is likely not the first face that comes to mind when you think of a poster child for bullying.
Yet there she was,
sitting in the back of Bus 784 as it rolled through the streets of
Greece, New York, on Monday afternoon. Four middle school boys barraged
her with verbal abuse, jabbing her about her weight, attacking her
family and chuckling as they made violent and graphic threats. Except
for a few even-keeled retorts, the 68-year-old bus monitor brushed sweat
from her brow and remained quiet, peering up front and out her window
seemingly waiting for her hellish ride to end.
Her suffering may have gone unnoticed, had not one of the young teenagers posted a 10-minute video of the harassment on YouTube.
By Wednesday, police were
interviewing Klein and her alleged verbal abusers. And by the next day,
as the video began going viral, she had become a cause celebre.
Her torment became a
prism through which total strangers, the world round, characterized her
experience as symbolic of everything wrong with modern-day parenting,
children and more. Beyond anger, some expressed sadness for the
seemingly defenseless older woman who, they felt, bravely suffered the
slings and arrows flung at her for no good reason at all.
"I couldn't watch the
whole video -- I don't know how you live through it," wrote one woman,
Marykate, in an online post. "God bless, you are my hero."
Yet bad things happen all
too routinely, with people abused and killed most every minute in most
every corner of the world. So why did one grandmother's videotaped bus
ride become so engaging and emotional for thousands of people she has
never met, prompting them to issues emotional pleas to police and to
donate hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Grandma bullied on school bus
"Only in America": School bus bullies
Count Klein among those
taken aback by all the attention. After hearing from CNN's Anderson
Cooper that Southwest Airlines offered her and nine others an
all-expense paid trip to southern California to go to Disneyland, she
described it as "awesome" but seemingly too good to be true.
"I still can't believe it," she said Thursday night. "I don't feel like I've done anything."
But the reaction isn't
entirely surprising to Sara Hodges, a social psychology professor at the
University of Oregon. The fact the attacks are so pointed and Klein's
pain so apparent makes it easy for people to identify with as she
soldiers through a torrent of verbal abuse.
"It's such a clear case
of somebody who is being bullied," said Hodges. "She's all alone, and
she has no allies... And what the kids are saying is so obviously
hurtful... It's so compelling that you can't turn away."
And for all the
statistics about the number of people bullied each year or perhaps news
reports about elderly being targeted, people tend to respond more -- and
more viscerally -- to a person being attacked and suffering with their
own eyes, the professor states.
"We feel much stronger feelings for an individual than we do for ... an abstract group," Hodges said.
Max Sidorov was one of
those people moved by Klein's plight. Living in Toronto, he'd never met
her but told CNN that the YouTube video "struck a chord with me," a
feeling that -- as someone who'd been bullied himself -- he couldn't let
go of without taking action.
"I felt very sad for Karen, and I felt I had to do something to support her in this time," he said.
His first thought was to
raise money through the site indiegogo.com, hopefully enough "to get
her away from the environment and get her on vacation somewhere." So he
set up the site, hoping to amass $5,000 over the next month.
By 11 p.m. Thursday, with 29 days still to go, that fund had already topped $415,000.
Donors like Marykate gave not only their money, but their heartfelt support for Klein in remarks posted on the website.
"Karen, I am so sorry that these children were so mean to you," wrote one commenter named Mary.
Added a man, identified
as W. Ronald, "I hope the recognition that thousands and thousands of
people heartily dislike what those children did helps you feel a little
better."
Yet many on that site,
as well as CNN.com's story -- which was shared on Facebook by more than
35,000 people as of Thursday night and had more 6,300 comments -- levied
blame, as much as they offered support.
Many chastised
modern-day children and parenting for fostering such behavior. Some
criticized the bus driver for not halting the verbal abuse, even though
Greece Police Capt. Steve Chatterton stressed that it took place on the
back of a noisy bus far from the driver. And a few even singled out
Klein, for not being more forthright to stop it.
"Children have no
respect because they are not taught to respect," a CNN.com commenter
with the handle Rahzmahm wrote. "Ask the nearest child to you the
meaning of the word and you probably would not get a sufficient answer."
Police and town leaders
in Greece -- a community of nearly 100,000 residents, three school
districts and nearly 42 square miles of area, yet still proudly sees
itself as a town, one where things like this just don't happen -- talked
about being peppered with messages from around the world decrying the
episode.
While condemning the
outrage, town Supervisor John Auberger tried to ensure people that these
four boys didn't represent the entire community. He described his
"town" as a place full of people "who are kind, respectful neighbors and
hardworking," much like Klein.
Online and in messages
to school and police officials, many demanded the youngsters overheard
in the video be arrested. Chatterton said he's "gotten e-mails from the
United Kingdom (and) from all over the United States saying prosecute,
prosecute."
"I feel it. I feel it,"
he said. "But we have to follow the law. We can't tailor the law to meet
this case because of public outrage."
Police also said the
accused seventh-graders had received death threats from people near and
far. For example, Chatterton said one of their cell phones "had over
1,000 missed calls and 1,000 text messages threatening him. And he is a
13-year-old."
Hodges, the University of Oregon professor, said she's not surprised by the communal desire for justice.
She said this could be
explained through the "just-world hypothesis," the belief that people
think the world should be good -- and when it is not, especially when a
blameless and vulnerable person suffers as a result, someone needs to be
punished.
"Clearly something is
wrong, this shouldn't be happening," Hodges said. "There's a sense
somebody needs to be blamed... People feel the need to balance the
scope."
One person not calling
for the four boys to be thrown behind bars is Klein. The bus monitor
said that, right now at least, she does not want police to pursue
criminal charges. But Klein would like to see them banned from the bus
and athletic activities and, most of all, wants to make sure they don't
bully anyone else.
"I want to make sure that they never do this again, to anybody," she said.
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