the biggest things parents should worry about is their kid being bullied by other kids during school, a supposedly safe place, and other family. strangers just aren't the major source of violence towards children.
She is now in a neck brace, and her mother is absolutely distraught, saying this is something she cannot fix for her beloved daughter. I am distraught as well that this could happen to anyone at all on the same train that I ride every week.
I've seen lots of death on the roads around me.
But sure, it's the train that's unsafe.
A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence because they either feel helpless to change the societal contexts of that violence and/or because admitting that violence would require confronting the benefits of power exploitation vs. the drawbacks of racism, sexism, bullying, and bystanderism. That swarm of boys abusing a girl to enforce societal mores that benefit them to her detriment is a trope from Pleasantville. This isn’t some new or unknown thing. This is a standard-issue United States Lynch Mob that’s been known about for a century.
I’ve been upset about this for thirty years, which is when I first discovered this. Welcome to the shameful desert of the real. Sad that it took y’all so long to see it; but now you have a chance to decide a way forward. Circle the wagons and raise sheltered, and therefore weakened, children? Teach every family about this threat all the way down to the youngest that kids understand danger? Crossing guards that ride the buses and have safety whistles and self-defense training? Lobby your city government to shift policing dollars to transit safety officers? Lobby your regional government to shift road maintenance dollars to gang violence de-escalation efforts?
As you can see, it’s difficult to find a way forward that feels appropriately vengeful upon ‘those that hurt our budding flower’ while also having a meaningful impact on the quality of the future. Most regions would just try to defund bus service, which fucks over everyone except wealthy adults on time scales longer than ten years or so, because at least that ‘feels’ like an effective response.
Good luck.
Completely normal. Trauma at a certain level, unlike other memories and emotions, doesn't seem impacted by time. I'm sorry to hear what happened to you.
> that is quite normalized in the U.S., especially if you’re not white. / A lot of U.S. residents inure themselves to random acts of violence
This part seems to universalize the experience, though. What is the basis for it? Crime is at generational lows. I've used public transit in cities uncounted times and I have never seen a crime; that's what is normal for me.
No, not traumatized for thirty years; that’s not a valid substitution here. Upset, in the way that people that want to effect societal change are upset at acceptance of the status quo. The alternative is apathy and hopelessness, and I refuse to adopt salves (such modern rationalism) that would let me stop caring about difficult ‘uphill’ battles.
> I'm sorry to hear
I refuse your apology; instead, exert your own form of societal pressure against, say, bullying. It’s a more approachable target than lynching and will help you switch your instincts from irrelevant sympathy to relevant action. (And if you already do, bully for you, pun intended :)
> I've used public transit in cities uncounted times and I have never seen a crime; that's what is normal for me.
Mixed-wealth U.S. cities, in daytime and at night? In exclusively downtown, college, and/or affluent neighborhoods? (So excluding for example Stanford, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, which are tilted quite high-wealth and thus low-crime, Brock Turners notwithstanding.)
Also: Are you a white man of middle-class or greater wealth? That generally matters greatly when evaluating anecdotes on this topic, independent of all other factors, and is strongly correlated with ‘I have no matching anecdotes from my own experience’ annotations.
I’ve noticed a trend of people attaching a sort of personal identification with headlines
Imagine that!
The crux of my stress on this is that riding the light rail is a very common thing for me and millions of my neighbors. In fact we are shocked because we consider it so safe. The LRT should be the safest place in the city, given the cameras, the crowds, the security guards and the vigilant operators.
To think that a vulnerable, female high school student was attacked, broad daylight, onlookers looking, mob of boys (high school I would assume) is just beyond the pale. Nobody did nothing, and the attack continues after she disembarks? It's just unthinkable. There is a Jesuit Catholic boys' school just up the line from where she boarded. Were none of the Brophy boys on hand to step in, to say "stop it" or do anything about it?
And to watch the interview with the mother was just the last straw for me. How upset she is now. Her daughter means the world to her; she couldn't protect her, and she can't "fix this" for her. It's heartwrenching. It should've been safe, especially for a girl like her, so close to adulthood, but legally a child.
Within a few generations, their decendants marry each other.
Unless there's a big strict enforcer to keep everyone in line of course.
but Japan is much safer than the US, in no small part because they have the sense to not allow people to own weapons
Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war.
https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co...
Crime in the USA is also extremely regional and local in pattern.
Do you have a cite? In American cities crime is at generational lows, including / especially murder.
"The numbers of homicides and shooting victims in Philadelphia have continued their sharp declines since the pandemic. There were 222 homicides last year, the fewest since 1966, and 935 shooting victims, the first time there had been under 1,000 since at least 2007."
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/pew-state-of-city...
I don't know how your link gathers data (website only shows one dude, software engineer, not a professional survey statistician), but from personal experience I can surely say it's rankings are BS.
The closest in US are the "bad towns" like East Palo Alto or some neighborhoods of Oakland, with their respect for ex-cons and prison slang.
In public schools there's this unofficial "letter grade system". Unlike the US, where kids homerooms are mixed around each year on purpose, in Russia a homeroom group sticks together through the entirety of their school career, grades 5-12. Of course some kids will move away, and new kids will join, but the core group remains. Many lifelong friendships are formed this way.
Now - and this part doesn't officially exist, but it certainly does in practice - these groups are not created equal. Let's say there are 3 teachers who are picking up a grade 5 homeroom. They will stick with these kids until they graduate. So, the teacher with the most seniority has their pick of the "best" graduating elementary students. These will be well-behaved and academically strong kids. Their new homeroom will be called 5A. Then the second most senior teacher has their pick. This homeroom will become 5B. And 5C onwards are the "leftovers". And these groups will stick together until they are 12A, B, and C.
If you want a good school experience for a nerdy shy kid - they have to be in "A". Of course, as a newbie who is unfamiliar with the system... your kid will likely be put in "C" ("ve"). And you probably know enough about how Russia works by now to understand how to go about changing that ;)
And you know, you can also ask people. In software there is a large population that grew up in the ex-USSR. Many of us still regularly visit the old country and talk to friends and family that live there. And we aren't all bots, despite what many seem to believe.
My children cross town by themselves to attend classes, it’s normal to see children walking or riding public transport by themselves once they turn about age 7.
There’s crime and bullying — we have always homeschooled successfully and have had negative experiences with classrooms here — but in my opinion it’s not as bad as the places I’ve lived in the US.
And the streets are definitely safer. There are some risks like gopniki enjoying causing random trouble like pepper spraying strangers, but I believe that type of danger is a threat mostly to young adult men and almost certainly not children. Our daughters can safely do what they need to do with appropriate precautions (that do not include staying within single-digit meters of a vigilant adult at all times else CPS!!!).
Also, French, German, Swesish, you name it do all the stuff alone. And third, they have less bullying in schools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
Not sure "sending them to be killed by Ukrainians" is better then incarceration. But, probably costs less money.
I wanted to write that the requirements to teach in russian language in russian schools is relatively new one. But turns out, you could still do it. Not like in private schools, you can have a government school in another language.
It can be argued that there is unifying postsoviet culture, but since different regions were treated differently under Soviet regime, there is a lot of differences.
More important is that helicopter-style parenting is unthinkable there, people will just not understand if someone would attempt that. Also not much in insane laws (they have some, but..) and the police will tell you to bugger off if you try make them act on those that exist. So the situation in the article is impossible.