Children are stupid and mean and ignorant, and probably don’t deserve to have iPhones or Androids or even a freakin’ Razr. We know this to be true because children — who, fine, are sometimes just incredible — are finding it hi-lar-i-ous when they beat up classmates in a homophobic rampage, record it on their mobile phones, and then upload their student films to YouTube for all the world to see.
The headline arrives from outside Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, but is likely happening across the U.S. as well. (We don’t even want to get on YouTube and search “faggot beat down” to find what comes up, but, ugh.)
It is the most recent development in the ongoing problem of homophobic bullying, which remains a major issue even as Brent Council has begun a concerted effort to tackle it.
Youth worker, Lukasz Konieczka said the latest way in which some youngsters were being bullied was through group attacks known as ‘rushing,’ which are then broadcast on the internet.
Mr Konieczka, who works for the Brent Mosaic Lesbian Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, said: “Now it’s more popularised because if you have more mobiles with more and more features you can record and post at the same time.
“It’s got so mobile and so instant and into young people’s personal space and private time that it’s really big now. You can’t delete it and you can’t respond to it and it is constant.”
It’s things like this that make us hate the Internet, the very platform from which we draw a livable wage. One solution would be to enforce policies that ban cell phones from schools, but that does little to actually stop the original problem: beating up LGBT kids. But yes, prohibiting links to YouTube and Facebook might lessen the torment a smidge.
Maybe Tucker Carlson knows what we should do?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Bill
That’s heterosexual morality for ya.
Cam
Lets just put it out there, that people who are this afriad of gays are most likely closet cases. I have a feeling that this might slow down if the first thing that happens when some idiot brags about beating up a “Fag” is his classmates start whispering that he is probably one too.
DR
Wow, what a bad article. You think this is only happening to gay kids?!? Let’s go to youtube and see how many kids post videos which show them engaging in non-mutual combat. Happens all the time, ladies and gents, why is it suddenly such a high-profile issue because it happens to gay kids too?
AlwaysGay
@Cam: Let’s call them what they are, HATEROSEXUALS. Your response is very typical of a dumb, slavish gay person that believes everything haterosexuals say like being gay is an insult and haterosexuals are pure and perfect and would never harm a gay person. I can think on my own and know that heterosexuals are behind ALL anti-gay bigotry.
@DR: Most of those fights are one-on-one. These anti-gay attacks which this newspaper believes are “new” actually are like the vast majority of anti-gay attacks where a group of haterosexuals attack one or two gay people. Usually there are no plans. The heterosexuals know the victim(s) is gay and through there own prejudices and hatred of gay people the attack unfolds almost sysmatically.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
Really, the parents should be charged with the Hate Crime as the legal owner of the digital recording device. Facebook polices users better (and we should report every person!) than unpopular MySpace and the Wild, wild West: YouTube and Twitter. Hopefully, the costs of cellphones will go through the roof with the coming inflation and the increasing conglomeration of telecommunications companies so it could be like it was in the 1980s: Only Assholes had Cellphones! I won’t even hang out with someone who text-messages, especially at bars!
Kevin
I would think this is a good thing. I mean, if they’re recording and posting their attacks, doesn’t that increase the odds of successful prosecution?
DR
@AlwaysGay: You’re wrong. This is coming from someone who works in the criminal justice system with youth.
The two most nationally prominent involving girls were five or six on one, not one on one. Every youtube case I’ve ever dealt with have been a group ganging up on one. Nice try to make this a big “haterosexual” conspiracy, but it fails in the face of the legal evidence, which supports the contention that this is nothing new and the only reason Queerty is reporting it is because now it’s happening to gay kids.
Brian NYC
Little Christians. Little taught-to-hate Christians.
Geoff M
I’m signing in to youtube and flagging these vids. If we all did this it would send a message.
DillonS
Actually the targets are anyone considered ‘different.’ Google just lost a case in Italy where they were found guilty for allowing the upload of a video of a group of kids beating up a handicapped schoolmate. (Of course, in Google’s defense, they took it down as soon as they were told about it.)
Girls have targeted other girls in some infamous cases as well (like the one when a slumber party turned brutal and was caught on tape … and was a planned incident!)
That kids think beating up ANYONE is okay is bad. That they think filming it is funny, is bad. Perhaps rather than a slap on the wrist, there should be more creative punishments. Not sure what, but there has to be a way to get through to these idiots.
AlwaysGay
@DR: You don’t know what you are talking about. I seen the videos of those girls fighting and it was largely one-on-one. No, I wrote through heterosexuals’ prejudices and hatred of gay people these attacks unfolded systematically, not through a conspiracy.
terrwill
When I was in HS, the token faggy, queeny, four foot nothing boy was Kyle. Everytime he opened his mouth a rainbow poured out and unicorns came prancing out………….He was also a black belt in Tae Kwon Do ………
DR
@AlwaysGay…Whether they kicked her all at once or took turns, it was still FIVE ON ONE and the one couldn’t escape she was basically barricaded in the house. Still a gang attack. These are all over youtube, and this is not new among teens. I had a case like this myself last year.
You have zero cred when you use phrases like “haterosexual” and try to parse apart cases to make it look like teh gays have it worse than some a girl who got assaulted by five or six others in a vicious and brutal attack.
You’re not going to win friends or credibility by insisting your victimization is so much worse. And assault is an assault, dude. This isn’t a contest.
Cam
No. 4 · AlwaysGay said…
@Cam: Let’s call them what they are, HATEROSEXUALS. Your response is very typical of a dumb, slavish gay person that believes everything haterosexuals say like being gay is an insult and haterosexuals are pure and perfect and would never harm a gay person. I can think on my own and know that heterosexuals are behind ALL anti-gay bigotry.
________________________
I can’t tell if you are insane or just really pissed when you wrote this. Just what exactly are you trying to say?
Hyhybt
If they’re going to beat people up anyway, how could it possibly be a *bad* thing that they’re also posting evidence of their crimes?
Steve
For many centuries, any person who committed a crime was punished as a criminal. Age was often taken into account as one factor when the judge decided the punishment, but appropriate punishment was still given.
Just in the last century in the US, we decided that youth below a certain age should be treated differently. Where I live, any youth below age 18 is treated as a “juvenile”0, and the punishment ends on the 18th birthday, even if the crime was committed at age 17 and 3/4. Very occasionally, a juvenile crime is prosecuted as an adult, but that is a rare exception.
The problem is, the kids know it. High school kids are dealing drugs and committing violent crimes, secure in the knowledge that if they get caught it will be a “juvenile” case. That is just wrong. The high-school bullies who beat up other kids KNOW that they will not be punished by anything more than suspension from school. (And many of them consider a school suspension to be a reward, not a punishment.)
I don’t have a problem with expunging the record for a crime committed before age 18, after the punishment is completed, so a single error of judgment does not mark the person for life. I do have a big problem with limiting the punishment to ZERO for crimes committed at age 17, just because the kid is 18 before the case is even adjudicated.
We need to let the judges issue appropriate punishment, and insist that the entire sentence be served, even if the process carries past the 18th birthday. Then, at the end of the sentence, when the sentence and the probation/parole is completed, the record can be expunged.
DR
I agree with treating children like children, not as miniature adults. But that’s not how my state works, Steve. Even if a child (under 18) commits an offense two weeks prior to his 18th birthday, we have jurisdiction over him until he’s 21. It’s rare, but we do occasionally get kids that old.
Keith Kimmel
I like this new trend. It should make it real easy to prosecute them for their hate crimes.
lionlock
@DR:
Straight people are not being killed because they are straight. Of course you
Sound like the type of person who puts all the bullshit in one basket. I think it must
Really be a sad situation when we need special laws to protect us!
charles2davy
@DR: well being gay gets you beat the crap out of you a lot more times than being straight does