My best friend in high school was gay and I still tear up thinking about the harassment he received. We were freaks, outcasts, geeks, and we became close friends because I was teased for being a "smelly Indian" and he was straight up harassed for being gay. We were teenagers and we built power amongst each other against the ignorance of those around us, but that doesn't mean I am not still angry. Well, I guess I made a career out of my anger. That was 15 years ago and I still remember how poorly the school treated the bullying received by not just him, but all my friends that were "different."
In the last month there have been two incidents of young children that have committed suicide from homophobic harassment at school. Things haven't changed. Bullying is passed down from generation to generation.
NC has anti-bullying legislation going to the house that has added sexuality as a cause of bullying. Of course, there was opposition, but it was added anyway. Opposition to anti-hate legislation is bone-chilling since it so clearly articulates the stand-point of these crazy people. They don't believe in the rights of those with different sexualities, ethnicities, backgrounds, whatever it might mean. They are essentially saying, you are not a valuable person we don't value your life.
What frustrates me about bullying and therefore bullying legislation is that bullies grow up and become politicians, cops, lawmakers and apparently wing-nut Christians. Assholes continue to bully, just the mechanisms through which they bully changes. Trying to convince people that were bullies that bullying is a problem feels like an uphill battle. Obviously, legislation is a step in the right direction. In addition to policy that supports the rights of victims of bullying, we need education for young people around masculinity, sexuality and what the impacts of bullying are.
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A woman came to the high school I student taught at this year for a professional development program that discussed how to decrease bullying in schools (I wish I could remember her name). One of the things she said that really stood out to me was that bullies often become abusive in romatnic relationships as they grow up.
I didn't know that. I guess my graduating class is going to have a lot of abusive boyfriends. Seriously the majority of my class bullied me. I don't know why I was targeted they insulted pretty much everything about me.
I went to an all-girls private school. The bullyng was horrific. I was bullied because I was smart, beautiful, and athletic. I looked like I had it all, and they were envious, I guess. I never lorded over anyone-I was quiet and I guess they took it as weakness, or a sense of superiority. What they didn't know is that I was being abused at home, too. Ugh. I guess the bullying girls grow up abusive too.
You got "smelly Indian"? Sister, I got "sand ni**er" and "camel jockey" - which is funny because I'm from Northern Iraq where there's zero sand, no camels, and is all mountains. Go figure, all us "browns" are apparently the same.
I got harassment from white guys who thought I was "dirty" for being dark. For a rail thin, brown girl in white suburbs...it could be scary sometimes.
It still makes me angry when I think about it. But not just me, I remember other kids getting bullied for the most random thing that may have been "different" about them: a young blonde boy with very thick lips would be harassed almost daily; a young white girl would be called horrific names because her family was poor; on and on.
It made me sad as a child, and angry as a young adult.
Now I just feel sorry for the bullies - goodness knows what many of them endure at home, or what types of families they come from.
Anti-bullying legislation is fine, I suppose - but if I were principal of a school, I'd call in parents and ask them what their son/daughter learns at home to repeat such horrible behavior against other human beings.
"I'd call in parents and ask them what their son/daughter learns at home to repeat such horrible behavior against other human beings."
This is such an intelligent comment.
Opposition to anti-hate legislation is bone-chilling since it so clearly articulates the stand-point of these crazy people. They don't believe in the rights of those with different sexualities, ethnicities, backgrounds, whatever it might mean. They are essentially saying, you are not a valuable person we don't value your life.
Haven't we seen tons of reasoned, progressive and legally nuanced statements of opposition to hate crime legislation* from feminists within our ranks by now? Hell, somebody just recently posted a great community entry -- which I think made it to the main page -- about the problems she found in such legislation and advocated trying would-be hate criminals on terrorism charges instead. Would that I could remember who wrote it.
It's incredibly frustrating to me that the paragraph I quoted basically writes off people who happen to have other ideas for how best to combat hate crimes as mere lunatics who don't value the lives of people unlike them. That it not only decries legislators' actions in voting against something but purports to know what they believe in strikes me as over-the-top.
* "Anti-hate legislation" seems a misnomer. The legislation concerns upping the penalties for a crime predicated on bigotry, not outlawing hate, obviously.
The people who are against the anti-bullying legislation are against it because they think it'll lead to gay marriage. People in North Carolina who are opposing this legislation do not oppose it for "reasoned, progressive, and legally nuanced" purposes. I don't think you can take Samhita's statement out of this context.
I understand the context and didn't intend to remove Samhita's statements from it. As I understood it, her paragraph had, because it seemed to refer to people who oppose legislation rather than to any particular lawmakers weighing in on the bullying legislation.
Also, having read some news articles about this bill, including the ones linked, I still don't understand what it would actually do, other than recognize that kids get beaten up for being, or being perceived as, gay. Can anybody link me to something about the substance of the bill?
Yeah, I've tried to find something on the internet that explains more what it is about, but I can't find anything! What I've gathered from talking to my North Carolina people is that it sets up new procedures for school employees to report bullying to the higher ups so that it is more likely it will be taken care of. And I assume implicit in that is that if bullying is ignored by school officials, they can be held liable. I assume they can be held liable because all the news articles that are against the legislation are like, 'Oh noez! the gays are gonna sue are schools!"
I hear what you are saying and I am open to justice-based alternatives to legally punitive measures that might have short-term effects but no long-term impacts. But I think in this case, the groups that are opposing the legislation are opposed to it because they hate gay people. I don't think that is an exaggeration at all. I am not talking about well-reasoned opposition, I am talking about wing-nuts.
Right. The reasons given to oppose the bill in the article (gay marriage, expansion of hate-crime laws) are all one of a kind with the true motivation behind opposing it: it makes it that much harder for institutions and people to be abusive toward groups or people they don't like.
The problem with refusing to address the problem head on (like what this bill is doing, or hate-crime laws do) is that they attempt to control the effects of bad ideas without doing anything structurally in society to change them. If we, collectively and through the public arm of the government, express disapproval of and sanction behavior that specifically targets oppressed groups, society at large will get the message that intolerance isn't OK.
So, on a lazy afternoon last week while I was taking a break from grading papers, I turned on Oprah, and she was doing a show on the subject of bullying, in response to those two suicides. There was an audience member who told a story about a girl who was being bullied by her classmates. She switched to a school that actually taught their students methods for coping with such situations. While on a field trip, the girl ran into her old classmates who immediately fell back into picking on her. Her new classmates made a circle around her to protect her and moved her to safety. I was so amazed to hear this story. If more young people were taught to not tolerate bullying as bystanders, and were taught strategies to handle these moments, maybe the culture would start to shift.
I have major reservations with this type of kneejerk legislation and being Hispanic I have been called pretty much every ethnic slur in the book outside of the asians ones. God I didn't even speak english until immersion in middle school and half my famila still don't. That didn't play well outside NY at all. What are we trying to do put more kids in the criminal justice system? Fine already financially strapped families? You can't legislate morality and kindness, its a big mean messy world out there and you have to raise your kids to be strong and give support.
Usually anti-bullying legislation just makes schools liable if they refuse to intervene and stop the harassment. It doesn't target the kids who are bullies, it targets the school administrators who ignore it.
Huh - I wasn't aware of that. I suppose I should have been, but, honestly, I have a limited amount of time in the day, and that one slipped past me.
I'm glad they're holding the schools responsible. I was bullied horrifically when I was younger - I had the misfortune to be decidedly unmasculine, smarter than most of the kids in my class, AND hare-lipped - and, still, I can't begin to count the number of times I was blown off by teachers to whom I went for protection.
Of course, having met Elementary Ed. majors as an adult, I sort of understand why. I wouldn't look to the majority of them for anything requiring intelligence or backbone. Anti-bullying legislation will do a lot to ensure that schools crack down on bullies, but, honestly, we really need to do something about how we train teachers, as well. They aren't just glorified babysitters - they're professionals who have an enormous responsibility. Yet, there's virtually zero professional or academic rigor in most elementary ed. programs I'm familiar with. People can - and do - sleep through these courses with little problem.
I'm told by my lawyer friends that the first year of law school is intentionally hard, to "weed out" those who aren't really committed enough. As it is, even the most feckless undergrads can breeze through the average elementary ed. curriculum. Even if we pass laws to penalize school that don't do something to control bullying, how effective will their attempts to exert such control be without genuine professionals in the classrooms? I think it would help this whole situation if we raised the bar a bit for elementary education teachers, among other measures.
Most teachers don't go through education programs specifically. Neither of my parents has an education degree, yet they've both been teachers for almost 30 years.
They have seminars and professional education on bullying all the time. The problem isn't that education and training isn't available, it's that even among the teachers that go it, many of them don't see bullying/intimidation as the problem that it is, which is why laws like this are important. I went to a high school with a fairly conservative faculty, and when our one openly gay student came out in debate class, some of the teachers said the ridicule and threats he received were "no more than he deserved" for "flaunting his deviance" in front of all those kids.
I've seen teachers in both secondary and post-secondary education be openly racist, telling minority students that they "must have cheated" because "someone like you couldn't write a paper like this."
I don't think these teachers care about fixing bullying because they agree with it. To them, it's a strong-arm tactic to get weirdos and freaks to fall back into line with the rest of the class.
Teachers that encourage creativity or free expression are often blackmailed, threatened with job loss, ostracized professionally and forced to move, like the few high school teachers that cared about me. School administrators, particularly in states like Texas, care only about standardized test scores and continuing to get funding from the state government. A good teacher that challenges kids to grow up and be adults is frowned upon, because that time could be spent learning how to take a multiple choice test.
Legislation like this is the first step toward correcting these problems, because if teachers that acquiesce or support bullying get the school held liable, those teachers will be the first to go.
But, and I think the issue was still posited above in a reasonable way, what's that going to do if we just replace bad teachers with bad teachers?
Even if the teachers that overlook or encourage bullying are the first to go how will that change things if they get replaced by people who are simply trying to coast into a job with health benefits? It's robbing Peter to pay Paul, replacing one wrong with another.
The only way this is going to ever change is if teaching actually gets its due. When teachers unions lose some of their stranglehold, and when there's a corresponding use of merit pay, we may actually see some more people getting into education with the skills and the drive necessary to combat bullying.
As someone considering a secondary ed job and who'll have an education degree in two years I'd love to teach, but the truth is that it's still a woefully underpaid profession. I may not do it simply because there's not a lot of money there, and somebody with my college grades and skills can make more money at the entry level in a whole slew of other jobs.
It's hard to get the type of leaders and skilled professionals necessary to rein in bullying when we refuse to pay teachers like competent leaders and skilled professionals. Is it any wonder that the best of the best rarely choose to teach outside of the college level?
"what's that going to do if we just replace bad teachers with bad teachers?"
I think in a lot of instances, just the threat of being fired will force most teachers to take bullying seriously.
Though I do agree that reform beyond this type of legislation is needed.
"I've seen teachers in both secondary and post-secondary education be openly racist, telling minority students that they 'must have cheated' because 'someone like you couldn't write a paper like this.'
I don't think these teachers care about fixing bullying because they agree with it. To them, it's a strong-arm tactic to get weirdos and freaks to fall back into line with the rest of the class."
That is a side I was unaware of and find horrifying, but, sadly, am not shocked to discover.
Alas.
That I agree with.
Yay North Carolina! I went to public school in North Carolina and I still know a few people in public school in North Carolina, so I will be excited when this legislation passes.
I have a couple things to say, because the issue is right under my skin:
I wonder if a parent even has to do much to make a kid a bully. (Not that kids CAN'T pick up things at home.) Due to jealousy, or fear, or just plain boredom and mob mentality--maybe mixed with the vagueries of what's "masculine" or "weird"--I think alot of kids are instinctively prone to being "bullies" at least once in a while, especially if the "audience" reacts in the bully's favor. They pick a target (like the two 11 year-olds mentioned in this post) and take it from there. Why should they stop on their own--why should they EVER think intimidating or hurting another person just for the hell of it is wrong? (Obviously this is when adults must intervene...in at least one of those stories the boy was too ashamed to tell his parents, and I unfortunately I can imagine why. In reality it may be better than nothing, but to an adolescent it probably seems embarrassing or even like fanning the flames to have your parents call the "bully's" parents...)
It mirrors our discussion (or lack thereof) about sexual/relationship violence--it saddens me so much to think that all we can do (and in the case of something like date rape...fail to) is try to take kids aside and tell them certain behavior or interaction is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
How many kids "just know"--or are socialized to know, but couldn't tell you where, when or how specifically how they figured things out if you posed the question--that there is such a thing as "rape" (as in, certain situations that involve sex where you are violating another person if s/he's unable to consent, so stop what you're doing) and know that smacking a girlfriend/boyfriend around (beyond the hopefully rare need for self-defense) is not an acceptable way to relate to them?
How many kids have no such self-control or respect for others (for what ever reason), and need an outside source to tell them what's what? Who says a person who behaves badly is always specifically socialized that way? Maybe it's behavior that emerges in the absence of intervention. How many parents think to initiate a talk about bullying with their kids?
How many adolescents blow off their parents/authority and mostly go with whatever their friends do? (Not that adults shouldn't try.)
How much can a few talks with grade school students or "empathy" classes help? (Again--it's worth a shot, but I think there's something wired into social animals to do shit like this unless they're taught--early on--to put oneself in another person's shoes.)
If you need a reminder that human beings are not that different from lower animals...bullying is one sample of evidence.
What ever happened to those commercial with MacGruff (was that his name)? the Crime Dog, saying "Friends Beat Bullies Every Time" and showed two classmates put their arm around a kid--an acquaintance--and walking away with him to neutralize a playground bully?
(What if the bullying target has no friends? ADULTS are often too afraid or indifferent to intervene on behalf of someone they don't know well--can we teach kids to? What if the bully has a gun or there's a group of bullies and it actually means life or death to help out?)
Another problem---teachers and authority figures who AGREE with bullies (i.e. those who bully gay students) or are indifferent to the target because of it.
Bullying is a behavior that should be controlled whatever the perp's motivations. The legislation protects identified classes: "race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity."
So it's OK for a big guy to bully a little guy? A muscular guy to bully a fat guy or a thin guy? Smart kids to bully dumb ones or vice versa?
Just because some opposition to a type of legislation is bigoted or stupid doesn't mean the legislation is a good thing.
This legislation isn't sanctioning other kinds of bullying. It is just addressing a specific problem. And the reasoning it singled out "race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity" is because there are specific problems with teachers IGNORING or SANCTIONING this kind of bullying. Anecdotal evidence here, but going to public school in North Carolina, yes, I saw bullying of all types. But the most SEVERE bullying I ever saw was against gay students. There was bad bullying at my middle school against the overweight kids too, but the teachers always tried to intervene (IF they saw it). But when I was in high school, the bullying escalated against gay students, decreased against all other students, and the teachers did NOT intervene. This legislation ensures that if a school employee sees bullying of this type, they HAVE to report it.
I was bullied quite severely at school, for being clever, tall, shy, terrible at sport, having fuzzy hair, thick eyebrows etc... the list goes on.
I used to think 'kids can be very cruel' etc but recently I've realised... it's *adults* who are narrow minded, bigoted and insecure, and they pass on the message to their kids that it's okay to laugh at or even hate people who are different. The girl who bullied me the most undoubtedly got this message at home, I realise in hindsight.
I think those of us who seek out like minded individuals as adults sometimes forget that not all adults are mature and tolerant. Many are the opposite. A case in point: my (white) cousin and his (white) girlfriend live in a very racially diverse area of South London (England) and recently had to decide where to send their daughter to primary school (kindergarten). They were apparently very worried that she wouldn't get into their first choice, because there wouldn't be 'enough white faces' in their second choice of school. They had these discussions in front of the child, all the time saying 'we're not racist' (yeah, not much). It's obvious what the child is learning from that. I felt very sad for her, as it's not her fault.
Conversely if you teach a kid that everyone's the same deep down and that it's okay for people to be different, they're much less likely to bully.
I'm glad that at least some people are taking note of, and attempting to take action on this huge problem.
I went through HELL in high school being teased for being queer, both myself and my two only friends. When other students wrote FAG and DYKE on our lockers, WE had to clean up the graffiti. After all three of us transferred schools, we returned once to visit the one supportive teacher in the school... we ran into the principal who said that it was probably for the best that we switched schools since we clearly didn't "fit in" at his school. 16 year old (or younger!) students should NOT have to take matters into their own hands to escape ruthless harrassment. The faculty at my high school CLEARLY SAW the crap my friends and I had to go through and they repeatedly turned a blind eye. I would be extremely happy to see schools take action.
I made it through. Others were not so lucky. I'm only 22 and I've had two friends commit suicide, both of whom had to deal with tons of bullying and harrassment. That is messed up.