Dear Bully (2 page)
Authors: Megan Kelley Hall
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by Dawn Metcalf
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by Janni Lee Simner
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Bullies for Me
by Mo Willems
To Carolyn Mackler, From Elizabeth in IL
Dear Elizabeth
by Carolyn Mackler
Resources for Educators and Parents
Why Do We Celebrate Bullying?
by Ellen Hopkins
I know bullying. Personally and through my children. In elementary school, I was smart. Sort of pretty. A talented equestrian, singer, dancer, and creative writer. I was also chubby. Not obese. Not even fat, really. But not a skinny jeans kind of girl. You know, the kid who other kids called “Elsie the cow.” Luckily, I was strong—the kid who let insults roll off her because she knew in her heart she was destined to do great things.
That strength came from my parents, who believed in me. In turn, I believe in my children. My oldest son, Jason, is gay. He knew it before I did, and so when the bullying began, he knew why. But I didn’t. Never underestimate the power of a mother bear, and I became one. At the time, bullying wasn’t new, but confronting it was. School counselors told me to leave it alone. Things would get better. They didn’t. To escape the torment in California, Jason chose to live with his father (my ex) in New Mexico.
Wy youngest child, Orion, is almost fourteen. He isn’t gay, but he is chubby. He was teased some in elementary school, but the real bullying began last year, in seventh grade. One kid was largely at the heart of it. I started hearing his name in September, when he began calling Orion gay. Why does that term, accurate or not, jumpstart abusive behavior? Over the course of the year, this kid and his friends volleyed relentless verbal attacks that eventually became physical. Orion was shoved, pushed to the ground, hit, and once had his head slammed into a locker.
This time the school had no choice but to get involved. Suspending the bully for a day or five didn’t really faze him, however. I tried calling his parents. His mother’s reaction was, “My child would never do such a thing.” But he did, and it continued until one afternoon when Orion was followed off the school bus by a friend of the bully’s—a high school senior—who grabbed Orion by the throat with both hands. Fortunately, a passerby prevented what might have been an even worse incident. I’d had enough. I called the sheriff, who sent a deputy to address the issue. The bully’s parents brought him over to apologize. This year, everything seems to be in a holding pattern.
Orion is not alone. The statistics, in fact, are staggering. From 2009 surveys we find:
• More than seventy-five percent of our students are subjected to harassment by a bully or cyberbully and experience physical, psychological, and/or emotional abuse.
• More than twenty percent of our kids admit to being a bully or participating in bullylike activities.
• On a daily average 160,000 children miss school because they fear they will be bullied if they attend classes.
• On a monthly average 282,000 students are physically attacked by a bully.
Surprised? Why? Not only do many Americans tolerate bullying, they stand in the wings and cheer it on. In fact, there lately seems to be a real celebration of violent attacks against people who are different. If you don’t believe me, spend a little time reading the comments following a news story about, oh, say, a mosque burning on U.S. soil.
Forget the fact that most of these people are citizens of the United States of America—a country founded on the principles of religious freedom. Yet because Muslims are “different,” they are bullied, in much the same way a child who is different is bullied at school. Chubby or skinny; geek smart or challenged; gay or perceived that way; black, brown, yellow, or any color other than the person hurling insults. Any of these things can make someone a target.
Some might argue this is simply the evolutionary byproduct of survival of the fittest. That all animals weed out the weak. But the human animal has a brain capable of compassion. What’s lacking is the will to embrace someone who’s different. Not only are we reminded daily of those differences by loud-mouthed pundits, but those same political shock jocks encourage fear-based reactions to those who are different. They whip their listeners into frenzied overreactions, with results like the cab driver who was shot for admitting his religious affiliation. Or places of worship being torched.
Picking on others is learned behavior. The kid who manifests violence has learned violence somewhere. Too often, that somewhere is home. Parents should teach their children to respect diversity. But if they won’t, others must step in. It
does
take a village to raise a child who embraces all people, regardless of their differences. Which means we must take action whenever we suspect bullying. Does that make you uncomfortable? Consider these statistics:
• Every seven minutes a child is bullied on a school playground, with more than eighty-five percent of those instances occurring without any intervention.
• Surveys from 2009 show that more than 100,000 children carry guns to school as a result of being bullied.
• Twenty-eight percent of students who carry weapons in school have witnessed violence in their homes.
• Forty-six percent of males and twenty-six percent of females admit to having been involved in physical fights as a result of being bullied.
• More than eighty-five percent of our teenagers say that revenge as an aftermath of being bullied is the leading cause for school shootings and homicide.
• A child commits suicide as a direct result of being bullied once every half hour, with 19,000 bullied children attempting to commit suicide over the course of one year.
Despite those sobering stats, more than half of all bullying events are never reported at all. So it is our job, as that village, to stand up and take notice. To care enough about every child—mainstream or somehow different—to ensure his or her safety. That means speaking out boldly against any acts of violence toward those who are different. And also teaching our children that our unique traits make us special, not something to be feared, taunted, or pushed toward suicide.
The authors whose stories follow have chosen to speak out boldly, to unite in a call to action against bullying. They have been bullied. And they have bullied. Hindsight brings a broad perspective to these acts. By sharing their wider view, they hope you’ll choose to join our village. To help us create safe communities, homes, and schools, where everyone is valued for who they are, not in spite of their differences but because of them.
Dear Bully
by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Dear Bully,
I’m not sure if you remember me. But I definitely remember you. You were my first real bully—the boy who made me fear getting out of bed in the morning, who made me dread the end of the weekend because I’d have to see you the next day, and who prompted me to take self-defense classes.
I never knew that boys could be so cruel.
Until I met you.
It was middle school—seventh grade for me, eighth grade for you—and we took the school bus together every morning and afternoon. We didn’t know each other. To this day, we’ve never had a full conversation. We didn’t hang out in any of the same circles, nor were we members of any opposing clubs or teams.
So you had no reason to hate me.
But still you did. Or at least you treated me as though you did.
I remember the first time I saw you: slick dark hair, designer jeans, high-top sneakers, and a leather jacket. That one outfit probably cost more than my entire wardrobe at the time. Was it my lack of style that made me a target? Or the fact that I didn’t fight back too hard?
At first it was just name-calling:
dumbdorkstupiduglytrash bagbitchlosercuntuglyassholestuckupsnottyassbitchnastyidiot snobmoronstupidasswipedildoloserscumbaguglybitchdouchebag
. I’d stare out the window of the bus, trying not to show any hint of emotion, even though I could feel it all over my face. I knew that others were looking, too, checking for my reaction. I’d bite the inside of my cheek just shy of drawing blood, pretending that I was someplace else, wishing that you’d get bored when I didn’t respond. But instead you just got more people involved. Other boys (not all, but some) were drawn to you and helped you out with your ridicule. I’d be called a stuck-up snob when I ignored all of you, and then a nasty-ass bitch when I didn’t.
If any of my friends were around, they kept a distance from me for their own survival. Eventually they stopped taking the bus altogether, opting to have a parent drive them instead. Sometimes I was able to hitch a ride. But more often than not, I’d end up back at the bus stop.
Back with you.
It went on for months like this before things got physical. Before you started pushing me from behind, shoving me out into the street at the bus stop, tugging my hair, pulling at my clothes, slapping the back of my head, and spitting in my face. While your cohorts thought it was funny as hell, others stayed out of it, most likely relieved that it was me you were harassing and not them.
The route home was the worst because our bus didn’t show up until thirty minutes after we were let out for the day.
Thirty minutes.
Without a single teacher or administrator to monitor what was going on.
Thirty minutes.
For you to try to keep yourself occupied. That’s where I came in.
People told me that if I ignored you, if I pretended that you didn’t bother me, you’d eventually give up and move on to the next victim.
So why didn’t that ever happen?
It was hard for my mom to hear about the terrible time I was having with you. She was working a full- and a part-time job and couldn’t be there to bring me to school or pick me up. She begged the principal to have a teacher stick around at the end of the school day until the bus came. The principal agreed.
But it never happened.
My mother told the principal that you were the one harassing me and that it was his job to ensure a safe environment for children. Again, he agreed.
But again, he did nothing.
And so one morning, one of my older brothers, the captain of the high school football team at the time, decided to accompany me to the bus stop. He got into your face. Threatened you. And pushed you back a couple times.
In that moment, you seemed intimidated. Your cohorts certainly were. But while they stopped harassing me completely (and even apologized for it), you continued the very next day.
One afternoon, the following week, it was raining and the bus didn’t come until an hour after school got out for the day. And in that time, you managed to push me down onto the pavement and kick me with mud, until I was covered. Until it was in my hair, and in my ears, and up inside the crevices of my mouth.
I remember getting up, tears streaming down my cheeks, and seeing you laughing.
And wondering how anyone could be so mean.
That was the last time I took the bus. From then on I walked to and from school. It took me just shy of an hour and would’ve been well worth two.
I didn’t see you much after that. Then I heard you’d moved away. A couple years later, I changed schools.
And then flash forward about fifteen years: I was in my twenties, working in the writing center of a college. My job was to assist students with their essays and research papers. One night, just before my shift was over, a student came in, wanting me to help her with an interview assignment. She was asked to interview someone whom she really looked up to and respected, and then to write an essay based on her findings.
To my complete and utter shock that someone was you.
The interview detailed your whole life’s story, from early childhood—a story that had been anything but charmed (to say the least)—and how, despite all odds, you’d been able to turn things around for yourself (which is why the student chose you for the assignment).
I won’t go into your life’s details here—because they’re your details to share, not mine—but suffice it to say that in that moment, reading that student’s interview about how life had been for you growing up, I couldn’t condone any of the things you’d done to me in the past, but I could almost understand why you’d done them.
After the student left the writing center, I couldn’t believe what a coincidence it was—that out of all the schools and all the writing tutors, that girl just happened to make an appointment with me.