The front page of the New York Times had a story about a young man named Billy Wolfe from Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was one of the saddest, most pathetic stories I’ve read in a very long time. The title was “A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly,” a title worth noting.
For reasons unknown, one day when he was 12, Billy Wolfe became the target of some inexplicable schoolyard hatred that gave rise to his being beaten. Regularly. By all his classmates. People would just come up to Billy and punch him hard.
It began years ago when a boy called the house and asked Billy if he wanted to buy a certain sex toy, heh-heh. Billy told his mother, who informed the boy’s mother. The next day the boy showed Billy a list with the names of 20 boys who wanted to beat Billy up.
Things got worse. At Woodland Junior High School, some boys in a wood shop class goaded a bigger boy into believing that Billy had been talking trash about his mother. Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness.
The pain of being the whipping boy must be horrible. This should happen to no child, ever. But that’s what school officials are there to prevent, right? In loco parentis, they must safeguard their charges from harm. But not Billy.
Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents: Curt, a senior data analyst, and Penney, the owner of an office-supply company. They have binders of school records and police reports, along with photos documenting the bruises and black eyes. They are well known to school officials, perhaps even too well known, but they make no apologies for being vigilant. They also reject any suggestion that they should move out of the district because of this.
What are school officials doing about it?
Ms. Wolfe remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved. Most of all, she remembers the sight of her son.
“He kept spitting blood out,” she says, the memory strong enough still to break her voice.
This is the point in the story where you feel the surge of bile rising in your throat. Anger suddenly shifts from these mindlessly vicious boys to the grown-ups who are supposed to protect a child from this.
Not long after, a boy on the school bus pummeled Billy, but somehow Billy was the one suspended, despite his pleas that the bus’s security camera would prove his innocence. Days later, Ms. Wolfe recalls, the principal summoned her, presented a box of tissues, and played the bus video that clearly showed Billy was telling the truth.
As so often is the case, school justice somehow nails the victim since no one ever sees the aggressor and assumes that the defense against violence presents the full picture. One would think that teachers and school bus drivers might eventually come to realize how this works, but that would be asking way too much.
Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him. For example, Billy and the boy who punched him at the bus stop had exchanged words and shoves a few days earlier.
But Ms. Wolfe scoffs at the notion that her son causes or deserves the beatings he receives. She wonders why Billy is the only one getting beaten up, and why school officials are so reluctant to punish bullies and report assaults to the police.
Dealing with problems like this, which fail to be adequately described by “bullying”, after so many years is absurd. Sure, the principal doesn’t want to call the police on students, but the flaw in his reasoning is that he failed to deal with the beating of a student in the first place, and put an end to it, hard and fast. How can an adult who purports to care about children permit this to continue unabated? How can anyone tolerate this adult’s blaming the victim?
No child should go to school to suffer regular beatings at the hands of other students. Any school official who has tolerated the beating of a child should bear the consequences, and in Billy’s case, the neglect is criminal.
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I blog and comment on “the drudge” and we have had 7 new people register and call billy in this story a Liar and all kinds of other things. I think the bullies are worried.
I hope they are. I hope their parents are. But mostly, I hope that every teacher and administrator who has turned their back on this sort of situation is worried.
I go to FHS and i think it is funny how GotTruth wrote “i think the bullies are worried.” I will bet that you dont got to FHS or even live in Fayetteville and i bet that all you’ve heard is the news storys and have read the papers. Well the news and the papers are all one sided and it makes me soo mad that no one get to hear our side of the story. So yea we are all blogging and posting comments about it cause it is the only way we get to voice our opinions and our side of the story. SO next time you want to talk trash about people or a subject u no nothing about i suggest u educate yourself and learn to be open minded.
And what is your side of the story? Did Billy deserve it? Did everybody hate him? Was it fun to beat him up?
If you are lucky, there will come a time when you grow up, which is certainly a long way off, when you will come to realize how foolish, stupid and painful this was. But that’s why the students aren’t as much of the problem as the grown-ups. You are expected to be foolish and hurtful. That’s how children behave. Adults have no such excuses.
There is no “open-minded” way to accept a child being beaten. And I hope you educate yourself too. Someday you will be an adult, and I hope you do better than your role models have done.
1. Fighting The “Gang Mentality”
By Anonymous (Male)
I bet the bullies that actually fight with Billy are actually being manipulated by their friends. This is how it works: the ring leader decides to demonstrate his power by manipulating his or her minions to harass a seemingly vulnerable student. The ring leader says “so-and so is x, y and Z”. If you minions want to be in my click you must punish so an so. Off the minions go to execute their masters bidding. Of course, the master (alpha male or female) does not use such direct language – his or her instructions are subtle, but well understood. Often the ring leader avoids punishment because they are smart enough to avoid direct involvement. Instead they sit back and enjoy the show – manipulating their simple minded minions and indirectly bulling those that they cannot affectively control.
Please do not encourage the victim to fight. The result can easily be devastating. Encourage the victim to use the law. Fights can go bad wrong. Lost teeth, death fro traumatic head injury, choking deaths, eye damage. The victim may not be willing to lose they may choke stab shoot hit with object ect…. the aggressor may be really mean – and or stupid he could do any of the above. Often the aggressor is just some stupid person that the real bully is using as a proxy
My fights didn’t end to bad – A good undercut cracked my molar – and the magnetic CB antenna base plate I was holding severely injured and attacker – he came close to death. He was a good person manipulated by rotten idiots – what if I killed him?? I like my teeth and would have liked to skip the gold crown. My hands are still scared from the teeth and bone of the attackers I have been forced to fight. And yes, I have run from many fights also. I am proud to say I have never fought some who did not first attack me. I have learned through the years and I am now better able to stay away from dangerous people. Being out of school helps because it is hard to stay away from them when you are in the same school.
Martial arts are great, but you don’t have to study them long to figure out how to kill someone – man its strange but 8 out of 10 fights I have been in were with some dummy that didn’t even realize he was fighting for someone else. Do you really want to kill someone like this. I don’t want to spend 20 years in jail. You don’t want your son or daughter going to reform school – I hear the fighting their is worse. They will be taught how to smoke crack.
The school system needs to be trained to circumvent the sub grouping that is taking place at this undisciplined school. The school is obviously slandering the victim. Blame the victim – is the best tactic to use – its great when you can convince your parents and teachers that your violent behavior is ok. And guess what – allot of the uninvolved students concur that Billy is the problem. But, the truth is – they may actually be the behind the scene manipulator. Some of the students are saying “ I
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