support the bullied

[mckitterick]

A movement suggested by jupiter_lament; found via a post by solan_t:

I will not stand for this

Everyone Feels This Pain
Show your support

I was bullied as a kid, from 5th grade through 10th grade (when I demonstrated a non-harmful tae kwon do technique on a bully in front of fellow students). Reasons for bullying:

• I was the new kid in town (military dad).
  
• I was "the smart kid."
  
• I studied science and read SF outside of class (nerd), and programmed computers before they were ubiquitous (geek).
  
• I was bigger than most of my classmates, but took to heart the Christian and parental "turn the other cheek" business. That is, I was an easy target that wouldn't hurt them back.

Frickin' late-elementary and junior-high-age kids are tiny monsters, uncivilized primates. Have you read Lord of the Flies? I swear, if it weren't for teachers and parents, kids would die like flies during that period. All the more reason they should all read SF: Get them on the path to enlightenment early.

Yes, I was harmed by this for a long time, and indeed still can feel the emotional pain (20+ years later!), but I actually think the emotional and physical torture helped make me a better person in the long run. Would I be as empathetic or sympathetic without having gone through all that? Would I have befriended the coolest nerd-geek people? Would I write the stuff I do today? Dunno. But I do know that child-on-child torture is a strangely American hobby, and likely the root of much of our citizens' fear-capacity that politicians love to use to keep us in line.

So is it institutionalized for that purpose? Helps promote sheep mentality? Helps thin the herd of nonconformists? Hmmm. I know it only pushed me toward anti-conformity, so if that's the case, it dun backfired with me!

Chris

Comments

[c3fyn.livejournal.com]

Strange to me how similar our stories are, and those of so many of the tormented. I shocked my coworkers when I told them I could understand what led to the Columbine shootings, and empathized with the shooters (though I didn't approve their method of dealing with the problem). One of my boyhood friends brough his father's .45 to school with full intention of taking some bullies out--he'd been pushed to the end of his ability to cope by the continuing verbal and physical harassment. Fortunately someone saw the gun and disaster was averted--though at the time I wouldn't have mourned the loss of those individuals, it would have led to long-term disaster for my friend. Children are shamed and embarassed by their peers continually, and the System has yet to try any significant fix.

Another friend, an atheist-libertarian, insisted on home-schooling his two boys because, as he put it, public schools are "like fucking Lord of the Flies". I'd have to agree. It does seem as if there is a certain tacit approval of the behaviour on the part of The People In Charge. If you can break the non-conformists, silence them in some way...

Bullies Are Universal

[bobhowe.livejournal.com]

Chris, I had a very similar experience with bullies. I don't think it's peculiar to Americans: the English public schools are notorious for it.

Richard Rhodes has an excellent book about the roots of violence: Why They Kill.

Bob

[taffy23110.livejournal.com]

My experience was slightly different. I was the target of female-on-female bullying, which manifests itself a little differently. You're not out to physically intimidate; you're just out to tear the other person apart without them knowing for sure that you're really trying to hurt them.

The results are the same, though, for women and for men.

We can't expect this to change, at least not without radical reforms of the educational system. Teacher's are overworked and underpaid. How do you expect them to find a problem that is usually subtle? How do you expect them to see the changes of behaviors in one of thier thirty-five students especailly when the targets of bullies usually withdraw into themselves. Kids don't tell their parents that this is happening, because they don't want to look weak or like failures. Who do they tell then? Counselors? If you're dealing with 900 kids who are bitching about not getting into college, when do you have time to talk to this one kid who has started to act out?

And somehow it's permissible in society, even in the post-Columbine era ("Boys will be boys after all" "Suzy would never do that, because she just such a nice girl. " "All kids are like that.")

Re: Bullies Are Universal

[roya-spirit.livejournal.com]

what he said.
Pre-adolescent children are secretly monsters in disguise, and there is a good reason hamsters eat their young.
I could have quite cheerfully killed a few of the lovely youngsters that gave me reason to feel inferior. I had braces, freckles, redhair, was skinny and talked funny. Choose your weapons, kiddies.

otoh, the world is out to make us feel inferior and lacking (re: advertising and marketing) so we might as well learn to get over it sooner than later.
I'm grateful for my years at times like this.