Years of Torment & Injustice At Linden STEAM Academy

Like DOE, I hate Linden with a passion for making me suffer for years. When I read the article about the girl being tormented, I was happy that Linden’s image of a perfect school was tarnished. I don’t blame them DOE and her family for coming to Patch for help because that way Linden will have to stop ignoring the victims and change their ways on how they combat bullying. I just wished that Patch came to interview some of the students to hear their side of the story. But, I was angry that she didn’t tell the whole truth about how each attack was either racially motivated or she instigated it. That’s the real reason why I'm writing this article, to tell the truth on what happened without sugar coating a thing. The victims of this wish to remain anonymous so I will protect their privacy.

The earliest I can recall is when she called B's mother "a ninja" and "terrorist" because she wore the hijab. During the time she said this, was a time where Muslims were getting attacked. B started to choke her because he felt offended and the staff let her get away with anything she wanted. The teacher pulled him away and sent him to the principal's office. He got suspended for three weeks and she got no punishment for her actions. Some tried to school on what is appropriate and what not, but she still didn't listen. She kept being ignorant and then it led up to flat out racism. When B came back, he had to transfer to a new homeroom. Also, her mother came to verbally abuse a 12-year-old at the time. She too said some racist things which really makes the statement, “the apple doesn’t far fall from the tree” true.People started to stay away from her because she was known to having "white girl privileges." I didn't stop befriending because I thought she would change because I believe people can change. She then started to like every guy in our grade and would basically tell everyone that they liked her. Then they would deny it by saying she was delusional or they didn't like her at all because she was racist.Seventh grade it got worse cause she started being more racist and creating drama that the real victims would get blamed for. She would go up to people just to start fights with them. They would try to back away and ignore her, all while the teachers are listening and not doing anything about it. When they get pushed to their breaking point, they would snap back at her, and the teachers would defend DOE by sending them to the principal’s office. And the worst of it all, the principal had a tendency to refuse to even listen to anyone that wasn’t in Gifted and suspend any eyewitnesses.

Gifted is the term Linden STEAM Academy uses for the advanced kids of their AEAP program. They are the pride and joy of the school. They get all the privileges such as a better education—no class can ever get ahead of the Gifted—and life at school. But, that comes at a price of the whole grade hating you, being segregated, and kids being envious of the waivers you can get. Richard Bransfield had this policy of that we’re all in this together, but he allowed Gifted to go on field trips that the rest weren’t allowed to. I remember he canceled this field trip to Boston, but then the next day, we all watched Gifted go on the field trip. When students asked why they couldn’t go, they got the simple answer, “Because you’re not Gifted.” When I went to Gifted, in the seventh grade, I gained the privileges too, but I didn’t really want it like the rest of Gifted. We also hate that Linden did this because we hated being treated better than them and having to act perfect all the time because “You’re Gifted.”

Anyways, no one could prepare for DOE’s actions in the eighth-grade. She hit it off by telling M, a Guatemalan-American girl who was her friend at the time, “to go jump back over the border to Mexico.” M slapped her for saying that and our Gym teacher had to break it up before it got any worse. He told the incident to our principal, but he ignored it like he always does. M got suspended for three days and DOE got off the hook again. At this point, everyone just stopped trying to educate her in the things she cannot say in life because if she has no problem saying it in open doors, what does she say behind closed doors? Kids started losing hope that her White privileges would never end and how much they wanted “White girl privileges” like her.

I think it was around this time her ‘ex-boyfriend’ broke up with her. They weren’t really dating. He was just trying to help her that she didn’t like this kid anymore, in like she moved on kind of way. He got teased for it, but he still helped her. He’s a nice boy and when I heard, “She’s racist,” come out of his mouth, I couldn’t stop denying it. She was racist, but I still wanted to help her become not racist.

At my years at Linden, I felt Linden only cared about grants, looking good for appearances, the Gifted, and getting the best MCAS scores. The only people that actually care about the students are all the 7th-grade teachers, 8th-grade guidance counselor and ELA teacher, the Tech-Ed teacher, the Art teacher, and most of all, the janitors—they made us laugh when we were all dead inside. There used to be more, but all of them left to find better jobs where the principal would actually listen to them. The sad thing is, no one listened to them, not even, the principal at the time, Richard Bransfield; he was never in his office or at school to be honest. In all the 6 years I was at Linden, I only saw him five times and that was when the important people were observing the school. I didn’t know he was our principal up until I heard he was getting replaced. They would post petitions, but no one signed it. He didn’t even come to our come graduation because he wouldn’t be principal anymore.

The unspecified cyberbullying incident was people dropping diss tracks on her via SnapChat and YouTube. The main objective was how she was racist, but they said some mean things about her like how she was ugly and short. Some of the people were suspended and some just got into trouble—I don’t know what their punishment was. They made them take it down. The thing that I hate about this was there was this kid, a Black male, who was subjected to this same kind of cyberbullying DOE was but the main idea for his was how he smelled bad, really really bad. They did nothing about it even though all the teachers knew and I still think the diss track is up on YouTube.

The biggest joke of all Linden has ever told is: “See something, say something.” When they say that, we know it’s untrue. There was this kid who got this concussion in the bathroom for being dunked on so hard. There were kids in the bathroom who weren’t involved that tried to help the kid, but they got suspended immediately after. This led many students to look the other way when a fight broke out. There were good people as for myself, Av, and J who held the people back from her, all while she’s motivating them to come to fight her. I for one got bruises all over my stomach trying to stop M from fighting her. It all started when she called M who was running towards the end zone with the ball during Capture the Flag words to describe a lady of the evening and the “b-word” all because she missed her flag. M threw the ball back in the end zone and she started to defend herself through her words. DOE continued to barter her with her favorite phrase, “Come at me, I’m not scared of you.” M charged at her and I had to stop her myself, holding her back. She hit mostly my stomach and chest. All meanwhile I’m trying to hold back M, DOE is coming closer saying her catchphrase.

People didn’t really know what was going on until the game was over. During the game, people were focused on winning. When they could hear DOE say her catchphrase, I immediately got help from fellow classmates to hold M down and take DOE away to where she was safe. DOE was sent to the principal’s, but she didn’t get suspended or into any trouble. M didn’t get into any trouble too which was good. I didn’t get into trouble because of my Gifted privileges which I'm very thankful for. Where M had elbowed me did leave bruising, but I didn’t care, the thing is no one got in trouble.

A couple days later after school while I was walking with A, DOE came looking for M because she “wants to fight her.” We escorted her back to her car because we didn't one anyone to get hurt and for her to get more hate. She met Ja and Av who were crossing the street, minding their own business, laughing and looking at her phones. She yells at them for laughing at her—we had no clue what they were laughing about because they were looking at each other’s phone. Ja called her an ugly b-word. DOE exchanged some other words to as for asking Ja where her dad was. Ja was about to fight her, but Av held her back. She replied to her, “My dad is at work making money, where is yours at?” Then, DOE wanted to fight her, but Av held Ja back from fighting DOE and her mother who wanted to fight her too. A and I had to hold her and her mother back. Her father is in prison; the last I heard for assaulting someone. At first, there was a rumor that a student pressed the charges because he has shown up on multiple occasions trying to fight some kids that are now Freshmans. The kids either walked away or threatened to call the police.

She found M that day when A and I left and they didn’t fight because J was holding M back like I did in gym. Along with M, J got suspended for holding M back. DOE did not get suspended or any form of punishment. I think it was because she wasn’t in Gifted and she was Hispanic too.

Ja is the same person who slapped her in May. The reason is that DOE called her the n-word and said: “Come at me, I’m not scared of you.” I believe she said it because she did ask one of her friends, who’s my BFF “If it was okay to say the n-word to a Black person if she was mad.” This was moments before she compared the looks of a Black female to a monkey. And she has been known to use the n-word quite frequently towards Black students. Part of me didn't want to believe my friend, because I thought there is no way a person could be as ignorant as her. Another part of me urged me to confront her on why she said racist things. She said, “It just comes out.” I said, “It can’t come out if you’re not thinking about it all the time, right?” She refused to answer this question and moved the subject to a new one. My friend, A, who told me this unfriended her. I didn’t because no one wanted to take the chance of feeling the wrath of the White girl privilege power. Ja is a light-skinned Black.

Not everyone who DOE racially offended fought her. For starters, she called a kid, L, a “chink.” Chink is a racist term used against people of Asian ancestry. It’s basically the n-word for Asians. I didn’t even know what it was until she said it and I Googled it. L was very offended but didn't report it, he just confided in us because he knew there would be nothing done about it as usual.

I do feel bad that the students attacked her, but I along with many others warned her multiple times not to say racist things, pick fights with other people, victim blame, and lie. For the most start, her saying racially degrading things started about two years prior to the incident with B. We were all stunned, but we didn't really comprehend because we were like ten at the time it started. As we read more about history, we learned more about racism. Then kids would start to report it and she would be off the hook. They wouldn't even talk to her about why she shouldn't say those types of things. That is why I believe that she got attacked when she said racist things most of the time because some couldn't handle the injustice at Linden so they made it their job.

I personally don't think Linden needs to reevaluate their approach towards racism, punishment, and most of all sexism. For some reason, Linden really hated the boys. I remember one year they were all rounded up all the boys to the auditorium to talk on how to act like civil human beings during recess. It wasn't until we got back to class, we were asking where the boys were and our teachers informed us of this. We were all confused because we all felt that it was a talk not for the boys, but for all of us. When they came back, we learned that they were all banned from anything that involved touching such as hugs and high fives. We were all confused so we asked if it implied to the girls too, and no it wasn't, just the boys. Another incident of sexism against the boys was when all the boys started to wear ponytails, pigtails, and headbands. Our vice-principal made them take it off because it was "inappropriate and distracting". Some of the boys ignored him and continued to rock their hairstyles and quickly take it off when he came walking by. The girls had some sort of sexism because we wore headbands that were "too distracting". The headbands that we wore were thin black headbands with a small Nike logo on them that you couldn't really see unless you came really close too. I was confused because there is this boy who sometimes likes to take off his shirt while we're playing capture the flag.

Like seriously, please Linden, fix your racism and victim blaming because you rank #199 as the most diverse middle school and tolerate racism. It's not a good message your sending to your students who will grow up with wounds that will never heal because you tolerated such actions. And for DOE, I hope you learn on not to be racist.