Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
(Two posts combined)
The original topic of this thread is Black History Month. In a nutshell, as I understand, it is to raise awareness of why our society as a whole needs to change their attitudes towards less racial injustice. A crime fighting effort, not an effort that will teach the minorities to just deal with it by avoiding crime.
Your efforts of teaching to avoid crime are noble and useful. I have not claimed otherwise. It can even work for both, potential victims and potential criminals. Positive reinforcement to show that there is a place, your dojo, that has no tolerance for bullying. The one offence I take is that you appear to suggest victims should come to your dojo to avoid becoming a victim again. That should always be a discretionary decision of the psychologist, psychiatrist or councilor.
Once you have been a victim, the emotional scars will never ever go away completely. There will always be that little voice in your head that will ask "What did I do wrong to deserve this?" For me personally, the thought occured to me to pick up some kind of Martial Arts. Not as a team building effort, but as a way for revenge. A very nasty, violent revenge that always ended up in dead and mutilated attackers. I found other ways to cope, afraid of having the tools in my hands (pun intended) to put the nightmares into reality.
Intellectually I am aware now why I may have been targeted, emotionally I always have doubts of what I could have done different. So no, victims already do enough self victim blaming, no need for an outsider to reinforce such thoughts.
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In general, we do not advertise our services as a place where you come to avoid being a victim again. We have younger students whose parents bring them to karate because they are picked on, which is a very different thing. We don't tell parents that we can teach your child not to be picked on. We tell parents that we work on confidence, social skills and becoming a leader. Yes, we work on things like stranger danger and bullying but it's not a primary focus.