Bullying Part I: The Past
Bullying has taken to the front page of the news recently. Suddenly it has become a national focus, as if the problem just suddenly appeared on the scene. Well, it didn’t. Unfortunately, as is often the case, it cost the lives of several people to make it an important focus. Since we can’t get the lives back, now we’ll try to fix the problem… a problem that is far from new and should have been a focus for a long time.
I’m not exactly a stranger to bullying. I don’t think any of us who went to public school were. I found myself slammed into lockers more than once, was tossed in the middle of a bush one time, bore multiple injuries from bullies sitting behind me on the school buss and thwacking me on the head with their class rings turned in, and was even punched square in the gut without any warning – the kind of injury that killed Harry Houdini.
Of course, not all of these experiences came about from bullying. One of the more memorable times I was slammed into a locker came about from telling a girl that her boyfriend was just going to wind up hurting her. They got into a fight, she told him, “I guess Rafe was right,” and I wound up going headlong into a locker. I guess I deserved it. I also learned not to tell girls the truth about their guys, since it was just going to wind up hurting me in the long run. The time I was bushed? I was an 8th grader who mouthed off to a 12th grader. He drug me out to the bush and was about to let me go when I sensed his grip loosening and tried to knee him in the not-so-comfortable place. He later told me he had intended to let me go, so I guess I deserved that one.
That’s not to say my mouth always got me in trouble. The class ring head-smacks were never deserved. The person behind them graduated before I did, and eventually came back to the high school to apologize to me – a sincere and unnecessary apology. My mother guessed he was joining a 12-step program of some sort, since part of that is seeking forgiveness. The punch in the gut was absolutely random from a student I had never met before. Never found out why he punched me. Who knows, maybe I ran my mouth there too.
That my school had a bunch of bullies was no surprise, however. Heck, we had “redneck hall”: a segment of the hallway where the rednecks gathered together, leaned against the walls in between classes, and heaved pennies as people walked down the hall. We didn’t have our lunch money stolen; instead I had a friend who paid for his lunch by walking down and picking up the flung change.
But these were bullies of a different sort than today. These bullies just picked on the unfamiliar and the weak. I once got rid of a problematic bully who picked my fedora off my head and threw it down the hall by turning around, grabbing his ballcap, and doing the same. The look of shock on his face that came with someone turning the tables on him was priceless. I enjoyed it even after being slammed into the lockers after the look of shock passed.
Okay, I’m making jokes, but that was part of how I dealt with bullies when I was in school. The truth is the bullies of my day were random. They picked on anyone who wasn’t part of their clique and anyone who was weaker than they were. Not a redneck? You were going to get pennies thrown at you. Not a jock? Be prepared for bitter humiliation in gym class. It was never about who you were as a person. It was more about who you did or didn’t know. The second you stood up to them, they stopped, because they had no grounds to keep going – and because they could always find someone else who didn’t stand up to them to pick on next. It was never really personal. In fact, it was almost Darwinian in nature.
With the bullies of my day, there was almost always a way around their behavior as well. Don’t want pennies thrown at you? Pick another hall to walk down (the truth is that “redneck hall” was one of the most worthless pieces of real estate in the building). Anger someone by mouthing off to them or telling their girlfriend he’ll mistreat her? Just miss a day of school or two and things would calm down. Since it wasn’t personal, most of the time (random punches in the gut notwithstanding) it was easily avoidable as well.
Today’s bullies are a bigger threat. More and more, it’s becoming personal, with kids picked on for being black, white, red, orange, brown, and rainbow. Part of the bullying becomes about who these children are personally, which is something they can’t easily get away from, and has the added effect of making those kids doubt themselves as individuals. Even worse is that thanks to the same devices that allow adults to check day-trading, harvest virtual crops on farm town, and stay in non-stop contact with friends, families, and bookies, no picked-on student is safe. The bulling doesn’t start and stop with the school’s bells, but it becomes a pervasive part of the student’s life, to the point that far too many students are finding the only solution is to end that life to escape it.
I still don’t consider myself to be that old, and I think the world has been through many changes for the better, but today, I consider the bullying of my day to be far better than the horrible situations students have to go through today.
(Part II to come)