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Girl Bullied, Assaulted For Masculine Sounding Name

11/10/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Randi Foster was beaten by fellow students at Hernando Middle School on Wednesday most likely because she has a masculine sounding name. Last Wednesday, she was leaving a Fellowship of Christian Students meeting when four girls and boys surrounded her and began taunting her, at first. According to her “They started talking about me like I was a man, and like, stuff like that. That I shouldn’t be in this world. And my name was a boy name.”

It went beyond taunting. According to her “I was kicked in the rib. I was kicked in the leg. I was hit in the face. I was sat on top of and my face was jammed into the floor. I was thrown onto a cafeteria table. I was thrown in between the seats.”

Randi’s mother, Meggan Foster, feels appalled by this, and said “She was sitting in a chair. Her glasses were broken. She had been crying. She had a bloody tissue in her hand from her nose bleeding.” She did request a copy of the surveillance camera footage of the incident, but the principal could not give it to her because it involves other students. The principal did tell her that the footage shows Randi was not at fault and that she tried to avoid the situation several times.

According to Meggan Foster “That should be a safe place for them to be. Not worried about getting attacked or being bullied because you look funny or you wear different clothes, or you know, things like that.”

Bullying often goes well beyond things like sexual identity, gender, sex, race, hair color, wearing glasses, etc. Basically, bullying is not rooted in what the bullieed is or does, but what the bully feels and does.

Roughly one third of students between the ages of twelve and eighteen have been bullied. Education Secretary Arne Duncan addressed the issue in August during the nation’s first ‘bully summit.’ He stated “So many bullies were themselves bullied, this is a learned behavior, and we have to get to young children early and give them the role models, the mentors, the skills, the strategies, to behave in different ways.”

Police were not called, and charges will not be filed, but a DeSoto County administrator did say that disciplinary action would be taken to the fullest extent of the law.

As for Randi “I’m not scared or terrified. I’m a little worried because I’m not sure, you know, what’s going to happen when I do go back to school.”

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