The bully I stood up to made my life a living hell for the rest of my time there. He and his friends would stalk me everywhere, looking for an opportunity to beat me senseless, forcing me to always watch my back and sneak down back alleys to avoid the main streets. One night, they came by my house and smashed almost every window on the first floor with cinder blocks and baseball bats. My parents had to pay the costs for that.
I ended up joining the Marines after high school in large part just to get away from that neighborhood and those kids.
Also, and here is the kicker, I was the one suspended from school for fighting. Never had a discipline issue in my entire school life up to that point. The administrators didn't care. Rules are rules, was their reply. The bully was considered the victim because I threw the first punch. And the bully was careful to get his revenge outside of school grounds.
Urban schools were and are hellholes. Likely even worse today than back when I went. Raising my children in a mostly white affluent suburb was probably the best thing I ever did for them.
> Urban schools were and are hellholes. <
I certainly agree. But I must mention something. As I noted earlier, I taught at an urban high school. It had all the expected problems: poor student attendance, fights in the hallways, kids running wild in the classrooms, etc.
Ah, but then by some miracle we got a tough principal, an ex-army paratrooper. He turned that place around. He walked the halls constantly. He suspended bullies and troublemakers. And he called the city police. Those were golden years.
He committed lots of no-no’s there. You’re not supposed to suspend disruptive students. High suspension rates make the district look bad! And you’re not supposed to call the city police. You’re supposed to call the school police (better to bury the incident).
The central administrators hated the guy, and told him so. But they couldn’t fire him because he had the strong support of a school board member. Finally he retired. And then it was back to the chaos.