Recently a man has jumped off of a building due to a crowd's chants of "Jump, jump, jump." Absolutely disgusted in every possible way. One should never tell someone to kill themselves, ever. This man was reciting bible verses. If someone is up multiple stories of a building reciting religious things, chances are there is something really bad going on. Normally that doesn't happen, why would you ever tell this person to jump.
Suicide is already a big problem in the world right now, we shouldn't promote it in any sense, joking or not. I know that a lot of people regardless of background or age joke about suicide. It's no laughing matter. In my opinion it should be treated equally as talking about the horrors of human history. WWI and WWII aren't joking matters and are taken very seriously, at least in the United States (although I can't imagine it getting any better in another country). People don't just go around talking about the world wars, and you certainly shouldn't go around just talking about suicide like it's no big deal because it is, regardless of what anyone says. Now do I think that suicide should be banned as a subject of conversation as a whole? absolutely not. Raising awareness about suicide and helping those who are suicidal is just as important as removing it from our everyday language,
This is a massive part of desensitization that happens in our society. We don't put enough emphasis on the prevention of socially unacceptable things - such as the joking of suicide or rape. It's not okay any way that you look at it, but because it was used as a joking matter for so long without any backlash, people have started using it as a common thing, and it's lost its meaning. I believe that as a society we need to put more emphasis on the prevention of things like this in the future. Primarily on the verbal aspect of it. I don't believe that there is a such thing as a violence desensitization unless there is some extreme mental interference.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Suicide-victim-dies-after-crowd-urges-him-to-jump-20141205
I completely agree, this was well thought out and written.
ReplyDeleteSuicide baiting happens in all cultures with surprising regularity. My son Dylan Yount died in a suicide baiting in Hallidie Plaza, San Francisco, 2-16-10 while 24 San Francisco police officers stood by and did nothing to stop the taunting. Not only am I in litigation with them, we have started a suicide baiting prevention FB page to raise awareness and lobby for better training for police in their interactions with the suicidal at https://www.facebook.com/SuicideBaitingCrowdPrevention?ref=ts
ReplyDelete