Casey Heynes and Bullying

I have copied and pasted this blog entry onto the End Metallophobia blog (from my regular Night Owl blog).  Even though it is not specifically relevant to heavy metal, I think it is important to understand we all have times in our lives where we are bullied in some form or another, and we all have our 'breaking points'.  In particular, metalheads who have been bullied and can relate to it will enjoy it. 

A few weeks' ago, this youngster (a 15 year-old boy from St Mary's, NSW, Australia) was on the news. He didn't do anything particularly 'extraordinary' but his actions had extraordinary outcomes for many people who could relate to his story, who are surprised what they are capable of when they decide to fight back. It shows that we all have our breaking point, and even though none of us wants to reach it, sometimes it is a necesary evil

Casey Heynes was one such person who, for most of his life, was bullied for being overweight, but when he hit high school, the bullying and ostracism became considerably worse. By year 8, the few friends he had completely turned their backs on him, and after that, he was completely on his own. That is very tough for a young person to have to go through.

Young Casey finally reached his breaking point when, on his way to school and was set upon by four other youths, the youngest being 12 year-old Richard Gale. I do not know personally whether Richard was the ring leader or not, but it was most probably likely he was put up to it by his accomplices, who obviously thought they could make an example of the 'fat kid'. The incident was filmed and put up on YouTube and several Facebook pages were started in response to the incident.

Casey might have appeared to be slow off the mark at first: the first few times he was struck by Richard, he just stood there and took it. But unfortunately for Robert, the tables had turned when Casey had finally had enough. He grabbed Richard by the scruff of the neck, lifted him up and slammed him down on the concrete.

Casey managed to walk away from it, and Richard escaped with a grazed knee. Both children got suspended and there was a huge fuss about it in the media. Casey spoke about his experiences with bullying, and how they affected him, and even Richard claimed he was bullied himself. The interviewer on either ACA or Today Tonight asked him why, even though he was bullied himself, would he do it to someone else. Richard claimed that Casey called him an idiot and told him to get back to class, and obviously felt he was the one being 'picked on'. He also claimed that other people picked on him too and it made him angry. He then sort of apologized but then admitted he 'wasn't really sorry. So the interviewer said to him something along the lines of 'perhaps you need to imagine what it is like for Casey'. How badly he felt after that, I don't know, but I can imagine it would have made him think a bit more about the effects of his behaviour.

Ever since children have been going to school, there has been bullying. It's hardly a new phenomenon - especially amongst boys. However, more and more incidents have been making the news, and with greater severity as well: There was also a recent event in an Adelaide school where a young man with Asperger's syndrome was severely bashed and left unconscious. And even more disturbing are the increasing numbers of incidents amongst girls.

But I have to wonder what the outcome would be if the incident in question had occurred between two adults. Would people (especially the powers that be) would be anywhere nearly as sympathetic? My answer to this is 'I think not?' People aren't as understanding of adults as they are of kids (or even teenagers), and if a grown up is found 'guilty' of assault, or admits they have done something wrong, then people automatically assume they are violent and/or have something wrong with them. Unfortunately, the same applies to the people who bully as teenagers or adults - they are the ones who instigate the 'violence', and yet, as long as they can make out they are the 'victims', they get off the hook and escape responsibility. Let's just hope we can all learn something from this, and that children like Richard Gale learn not to bully later in life.

cheers,

Night Owl