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Obviously picked on him because he's so smart and brilliant. Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright.

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this is precisely the point the author is attacking; the problem of deciding that the bullying is the result of the fact that you're special, not part of a routine culture of violence.

But it isn't a routine culture of violence. It is a culture of shaming, violence and impunity against victims with very specific traits. Which actually do include things like intellectual ability, sensitivity or preference to be alone. It actually isn't equally applied to everyone.

I didn't mean it applied equally to everyone; I mean it applies to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, nerds and not.

victims with very specific traits - You're choosing to ignore a whole load of violence (including harassment) which undoubtedly occurs against members of all minorities (indeed, to all "diversity streams" - since women are in fact the majority.) You're arbitrarily filtering out all sorts of similar violence that happens to people who aren't nerds, which isn't valid (the author argues).

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