Tempest Smith

[Jeanette X]

http://www.detnews.com/2001/schools/...a01-196600.htm


"Tempest said she told her teachers about it all the time," Smith said. "I have to wonder if someone in the school couldn't have stopped it."

Much of the teasing was said to revolve around Smith's practice of Wicca, a pagan religion.
Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith, said she told her daughter's teachers and counselors about the teasing.


"We had several conversations about what my daughter was going through," Smith said.

"But nobody did anything."


http://www.rickross.com/reference/wicca/wicca30.html

According to Tempest's journal, found under her bed after the suicide, her classmates often crowded around her chanting "Jesus loves you," along with other comments that ridiculed her Wiccan beliefs. Attorneys for Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith, claim school employees violated the girl's civil rights because they knew about the teasing, but did nothing to stop it. That indifference contributed to the girl's suicide, they claim. "If it would've been a Christian kid being teased, you can bet they would've done something," said Smith's attorney, Joel Sklar. "But the Lincoln Park School District has historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."


http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=7086

Denessa said she intervened with the staff but the torment continued. In elementary school, Tempest played the flute to second graders to avoid being harassed during recess. Denessa said the teasing progressed to physical assaults and verbal abuses including calling Tempest “Satan’s whore” and “Wiccan slut.”

http://www.valdosta.edu/spec/20010405/opinion5.html

Double standard? Oh yes indeed!

[El Blanco]

Kids have been teasing each other since the begining of time. The more one stands out, the bigger the target they are. Its a fact. For 12 years I was a target.

I know what its like to be isolated. To be unable to get help, because that only makes the situation worse. It sucks. You are alone and you need to tough it out. Use it to make yourself stronger. Violent outbursts against yourself or others are never the answer.


As for the kids who felt guilty about this girl's death: They should.

I don't get whats happening. The suicide and school violence rates have skyrocketed in the last 2 decades. Are kids getting weaker, or did they just take shitty statistics back in the day?

[The_Rorschach]

". . .historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."

And I'm sure its an EXTENSIVE history at that.

Jen, I am ready to condede. You are indeed the master of empty intellectualism, and as such, I support your need to wander from the Rave forum and post nonsensical, tepid rants of intrinsically worthless drivel.

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by The_Rorschach

". . .historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."

And I'm sure its an EXTENSIVE history at that.

Jen, I am ready to condede. You are indeed the master of empty intellectualism, and as such, I support your need to wander from the Rave forum and post nonsensical, tepid rants of intrinsically worthless drivel.

Take a look at this:

If it would've been a Christian kid being teased, you can bet they would've done something," said Smith's attorney, Joel Sklar. "But the Lincoln Park School District has historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."

Sklar referred to a 1999 case in which high school student Crystal Seifferly sued the Lincoln Park School District because she was banned from wearing jewelry depicting the five-pointed star that is the symbol of pagan faith. In that case, a U.S. district judge ruled that the district's policy violated Seifferly's religious rights, and the school district's ban on Wiccan jewelry was overturned.

See? They really did discriminate against Wiccans in the past.

And if you think that it is "intrinsically worthless" to be upset over the fact that a double standard and harrasment due to religious bias drove a little girl to suicide, then you are a pretty pathetic excuse for a human being.

[The_Rorschach]

Not to question your self-congratulatory judgment here, but one isolated incident does not make a "history" by which you can conclusively reason they are descriminating. Your simplistic, weak-minded arguments are covered with the clinging stench of blatant ignorance and hardly worth sharing.

You are dismissed.

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by The_Rorschach

Not to question your self-congratulatory judgment here, but one isolated incident does not make a "history" by which you can conclusively reason they are descriminating. Your simplistic, weak-minded arguments are covered with the clinging stench of blatant ignorance and hardly worth sharing.

You are dismissed.

Wonderful. Now you retreat into semantics to cover your ass.

So, am I to conclude by your posts that you don't care about bias against Wiccans in public schools, or that you just don't want to take what I write seriously because I didn't phrase it in the grandiloquent style that your are fond of, or because I was rather ignorant in comparing Iraq to Korea (which I admit, I was) and you now wish to dismiss everything I write based on that?

[Helm]

Wicca is a joke. It's the offspring of a particularily masturbatory Gardner/Crowley giggle session, aimed to formulate something of an "O.T.O lite" but instead became a faux-religion/excuse for anorexic teenagers with a belonging complex.

That being said, I do not condone this sort of descriminatory abuse, but I also see no way to remove it, besides roundabout tolerance cultivation. I guess people that are willing to be out-of-the-ordinary should also be able to tough it up and endure the harrasment, to a degree.

[Jeanette X]

Originally Posted by Helm

Wicca is a joke. It's the offspring of a particularily masturbatory Gardner/Crowley giggle session, aimed to formulate something of an "O.T.O lite" but instead became a faux-religion/excuse for anorexic teenagers with a belonging complex.

Regardless of its origins, Wicca is officially recognized as a religion by the United States government, and is therefore entitled to full constitutional protection.
Besides, there are some practitioners from traditions that pre-date the modern revival.

[Helm]

Haha, and so is the religion of the Jedi. That, practically doesn't mean much. As I said, resolve and endurance if you plan on being something out of the ordinary.

[Miss Modular]

It's sad to see a kid bullied to the point of suicide, but Wicca is a relatively new religion. (The site I'm linking to makes no secret of its bias, but it makes good points.) "White Wicca", as it is called, is only fifty years old, even though witchcraft itself has been around for centuries. Vibe is a former wiccan, I'm sure she could explain more...