It wasn’t just isolated to one school; all across the country, from coast to coast,
high school punks were punished for attacking red-haired classmates at school. Two
Grade seven girls were the victims of swarming attacks where older girls kicked them
mercilessly. :

By definition, these are hate crimes. The students were targeted because they were
an identifiable group, so it meets the criteria for a hate crime. I know a lot of people
would probably not consider this sort of thing to be worthy of the importance and
revulsion we usually give to hate crimes, but this thing really has some troubling factors,
namely how easy it was to mobilize these kids and coerce them into committing violence
against others. All it took was a cartoon and a website and they were off to the races.

When something like this happens, people ought to be worried. Yeah, it was just a
few kids who suffered minor injuries this time, but doesn’t it frighten anyone how this all
just sort of took off? It begs the question, are young people today able to make rational
and critical judgements about the media that we present them with? It’s not like these
were five-year-olds who did this, who we generally filter media for, these were high
school kids 16 or older. They really ought to know better by that age, and they don’t.

I won't say that this isolated incident is the result of a world gone mad or declining
moral values, but I do think we should take something like this seriously. | remember.
hearing from a reporter from The Tyee who went undercover in South Carolina’s local
Ku Klux Klan chapter. Recruiters for organizations don’t look for adults who know their .
way around the world; they look for impressionable teenagers who are easily influenced
by group consensuses. When the Klan wants something to get done, they don’t send . :
an older Klansman in a leadership position, they take a youngster, surround him with \

Ye : ; ao | oy

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