the ratfink that he is. If you just substituted "Gus Sayer" for Phoebe in your rumination about what folks in SH feel "inconvenienced" by you'd have PART of the answer of whats bugging them.....
Get real about the people of SH use some common sense, these are regular people just like you and your neighbors....they are not what the media has portrayed them to be, alot of them are
even more devastated by this tragedy than any of us are
or ever will be cuz Newton is a fairly major street (where Phoebe's house still sits) and they gotta drive by that house, see it on a regular basis.
What do you think the FEEL when they see that house???
If you answer "nothing" or anything other than
deep grief you are so wrong there aren't even words within the English language to adequately describe the depth of your wrongness.
The last thing these people consider Phoebe Prince to be is an "inconvenience". Most people in South Hadley, again, would not be capable of grasping how anyone could even manage to get to a place where they could even IMAGINE such a thing.......let alone believe it.
