Peace said:
Something else has been troubling me. I am so glad for the outrage expressed by so many on Megan's behalf. The thing I am troubled by is why isn't there this type of public outcry every time a chid is abused or taken advantage of, or murdered. I don't say this to take away from the outrage expressed on behalf of Megan, this is as it should be IMO.
Why isn't society outraged to this extent every time a child, wife, husband, the elderly, is abused or worse murdered? Have we become numb to it?
I think so, but also, I think we have come to accept abuse when it happens in different circumstances. Like it's okay for a husband to beat his wife, and even if it's no longer okay, it's accepted that that's how it is for some people. You know what I mean? It's not like it's "Oh, my God, I can't believe that happened!" kind of thing, but "Oh, yeah isn't that horrible...why didn't she leave?"
Or the whole parental right comes in with beating children, so that even though there's more anger towards broken bones and bashed in faces, children are still seen in many ways as owned by their parents and it's just accepted as how things are for some people. We just see it as unfortunate but there's "regular" abuse and then "sensational" abuse, like the kinds that make the news.
It's amazing but I just read a quote from a lawyer that said any kind of anti-harassment law can be seen as a threat to free speech and that
bullying is a part of growing up.
Yet, we have laws against racial epithets and laws to protect people against slander and libel. As a writer, you can't just print anything you want about anyone,
even if it's true, if it causes them distress, unless it's a public figure. But for most people there's an expectation of privacy and peace of mind. Unless you're a minor, apparently.
I just don't get it. How can we see that as part of growing up? Megan didn't stay around long enough to see how ugly it really could get. Some kids go through this for months, years and there's no limit to the ways kids can come up with to humiliate one of their peers.
Just because something is "normal", in that it happens often in society, doesn't mean it's right! And we, also, didn't have the arsenal of the internet and various electronic devices to target someone "back in the day". Times have changed, and so has the nature of bullying, but not our attitudes.
Then there's just stuff that we don't get angry about because we just don't acknowledge it.
Understand, that Megan's suicide happened a year ago. People are only getting wind of it now, but an article was written last year just as it was written again this year. The neighborhood and town of O'Fallen have known and there have been personal vendettas occurring there, but only now has the internet picked it up. It's the global community that has forced this to come to light, and they are the ones who are totally outraged...almost out of control, at times.
I wonder how the parents of other victims of on-line cyberbullying, those young people who also committed suicide feel about all this attention, and their kids received virtually none - because they were driven to their death by their peers and not through the help of an adult? But Megan never knew - according to her mother Tina, who I feel is the more credible source, that Josh Evans was a hoax. She killed herself because she went into an emotional crisis after who she thought was her boyfriend and all these people on the internet turned on her simultaneously and began broadcasting to a large general list cruel messages about her. That this happened at the hands of an adult is what infuriates people - not that this happened at all.
So there are a number of issues here. One is cyberbullying and the other is, as Leah put a link to, the issue of child predation, which is what Lori Drew did and it ended in suicide. When men do it, it can end in abduction, rape or murder...but they both share the dynamics of predatory behavior.
There's just so much in this that can make people hate Lori. Her total refusal to accept responsibility and her lack of remorse. The gall she showed in suing Ron Meier for destroying her foos ball when he found out her part in driving Megan to suicide and the way she and her family played the Meier's after Megan's death. Plus the fact that she got protection of anonymity (the bloggers took care of that) and the law officials pretty much swept the whole thing under the rug. The Meier's were told to keep quiet while an investigation was going on, and then discovered after the fact, that the investigation had been dropped, because the officials claimed they had nothing to charge them with.
See Leah's link as to why that's not true.
There's one blog that has the most activity about this incident, and from what I see, most of the people want two things. For Lori to admit culpability and show
some remorse. That's it.
Sound familiar? Who among us here wouldn't love at least some kind of acknowledgment and show of remorse from our abusers that what they had done was wrong and that they had hurt us?
They don't really know what they're dealing with though. I have a feeling the bloggers will see a lot more defiance and justification before they hear an apology, even a lame one.
Some others would also like to see the Drews move, but the acknowledgment and genuine remorse is what people mainly want.
Last night there was a candlelight vigil for Megan. Over 150 people showed up and it remained peaceful. I am happy for that. And there's now over 83 candles lit for Megan in the candle group i set up for Megan at Gratefulness.org from six different countries.
You know, I think this is the first time for many people to come "face to face" with a personality like this. Unfortunately, it's old hat for many of us here - not that it makes it easier, but somehow seeing the revulsion from others in the face of these narcissistic personality disordered type traits, can be a validation to some of us who are still struggling over whether what we experienced was abuse or not...
It was.
