Way to turn an act of violence into a marketing strategy.

Why didn't anybody do anything? Because we live in a rape culture that promotes victim blaming. As long as girls "are asking for it," and as long as we teach girls "how to not get raped" we will live in a society of zombie, passive bystanders.

Instead of ignorantly attempting to connect the issue of sexual violence against women with your own agenda of cyber-bullying, how about you revisit this "learning opportunity" after designing and/or promoting a plan to teach students about the real issue at hand--what rape is, and how to NOT BE A RAPIST.

This article is truly vile.

I agree with Jennifer.

Also, this was not an act of bullying or cyber bullying, this was absolute violence. We aren't talking about some kids calling names or typing mean words at each other, we are talking about young men drugging, assaulting, and humiliating a young woman. Yes bullying is very serious but this disgusting incident in Steubenville was well beyond anything that could be considered bullying.

agreed with jennifer and others. jill, this is truly disturbing.

Actually, the act of the other kids that posted the videos and pictures are the ones that were cyber bullying. We all know what the boys who committed the violence were doing. Also, we've been living in a "rape culture" for centuries. This isn't new. Us seeing it on YouTube is new and has made the masses aware of it. There is a lot being done to change that, but ultimately parents and schools have to participate in the change. In this situation neither were. The coach has actively participated in honing the attitudes of those boys and should be held just as responsible. He has gone beyond blaming the victim. I hope the family sues the piss out of him. Society creates rapists. That is a fact.
Also why is it that when someone comes up with an actual strategy on how to help stop this from happening they are vilified? You are society and you create a no win situation for people with ideas. If that's what other adults who are trying to help get thrown at them, what do you think kids who want to help are dealing with? We are the example for our kids and we are ALWAYS pointing the finger at others instead of ourselves. NO responsibility. Why not give some props to someone who has an organization that is trying to deal with the problem instead of assuming it's a marketing strategy? How else do they get the word out? Do they wait till people aren't really thinking about it to talk about it?
YOU all should be ashamed!
Jill, thank you for offering a solution.

Dear Readers, I apologize for a mistake I made in this blog. I wrote that bystanders took videos of the alleged crime. The cyber bullying video was not of the alleged rape, it was of a teenager who mocked and made jokes of the situation. This should not have been used as an example of bystanders not “doing anything” as the act was being committed.

JILL, the author: No, I'm not going to call you but:
perhaps you can tell more about the program

is it a one time seminar? how many classes? does it involve books? how much time will be required in order to implement the program? does it take time from the current school day? are there different programs for the teachers and students?

what are your age limits?
do you have different programs for different ages?

What qualifies the company? Who does the Company legally answer to?

Please tell Us about your SUCCESS RATES, how long you've been in this type of work, and where the program has successfully been used?

No, I'm not going to your website. You started the conversation here, so please address it here.

thank you

Thank for the clarification Jill. Thanks for contributing to the solution. I wish something like this had been around while my son was still in school. I would have pushed hard for the school to utilize it. Things are changing so fast and as a parent it's crazy trying to figure out how to teach our children and keep them safe in the cyber culture. I think too that the issue of children not knowing what to do when something like this is happening is because we really haven't given them the tools to handle it. No one wants to talk about these things in practical terms as you can see by everyone's reaction to this posting. When violence happens to someone in front of our kids or they know of it happening and they don't have the tools to deal with it, they become victims too.

Do people just pop out kids and forget to be parents? Not friends or enablers, but parents. You know, the first and best teacher the child encounters.

I want to clarify some of these misunderstandings.
"Why didn't anybody do anything? Because we live in a rape culture that promotes victim blaming." I disagree. In my experience, I have seen a witness or bystander do something to help a victim. If you really want to change something, you need to be specific in your solutions. Making general comments about society is not a feasible way to solve any problem.-
"Also, this was not an act of bullying or cyber bullying, this was absolute violence."
I am sorry if my point was misunderstood. In my article, I am not referring to the boys. I am referring to the kids who witnessed the various acts that took place, the kids that knew about the acts, the kids that talked and commented on Facebook about the acts and the kids that forwarded disturbing pictures or videos that made fun of this poor girl. Taking pictures with a cell phone, texting or talking about an act of violence on Facebook is cyberbullying.

Jill Brown
Generation Text Online
jill.brown@GenerationTextOnline.com

I don't recall my parents having taught me that rape is wrong. Neither did they have to specifically teach me not to joke about rape or refuse to tell the police what I know about a crime. My "tools" are limited to common decency. This is about a town whose football program trumps everything else to the point that it has bread an environment of extreme entitlement. I reject the idea that children need "tools" to figure out that rape is the ultimate act of cowardice or that witnesses and jokster's enter that same cowardly realm as the perpetrators of the crime. If our children are unable to recognize common decency, then I seriously doubt a educational program will be successful in rectifying the problem.

I agree with those who object to this forum being used to sell a program. The original post should not have included the analogy or specific instructional information. Jill is welcome to make her program available as a suggestion and a link, but NOT to try to imbed a sales pitch within comments that start out apparently as a merely opinion.. As a former resident of Steubenville, I can testify to the glorification of football there. Flags of each of the town's teams were flown on mainstreet on game days! Football can be a unifying factor for a small town, but when the interest and support become excessive, the importance of football goes completely out of control. I think the situation is a reflection/result of the overemphasis on sports, teen drinking, and need for exhibiting everything about ones life on the internet.

Teachers aren't allowed to cross the boundary line and educate children on how to step up and intervene- because that would be politically incorrect. I say this because it would teach the pupil assumptions that some of their peers are "bad". Gone are the days of teacher-centered or Puritan education, here we are in "modern society" not able to teach responsibility or self reliance because it would be demeaning and condescending.

Ah, I think children should learn morals from their Puritan parents. Teachers are there to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. No classes on rape please.

It seems your meaning has been lost due to some errors that you made in the original article. If Patch does not allow you to edit the ACTUAL article (not just make comments to point out the errors) it is my opinion that a good option would be for you to remove or ask for the article to be removed and start over. The error is something so large that it changes the entire point of your article. Videotaping a crime is a much more severe offense than pure cyber bullying, as is being complicit with a crime in progress, and I should hope that all citizens are taught that regardless of age. If your true aim was to comment on students harassing one another on social media (after the crime) that is is certainly not what most people are getting from this story.

Look Debbie S., I'm 50 and my generation didn't need to be taught by teachers to intervene and my generation didn't display the cold indifference that is witnessed in today's children. Parents need to parent. Memo: the mommy-state mentality in our schools haven't worked so well.

Dear Debbie S.
NO I'm not a teacher (but you should be happy to hear this..) THAT OPINION is what KENT STATE UNIVERSITY is TEACHING it's students !
HAHAHAH

Jason - I agree with you. Alcohol is a factor. Yes, people make the choice to drink. However, it if wasn't so readily available and accepted ( it's nothing more than a legal drug) we wouldn't see some of the crimes we do.
Alcohol impairs people's judgement. But it doesn't excuse them for bad behavior.
Look at Kent. We keep adding bars to downtown like we don't have enough. And then we say don't drink and drive or get too drunk that you get a disorderly conduct. Drink responsibly..... what does that mean? It impairs you. How is that responsible? Sorry for the rant. :)

"Why didn’t anybody do anything???”

Pure and simple. Small town peer pressure. If someone from the outside had witnessed this, it wouldn't have been kept secret.

It seems to me that we're not raising boys to be men anymore. My Dad raised me with the conviction that it is my responsibility as a man to always hold women in the highest regard, and that a mans' place in this world is to keep women above us, safe from harm. It's just old-fashioned proper values. What kind of young people are these that we see in this video ? Not those with any sort of proper direction in their upbringing. I place the blame squarely on the heads of the parents. They are abject failures in raising these young boys properly.

We in Kent are fortunate that all the Roosevent boys and girls, and their parents, are lofty examples of integrity and moral purity, and that nothing like this could EVER happen in our fair city. Right? It's those disgraceful degenerates in Steubenville who give Ohio a bad name.

The belt or the wooden spoon might be going a little too far. Kids are tape recorders. They'll adopt the value system they witness in their parental units. If the parents value the football program more than they do the victim, then it stands to reason that the children will follow suit.

A child who is taught to resolve issues with violence will grow up to resolve issues violently. A child can be taught integrity and morals without resorting to a belt. A child's behavior is a result of what he/she observes in their parents. A parent that resorts to corporal punishment is a failed parent who lacks the proper parenting skills.

It's foolish to think that discipline can only be achieved by way of corporal punishment. Myself, my siblings, my cousins and my friends were somehow able to learn integrity and ethics without corporal punishment. As usual, some on the Patch stray away from the blog in question. The blogger thought that the solution should come from the schools. I believe it's the parents responsibility. Now you're off on a tangent about corporal punishment. Jean, your aggression towards Debbie and myself speaks volumes about you. Some unhappy people will stop at nothing to spew their anger. Hint: Look inward if you really want to resolve your anger issues.

Jean, I wish not to believe that you truly think the best way for a parent to teach a child that violence against women is wrong is by perpetrating multiple acts acts of violence against said child. I believe good parenting is best achieved by leading by example. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in discipline as long as that discipline promotes acceptable behavior.

Kent State University and their newspaper The Daily Kent Stater are censoring commentary on the issue that Charlie Keenan will be receiving a full scholarship to the university next fall. Look's like they are bowing to pressure from Keenan and Hanlin's attorney, even though part of the rape took place at his home. Maybe Hanlin just made a big fat donation to the school. Seems like your entitled, spoiled, criminal, sexual offending children can do as they please as long as you have the money to cover it up, like Hanlin does. Just like she shielding him from prosecution in this case and also in the case of the vandalism at the Steubenville golf course Charlie Keenan partook in. They even paid for the damages with school booster fundraiser money.

Excellent info Timothy D. That is why I say Jill Brown's blog about programs that teach children right from wrong, well intended as she might be, falls woefully short in addressing the real problem in our society. The adults have endorsed this type of behavior by their actions.

When I was about 10 or 11, playing at a new house construction site, I threw a dirt clod and hit a neighbor girl just below her eye. Made a cut and bled. She went running home crying. My Pop marched my sorry behind to her house, where I apologized to her and her parents, ( so did he ) then made me do chores for her Mom and Dad for the next 2 weeks ( a lifetime to a kid ). Good, solid parenting. Taking responsibility for ones actions. My Dad never beat me. He taught me. There's not enough parents teaching their kids what's right.