Oskar, a six-year-old Swedish boy, was stabbed in the neck at his preschool for wearing pink, and openly preferring pink nail polish and ballet. Prior to the attack, he had told his parents that classmates called him “gay and a “girl.” Luckily (poor word choice?) the assault was performed with a blunt knife, and the boy was not seriously hurt. The school, meanwhile, says it was just a “small incident.” Incidentally, the boy’s mother says she doesn’t “want to have my child at a school which considers a stab with a knife to be a ‘small incident.'”
GregorVonK
Go, Mom! Or should I say “Mor”?
Josh
Holy fuck! In Sweden of all places, too…I thought they were all practically hippies over there.
Alice
The truth is: No one knows for sure why they did it. The only one making the connection to him wearing pink was his mum.
I work in a pre-school in Sweden for 15 years now and I never met a kid that cared about anyone’s presumed sexual preference, 6-year-olds have other worries, really.
Right Wingers Are Socioptahs (John From England)
@Alice:
Well now you can see not all schools are just like yours eh? Unless Sweden is just one big broad brush?
@Josh:
Hmm, there are loads, loads of Swedish Nazis. Loads. They aren’t hippies but they have tried to create a more socialist state. The issue is that there are right wingers everywhere who just aren’t happy unless people are at least suffering. Fact.
Beau Colby
Hate is taught by parents and relatives. I know because I am gay and my family and relatives provoked me to hate African-Americans not knowing that I KNEW how they felt being gay…BC
Steve
Children often do not recognize the consequences of their own choices. That is part of being a child, and that is why we don’t let them play with knives.
Children do mimic behaviors and attitudes that they see in their parents and older siblings. They learn to express condemnation, contempt, and derision for a hated group of people. They learn to hate by emulating, not by original thinking or understanding.
The child who did the attack needs counseling. He may also need to be separated from the group until the counselor is convinced that the boy understands that what he did was wrong. He can eat lunch with close supervision, instead of with the class, until then.