Staff Editorial: We Are Amber Cole

By now, most people have probably heard the story of Amber Cole, a fourteen-year old girl who was filmed performing oral sex on her ex-boyfriend behind their high school.

The boy allegedly told Amber that she had that she had to perform oral sex on him if she wanted to get him back. Two other boys watched the encounter in progress and filmed it. They then posted the video online and it went viral. As a result, Amber Cole has become the talk of the social media world, with trending topics on Twitter, and postings on YouTube and Facebook, both ridiculing her and defending her honor.

Many people have used Amber Cole's situation as yet another example of the dangers of bullying in the modern technological world, but it is so much more than that. In a society where there is much debate about the treatment and portrayal of women, particularly as it pertains to women of color, it is a story about the importance of self-respect, self-love, and self-esteem, both on the part of Amber Cole and the boys involved.

Both the incident and the public's responses to it are direct representations of how the problem of misogyny manifests itself in the youth and persists into adulthood.

While this situation takes high school drama to a completely different level, to a certain extent, cruel and idiotic behavior among teenagers is to be expected. However, adults have helped to make the ordeal worse by tweeting and sharing their own jokes and derogatory views. As several websites have pointed out for people who find themselves intrigued by the actual video, child pornography is a crime. Child ridicule should be too.

If the adage is correct, and it does indeed take a village to raise a child, then adults who mock Amber Cole are also mocking themselves because we are members of the village that was supposed to have taught all of the children involved better. It is up to us to set an example to guide them now, not to re-tweet them.

There are also many other questions that haven't been answered that demonstrate the many ways in which the structure of modern society facilitated this occurrence. Although the incident took place at a school, little, if anything, has been said about school officials' responses to the incident. Just as education is about more than tests and grades, "no child left behind" shouldn't just be a phrase that applies to academics.

The situation shows that women are also still victims of a double-standard. While reports say that Cole has changed schools and that she has tweeted about the boys being arrested, for all of the tormenting that Amber Cole has endured for her actions, the boys did not appear to suffer the same scrutiny.

No child involved should have been tried in the court of social media, but isn't it strange that we don't even know the boys' names, while Amber's has become a household one?

What the public has done to Amber Cole isn't just cyber-bullying. It is unnecessarily cyber-branding the name and reputation of a child for the foreseeable future, because as we all know, in this day and age, there is no such thing as a delete button.

Our View: Cyber-bullying between children is wrong, but adults making fun of children who make bad decisions is worse.