Bully For You

Midway through the recent kerfuffle, I thought about what was happening to me and how it might affect a teenager. When you are a kid, the smallest details of life are your whole world. It always seems that your whole world can come crashing down at any moment. No one, can tell you different. It's always, just that serious.

And then I learned that a fifteen year old boy from my alma mater had commited suicide, presumably as a result of bullying both cyber related and up close and personal. Well, I got my answer.

When I had attended his school, it was a highschool like any other highschool. There were 1313 kids in my graduating class, some 5000 for all four years so, it was bigger than most. I never saw the size as a bad thing. Perhaps it was a bit intimidating for some kids but, for most it meant that there was a smorgasborg of groups to fit in to. We had our jocks and cheerleaders and, given that it was the seventies, we also had freaks and greasers, all vying for attention. The vast majority of students were just kids like me who didn't desire to pledge any particular group and commit to one designation. My freshman year saw racial battles (blacks were a minority and most kids were coming from all-white gradeschools) and class warfare of sorts between those that were jocks (or rich, preppy kids) and the freaks (hippies) and greasers who came from the poorer families. LT then and now, was split between two campus's. Freshman and sophmore years were at the South campus and were tough because everyone was trying to find there way in life. It seemed that by junior year at North Campus, everybody came (reasonably) together. The jocks were buying weed from the same freaks they used to battle with, by junior year. It just worked out that way.

I only know about Ian Steele based upon newspaper accounts of his life and death. It appears that some children saw fit to bully him. He had friends of his own so, he wasn't wandering the halls alone. I read that he fought back against his attackers even though he knew he couldn't win a physical confrontation with them. Threads about his story had the usual advice about how bullies are really cowards and all a kid has to do is punch 'em in the nose and- there ya go- problem solved. Everyone is so e-tough on the net and free with apocryphal stories of revisionist heroism. But, I didn't get that his bullies had so physically traumatized that he opted to end his life. It seems to me that it was the mental anguish that took it's toll. How can a child fight that? You can't punch THAT in the nose. You can't turn the other cheek and walk away from that. The cruelest bullies among us know this even if they don't voice it to themselves or others. Words do hit harder than fists sometimes. Think about how it is for girls. It's usually not physical intimidation that they have to endure in school. They get the "mean girls" treatment based upon their looks or the way they dress. A girl might be over-weight or have a big nose or not dress well and some girls will desire to exploit this aspect of her young being. I get that bullies are weak and cowardly whether they are boys or girls. I also get that they've been here since the beginning of time and that they will be here until the end of time. They are part of the cycle of life.

Everytime a child like Ian takes his his or her life there is much gnashing of teeth about how school authorities, teachers and parents can and should do more to combat bullying. These adults can and will do more. But, it won't stop a damn thing. We love our two-fisted hero's in this society and it'd be great if the biggest, toughest kid on campus took up for the small and weak victims. I've seen that happen but, don't hold your breath. The hero makes for a good movie cliche but he only temporarily interrupts the bullying and, arguably, probably only changes the dynamics in the long run. Ian fighting back didn't end it. Knowing that they might get a facefull of fist and possibly lose a fight to the boy might very well have caused them to up their game to the safety of the internet. Rumors. Taunts. Embarrassment. The politics of lies.

There is only one way to stop bullying. It's the audience that is the problem. They are participating whether they are enjoying the show or not. If they are laughing along, they are part of the problem. If they are saying: "Thank God it's not me..." and privately condemning the bullying, they are part of the problem. We are all un-indicted co-conspirators at times in our life. Maybe we half-assed laugh along with a mean joke because we're not THAT color, or THAT religion or THAT sexual orientation. The WW2 saw about Nazi Germany often comes to my mind: "First they came for the trade unionists but, i was not a trade unionist..."

Bullies need an audience. Society is that audience. Society, at the school level and into adulthood, needs to turn on that bully, not with violence but with disapproval. Society needs to step up and say "we" want this to stop. "We don't think it's right". "You, have to deal with US".

Ya know what, boys and girls of all ages? If you are standing by watching that poor kid get pounded and thinking it's a shame, it's you that is taking the worse beating. You just don't know it.

The bully does.