@headline Those words almost exactly crossed my mind. It is sad, but I think good will come of it (ultimately) with increased sympathy. It can't easy to migrate from a wartorn country, especially in and at such an age..

You only need to read this thread to know that sadly, that is not the case. "Why is it relevant that he is a refugee all that matters is the bullying let's JUST focus on that #AllBulliesMatter #BrexitFTW #RacismDoesntExist"

It is sad that he's come from a war-torn country to be bullied here. But really, this looks like it's come as a shock to a lot of people. The bit of film where his sister is grabbed, hit, pushed to the ground... that was a weekly occurrence for me at school. Sometimes more than weekly. And it was racist.... but the school didn't see it like that and did pretty much nothing for five years. And I have no reason to believe that this kind of behaviour stopped with me and then started again with this lad. It goes on ALLLL the time. One of my nieces was bullied and it ended up with HER being removed from the school by her parents because the school did **** all. Now they're at private school... and the bullying is just as bad, and the school just as unwilling to actually DO anything.

Bullying is destroying people's lives and it has been for years, all kinds of people, and schools rarely address the problem. I'd like to see the media focus on the WHOLE problem and not drag it up and act outraged when it's a refugee.

Oh trust me Livia..I have first hand experienence of what it is like to be bullied ...more so racially abused because I'm a white south african.

There should be no "but" in this case.

I personally don't see what happened to Jamal as bulling..It's racial abuse..


As uncomfortable as that may be...It is not a case of bulling....It's racial abuse

Yes The Bully's Mother
is reported to have
be charged with Racial abuse on someone

I think it's a mistake though to judge society on the whole based on what happens on an internet site tbh. Most of the people I know don't really "participate" online.

This doesn't detract though from your other point, that there are swaths of people, particularly partisan folk who will see it a drip in the ocean no matter how many facts are presented. Gaslighting is also very much a political/acultural thing.

It turns out it wasn't a racially motivated attack, and instead just two school children having a scrap in a school playground. But thanks to the hysteria and fake news, this lad and his family have had to be moved out of their home because of vigilantes groups. The school child has even been threatened with getting stabbed by an adult.

We'll done fake news

Source? All I found was this through quick search. I'm guessing it is in reference to the @bold

What is a solicitor? Like an attorney?

Given that both kids are facing horrific bullying and the type of bullying that the sister is facing in particular, it takes a special kind of refusal to acknowledge the facts and make out that this isn't racially motivated.

Also it's certainly not 'two children having a scrap', saying it's so is the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going 'lalalalalala' to ignore reality. This was not a fight, the victim did not fight back at any point. To say it was a fight is to blame the victim for being bullied and to vindicate the bully of his abuse of the victim.

Finally, Tommy Robinson is a racist ******* that spreads fake news that racists know is fake but flock to it anyway since they rely on their **** to 'validate' their hate. I hope the victim's family take him for all his worth given how he has chosen to vilify a victim for having the 'wrong' skin colour.

Source Maru. He was charged with common assault. Not racially aggravated, as was reported.

He got threw to the ground, had some water thrown in his face, then he got up and walked off. I'm not saying that's acceptable, bur it happens in every school all over the world, all the time. School disciplinary system is as far as it should have gone, like every other similar case.

I'm the source? :laugh: (Joking aside)

I hadn't noticed there was could've been a distinction in the ruling, but the "lesser" charge is telling. If it were to be considered a hate crime (of sorts), then racism would have to be proven. One would think past comments could even come into play if there are witnesses? Though I don't think it's unreasonable to think at least his being bullied partially played off of racial/ethnic differences since that could've effectively made him an "outsider". I was on the receiving end of those nuances with where I grew up, when I was very often selected for bullying. I could say racially motivated, but I just think that my being white, very small and obviously "different" probably made me an easier target to isolate from my peers. That said, a victim mentality would've been panned majorly when I was growing up, so it's not something that was tolerated to go to the principal's office and go "That person is racist towards me!"... it would've had to been a staff/peer group thing where they saw it witness this beyond just "typical" bullying.

Back then it was just the B word (bully) that was thrown around.
Now it's the R word, but the B word is still as much of a problem... but I think stories like this that do shock people make them think about how they deal with people and how they treat others as human beings... puts things like our harsh words into perspective. I actually don't want the R battle to become a bigger deal than it is now, because I do think that coexistance should be a matter of who we choose to hang around with... but rather how we treat all human-beings in general. (To be clear, you've never made me feel the latter, Alf, I'm just making a very particular point)

There is something to be said as well about worrying about what happens in our own yard before attacking others... still, it isn't a bad thing to bring awareness to things like racial tensions. Which will certainly always exist in the same sense that all societies, even Intersectional ones, will have some sense of exclusionary behavior and prevailing priorities.

You are saying it's acceptable though because you are trying to normalise it AND blame the victim in part by making out that it was a fight when it wasn't, it was an attack.

I'm not trying to normalise it, how could I possibly normalise it? when I'm saying it already is normal. You can try and change human behavior until your dying day, but it won't happen.This isn't the first school fight caught on camera and it won't be the last.

Right, now back to your turn to tell me what I really mean even though I haven't said what you say I mean.

Bullies will find something different in you, whether you're black, white, ginger, fat, spotty, wear glasses, dress weird... whatever it is. You don't feel worse if you happen to be a different colour and/or from another country. EVERYONE who faces senseless bullying like this is worth concern.

It seems to me that some people think it's somehow worse if it's purely racist... which this probably was. No one should suffer like this lad and his sister. No one. Not for any reason.

:clap1:

Says it all really.....

Also, you keep trying to make out that it was a fight, meaning that both sides are willing participants but that is bull****, it was a one sided attack and the latest in a seemingly long line of bullying incidents that the victim and his sister have suffered. How the **** could you ever describe that as a fight when one side is doing nothing to defend themselves?

I wonder if you would be saying the same if the roles of these two were reversed.

What do you mean by roles reversed?

Roles reversed would be a boy, throwing another boy to the ground and throwing water in his face, it would be exactly the same.

Boys and girls fight to show dominence, always have done always will do, it's just human nature. The only difference with this fight is, people are playing politics with it, identity politics.

Why are you so hesitant to acknowledge the syrian boy as a victim? You keep ignoring what's in front of you to pretend that this was a fight instead of a bullying incident.

All you are doing is normalising bullying and you seem to be defending it by passing it off as something natural. It's quite suspect. You mentioned that your 'fights' never became news in your youth and given what your interpretation of what 'fights' consist of, it makes me wonder whether you were a bully and that's why you are hesitant to call this what it is because it's something you were guilty of as a child.

This wasn't a fight and calling it so will not change the facts, you're just spreading misinformation to suit your own agenda. This is an incident of bullying and trying to talk around it and vindicate the bully of blame by making out that they were both in the wrong won't work because the truth of the matter is common knowledge.

You see, your problem isn't with this story, your problem is with me and about you trying to virtue signal.

If you look back at my posts in this thread, you'll see my first post was sarcastically mocking the media. My second post in this thread was again having a go at the media, for creating hysteria and the consequences of it
I've also said in one of my posts in this thread (post 36) '"i'm not saying that's acceptable' and it's not, but there are school disciplinary procedures to deal with this kind of incident, it's not a matter for the media to drum up public hysteria, and that was my point from the start.

Let's look at the incident, which yes, was not acceptable.

The bigger lad threw the little lad to the ground, now let's be honest, the big lad, if he really wanted to, could have punched and kicked him on the ground, but he didn:t, he squirted some water in his face and then let him go. Why would that be a national news headline?

You want me to admit the Syrian boy is a victim, but how do I know what lead up to the incident, how do I know that earlier in the day he wasn't mouthing off to the other boy, or am I just supposed to believe that the boy was attacked for no reason?

And again on the normalising part, I agree, it would be great if we could eliminate bullying, but I believe that it's impossible in a free world, and these incidents will always happen. That's not my fault, it's reality.

This has nothing to do with him being a refugee its just because the video has gone viral online. It could have been a white person/PoC not a refugee and it would have still garnered the same attention.

Yep. I wouldn't even say it's even worse for us if we're most of those things.. :laugh: It's about dominating the other person as Alf says, and by the same token, about obtaining other's submission, because the bully only wins if others kowtow to their self-perceived status. Their place in the "heirarchy" though is always precipitous, which is why so much of bullying can be very brutal.

Not true, Smiffy.

This whole thread's turning into a case of for and against with no middle-ground, the way of lot of threads go, in fact. If you don't think it's worse for him because he's a Syrian refugee, and if you don't accept that it's happening to all kinds of people, of all colours, backgrounds, religions etc. etc. then the rest of us are "normalising it".

I agree with all of this.

'It's not that bad! He only got thrown to the floor! The totally-not-a-bully-because-i-say-so could have punched or stamped on him as well BUT HE DIDN'T!! It's obviously just two lads having a fight! The white person isn't to blame!'

I would never find you a problem, the problem is that you're vindicating the bully by making out that he isn't a bully and you're trying to push an utter bull**** story of this incident being a fight thus blaming the victim in part for his own abuse. All you've done is basically victim blame and normalise and when that's failed you've tried to erase the story by making out that it shouldn't be a story. It's a story, deal with it and stop defending bullying because at this point it's fairly obvious that is what you are doing given that you have not said one word in condemnation towards the bully's actions but you've done a lot to try to balance things using a ****ed up scale to put as much blame at the victim's feet as his bully.

It's ****ed up and I will call you out on it.