The Level of Violent Imagery Directed Against Covington High Boys Is Dangerous and Wrong

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2019-01-25 13:42

Article here. Excerpt:

'People are entitled to disagree, but what is completely unacceptable is the level of violent imagery directed at kids by adults. The respected journalist Reza Aslantweeted “Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?” A writer for Saturday Night Liveoffered oral sex for anyone who managed to punch one of the kids in the face. Trevor Noah let these school kids know that not only did “everyone” want to punch these boys out, but he did too. The list goes on and on.
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All this has a highly gendered aspect to it. It is very hard to imagine Reza Aslan or Trevor Noah saying that they want to punch out a 17 year old girl. There has been a lot of talk about boys and “toxic masculinity” lately and conversations about masculinity are well worth having. But the Covington High incident shows that we are far too quick to believe the worst about boys and too quick to reach for images of violence in retribution for their perceived sins. What could be more toxic for America’s school boys than their having the sense that they are objects of suspicion and that adults are this ready to wish them harm?
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This is not how boys and young men should be growing up. Adults are going to have to be a lot more restrained, a lot more thoughtful, and a lot more careful with their language. Don’t we know by now that violence, pain and fear are not the answer? Can’t we at least start by not saying threatening things to children and not wishing bad things on even innocent young college men?'

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Comments

The way you make an animal, any animal, dangerous, is you abuse it. Sick fucks who train dogs to fight do so by abusing them. Training men to fight is likewise done by abusing them. Ask any drill instructor in the Army.

This generation of boys, esp. white ones, are being raised in a non-stop atmosphere of psycho-emotional abuse. Physical at times, too.

Anyone care to predict what it'll lead to?

It won't be pretty. One thing is this: I think we'll see a lot of self-fulfilling prophecies. Raise boys to think of themselves as bad or toxic and well... you'll get bad/toxic boys as the result. It'll make the whole James Dean leather jacket set look positively benign in comparison.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2019-01-26 01:59