Homophobia – a truly pathetic reason to hate

What the hell is wrong with us?! Why are we as a society, so terrified of people who prefer the same gender? I used to think that it was because humans were hardwired towards procreation, with a natural revulsion towards anything counter to that, but that’s bullshit. There have been many societies down the ages where homosexuality was not only accepted, but an integral part of daily life.

I appreciate that many people are repelled by the thought of the act of homosexual or lesbian sex, but surely that’s such a tiny part of what it is to be gay, and you know what I say – if the thought makes you unhappy, don’t think of it.

Your kids could be the next victims. No-one is safe. It doesn’t matter if your kids are gay or straight – just the suggestion of being gay is enough to provoke campaigns of ridicule unpleasant enough to drive even straight kids to their deaths.

In 2007 Stonewall said,

"The effects of homophobic bullying are not limited to lesbian, gay and bisexual young people. An educational culture where homophobic bullying exists can definitely affect anyone singled out as different. A culture where any sort of bullying exists makes schools unsafe for everyone."

But here’s the thing that really gets me, amongst some of the toughest populations of males, same gender sex, and even intercourse, is not only tolerated but expected. The term “prison gay” refers to males who, lacking the opportunity for heterosexual intercourse, will have sex with each other, in contradiction with their natural sexuality. And it’s not even frowned upon. Then when they finish prison, they revert to their previous heterosexual behaviour. To me, that suggests that most males are:

1. Complete hypocrites
2. Quite happy to put aside negative feelings in favour of sexual gratification
3. Make a complete distinction between the physical act of intercourse, and the emotional act of gay love



What could be more beautiful than a couple of friends hugging for
the pure joy of physical contact with someone they love?



When people see two guys kissing or holding hands, they get very upset. Affection between same sex couples – scandalous! But this is where I get really confused. Guys love each other all the time. It’s natural. Close friends, team mates, school buddies, comrades in arms – whatever. Boys and men feel extremely intense bonds of love and loyalty towards each other; far stronger than most feel for female friends, and even girlfriends often. We understand each other; we’re there for each other, and there is a non-sexual, but physical relationship that guys have that does not exist with girls.

But if you add affection to that feeling, everyone goes running in terror. Isn't it odd that it's the love that freaks people out most? And that’s what I think a lot of this homophobia is all about - males who don’t understand their own feelings. Because affection is a natural, even inevitable result of love, and love is an inevitable result of close, caring kinship to another person, of whatever gender.

I think that modern society; particularly since the TV age, has stereotyped the gender roles, pigeonholing everyone into these stupid unnaturally narrow gender roles. Conformity has never been so desperately important to youngsters than now, when they are bombarded with so many images of how they are supposed to be.

Boys and men need to get a few things through their heads so that they can drop their fear:

About themselves

i.                 Love for another male is not the same as sexual arousal. If they’re fortunate, most males will have male friends who they love intensely. It’s a wonderful, important thing; not something to be afraid of.

ii.                 Affection for other males that you feel close to is healthy, and nothing to be afraid of. Whether you show that in the form of horseplay, a hug when you meet a buddy, or even a kiss after winning the big point, there’s nothing wrong with that.

iii.              Physical arousal can happen completely independently of sexual preference. In fact, most boys will find themselves aroused by all manner of things during their lives, most of which they will have no emotional connection to. At worst, it’s momentarily embarrassing, nothing more.

iv.              Homosexuality is no more a choice than the colour of your skin. Before pointing the finger, just remember that were it not for the luck of the genetic draw, you could be the one that preferred other males.

About gay males

v.                Gay males are not going to try to turn them. They have nothing to fear.

vi.               Homosexuality is not contagious, but once in a while, someone who thought that they were 100% straight might discover something about themselves that comes as a shock.

vii.            Gay males can have exactly the same feelings of love and respect and affection for each other as straight couples

viii.           Most gay males have no agenda, except to be treated with the same equality and respect as heterosexuals

About sexuality

ix.               Sexuality is not necessarily fixed throughout one’s life, although, through reinforcement, it does tend to solidify one way or the other as one grows older

x.                 Most people are not 100% hetero or homo – their tastes change with the situation and with availability of preferred sexual partners

When it comes to feminine traits, society’s discomfort is harder to pin down. There’s no doubt that femininity (which need not even be associated with homosexuality, or  vice versa) is probably the trait that most immediately attracts the attention of bullies. I suppose you might argue that in the days when males needed to fight for mates, softer, weaker males were scorned. But as we move into the age of brain over brawn, those old genetic imperatives are less important.

Perhaps it's simply the fact that difference makes us feel uncomfortable. Like meeting a disabled person, or someone with a wonky eye - we don't now how to behave, so some drop to the lowest form of expression, hate.

Homophobic bullying has always been with us, but recently the number of kids driven to suicide by it has grown out of control. We urgently need to change the attitudes that are portrayed in TV and movies, as well as the attitudes in schools and homes.

It’s particularly sad that Christianity, which professes to teach love and tolerance, and which has supposedly left Old Testament fire-and-damnation principles in favour of understanding and forgiveness, is still one of the greatest contributors to concepts morality and acceptable sexuality in much of the world.

I don’t believe in Christianity at all, and I think there is no place for it in schools, but if it must be there, then let’s ensure that it’s the positive, responsible, loving messages of tolerance that we teach, not the bronze-age doctrines of hate and bigotry.

Given the fact that for 95 per cent of the day, we’re all asexual, because sexual preference is not playing any part in our behaviour or decisions (doing schoolwork, watching TV, socialising with friends, travelling, sleeping), it seems to me that to fixate on the gender a kid loves or finds appealing is just so incredibly myopic and ignorant. And it definitely says more about the insecurity and feeble-mindedness of the bigot, than it does about the character or values of the person being hated.

The Pandora’s Box paradox




      It's so easy to target someone who is a bit       
  different. If only the bullies realised what 
tremendous cowards that makes them.

 
15 year old Jeffrey Scott Johnston killed himself after a three year Internet campaign orchestrated and carried out by a classmate called Robert Roemmick who to this day shows no remorse for what he drove a young boy to do.


Jeff’s mother has posed the question, which I paraphrase  here, “Knowing that he was only going to find pain and injury, why did Jeff keep logging on to the Internet?”

You could ask the same question of any person who is bullied via a dozen Internet technologies. You could even ask “Why do you keep looking at texts or answering the phone to people who you know will hurt you?”

Anyone who’s ever been bullied will be able to answer that question in an instant. There are several reasons:

Many kids woul rather take serious injury rather than
surrender in this situation. Defiance may be the last piece
of self-respect left to the victim

As soon as you allow the bullies to chase you out of your own world, then you’re truly defeated. If you’ve ever seen a bully hold down a kid, and torment them in some way to make the victim say what the bully wants, you’ll know that most victims will endure an inordinate amount of pain before finally surrendering. In fact, in that situation, many will take genuine injury, rather than surrender. Stubborn resistance is often the only dignity left to the chronically bullied. The last vestige of control over their own desitiny.



As a kid, I was beaten up at school and around my neighbourhood, and chased many, many times, but it when I was kept from my own backyard that I felt the most defeated and upset, because the confines of my world had contracted right up to my front door.

Now with internet bullying, even the home is no longer a refuge.

Up until the age of about 12, I had a terrifying fear of the dark. Many nights I literally lay in the dark hour upon hour, with my heart pounding, too scared to go get help; too scared to move in case I attracted the attention of the imaginary monsters that scared me. When I was young, I would hide under the covers, as the air I breathed got hotter and hotter, and staler and staler, feeling safer because I couldn’t be seen. But as I got older, I forced myself to stay above the covers – to stare into the darkness – to face my fears head on. I still felt the fear, but I somehow felt as though I had some small measure of control if a situation developed. I wasn’t passively buried, hoping not to feel a hand on my ankle – I was facing my demons.

So sometimes, although it’s painful to see and hear the hateful lies people might be saying about you, at least if you know what people are saying, you can try to fight it. A whispering campaign behind your back can destroy your life just as surely, with a million knives in the back. I respect Jeff Johnston for his approach. He had the courage to face his tormentors – to know his enemies. What he lacked, was the aggressive nature that would have allowed him to take the fight to them. It’s a characteristic of many sensitive kids.


It may seem to parents that kids who are Cyberbullied
hold the control over whether or not they
                return to the tormenting grounds, but it's not that simple...               

Gentleness, sensitivity, creativity and warmth are traits that most parents would cherish in their kids, and they’re characteristics that make for terrific adults. The only trouble is, they do leave the kids so much more emotionally vulnerable as they grow up.

When Deborah asks, “Why did Jeff keep going where he was bullied?” I ask her, in the kindest and least accusational possible way, “Why did you allow him to have a computer and free phone access, knowing that they were being used against him?”

And the answer to that brings me to my third reason why a victim would keep returning to the places where he will be victimised, and maybe it’s the hardest one to deal with. It’s because for some children, hope springs eternal. Even knowing that knowledge is like opening Pandora's box to all the evils and pain of bullying, that tiny flickering flame of optimism keeps drawing you back, in the hope that this time things will be different. And I suspect, for Jeffrey, it was when that tiny flame finally sputtered and died, that he felt the hopelessness engulfing him.

I remember the sad story of Ryan Halligan, who was bullied, but having finally stood up for himself against his tormentor, was instantly willing to forgive and forget when the other boy started to act in a friendly way. Ryan opened his heart and his innermost secrets to the boy, and the boy took those confidences and used them to destroy Ryan’s world and his very existence.



Perhaps it would be better to work prosaicly towards bullying resolution with your kids, rather
than leaving them to hope that the situation can be resolved with optimism and reason



I think that for some kids, the belief that the situation may be resolvable is what helps them to endure. So they continue to go where they are tormented, to listen to the words of those that hurt them, because they cling to the hope that if they could just find allies; if they could explain their point of view; if they could just detect a softening in the hate, then they could turn things around and finally end their torment. It’s a wonderful characteristic – the childlike innocence and belief that every situation is saveable. It’s also not true.

In a future article, I will be talking about “target hardening”; teaching our kids how to comport themselves so that they reduce the likelihood of becoming victims. But perhaps we also need to talk about “heart hardening” – toughening our kids’ hearts so that they have a more realistic belief in the ways of the world. Optimism is a powerful emotional state, and it can accomplish a lot, but it needs to be based in reality. So if you see your child clinging desperately to the hope that human decency will prevail, or that the bullies will move on to other victims, or that they can win them over with reason, perhaps you need to take control of the situation with action that targets the bullies’ present behaviour, rather than depending on a positive turn of events that your child could die hoping for. Because even hope has its sell-by date, and after that, sometimes all that is left is pain and despair…

Postscript

It’s particularly ironic that Jeffrey’s tormentor, Robert Roemmick now complains about verbal harassment from strangers on his Myspace and Facebook accounts. He declares, “I am done with this section of my life...

I wonder if he put it behind him before or after allegedly sending instant messages entitled “Boo hoo your son’s dead”? Or after allegedly starting websites to attack Jeffrey’s mother following the boy’s suicide? He further complains, “People who DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ME were harassing me through MySpace and Facebook”.  Welcome to Jeffrey’s world. Maybe your comments and your actions before and after Jeffrey’s death say all that anyone needs to know about you Robert. Looks like your birds have come home to roost.

I did invite Robert to put his side of the story, because it seemedthat there might be more to this than met the eye, but he has politely declined.

It’s also especially telling that having allegedly attacked Jeffrey’s sexuality, Robert now acknowledges that he himself is gay.  Was Robert trying to redirect attention, or was it, as he asserts, preposterous that he would attack Jeffrey for a trait he himself shared (if he was out at that time). Of course, the epithet "faggot", is often used without literal reference to a person's sexuality, so who knows? Jeffrey may have felt his masculinity being attacked, whilst Robert was simply being generically offensive.

To be honest, I had planned to write an extremely offensive concluding comment aimed at Robert here, but having briefly spoken to him, I didn't find him to be the beast he has been portrayed to be. He is polite, patient and respectful. He complains that every interview he and his friends have ever granted, has been cut and edited to fit the picture of them as tormentors.



 Robert Roemmick - merciless, cackling, gloating, in denial cyberbully
who hounded a young boy to his death, or something else?
Only he knows for sure, and he's not talking

I have sympathy for him on that. I know what a manipulative bunch of ammoral scum some journalists can be. On the other hand, again, I wonder if that was how Jeffrey felt, as his actions were portrayed by Robert and his friends, to fit this negative image they'd built of him. To hack away at someone for almost three years seems to me to betray a particularly vindictive and unpleasant personality. But what do I know? I wasn't there. Robert probably had a perfectly good reason to drive Jeffrey to his death. Like the fact that Jeff looked a bit different, wore black, or had long hair...

I very much wish that for the sake of balance, Robert would explain his side of the story, because no matter how pleasant he is now, I can't get it out of my head that he appears to feel absolutely no sadness or remorse that his words and actions, no matter how justified he may have felt them to be at the time, drove a boy to suicide. And if Robert really cares nothing about that, then he truly is psychopathic scum, and really shouldn't be free to walk around with decent people.

We must all become bereaved



Kids are the best part of this existence, and most parents would die for theirs
so let's all strive to make their world safer for all of them, because regret is
the hardest emotion of all to cope with...



The motivation for me to create this blog was my discovery of the shocking number of teens who are committing suicide due to bullying. I started to read about all the cases, and to see the faces of the kids who had killed themselves to escape the emotional torment that bullying brought to their lives. There was a month when I was immersed in all these stories, when it filled me with a profound and deep depression unlike anything I had ever experienced before. On one hand, it so overwhelmed me that it almost drove me to the brink myself,  but on the other hand, it gave me such tremendous empathy for the victims that I became determined to add my voice to those already shouting for a better tomorrow.

But in order to survive the powerful anguish for these kids that I was feeling, I needed to distance myself from them a bit. So I made a conscious decision to step back from their stories for a while. To spend my time studying reports on bullying, and legislation, and to see how schools were implementing policy, and to see how others were approaching the problem. And I was shocked and disgusted at how quickly my urgency to act started to diminish. As soon as I took the emotion out of the situation, it started to become just another sad thing that was happening on our planet.

But damn it, bullying isn’t just another sad thing, because it’s so preventable!

I started to look deeper into what bereaved parents had done after the loss of a child, and many had taken action to bring about changes on a local or national level, and many of them continue to fight 5, 10 even 15 years after their tragic loss. In fact, for many, campaigning and education have become the new purpose for their lives, enabling them to give meaning to the loss of their kids. Their bereavement gives them a powerful and emotional voice in appealing for change, but it also gives detractors an easy way to dismiss them.

I never read a case of teen suicide where the parents didn’t have a “What if..” “What if we’d recognised the magnitude of our child’s pain”, “What if we’d fought harder to make the school realise this was serious”, “What if we’d arrived home ten minutes earlier”, “What if we hadn’t kept guns in the house”.

There’s also a powerful and completely understandable need by parents to apportion responsibility or blame, so that their child’s loss was more than some cruel and unavoidable random event. Bullies drove their child to depression; poor anti-bullying policy at school prevented it from being dealt with adequately; judgemental policing meant that incidents were trivialised; even vindictive or defensive school boards refused to act out of personal malice. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s all-too-easy to glance at the public facts of the case, and see (or think we see) where all sides could have done better, and to dismiss the parents as guilt-motivated people without a real understanding of the problem.

And yet, many of these amazing parents are effecting change: change in perceptions, change in school and police policy, even changes in laws at every level. But how much more credible they would be standing shoulder-by-shoulder with others who had no motivation beyond the wellbeing of kids.

It amazes me that we live in a world that values youth more highly than anything , yet which allows this tremendous cancer to exist in their midst. Kids are subject to endless constraints upon their lives as they grow towards  adulthood, yet they are not universally afforded the most basic right given to every adult – the right to live lives unharrassed by their peers. Kids HAVE to go to school, yet the authorities and teachers don’t HAVE to do everything in their power to guarantee their safety. How is that right? Sure it's difficult, time-consuming, costly. Get over it. Lives are at risk.

All of us need to push for change. Talking about the reticence of the authorities and even other parents, Tammy Epling, mother of Matt Epling put it best in the book Bullycide in America when she said, “If any of these people had to live my life for just one hour, I know all of their policies would have changed in the second hour.” I feel her pain, I really do. Because it’s only when the suffering becomes personal, that one realises the depths of the problem, and the anguish it causes.

This how childhood should be. Don't trust it to others to fight the battles
for your kids, because they might not either raise your voice now

It seems to me that this cause needs people who are not suffering and not bereaved, to add their calm, credible voices as forcefully to the powerfully emotive voices of the parents; to show that this is an issue that all compassionate, sane people should consider the highest possible priority.

I never wanted this blog to dwell on the lost, because their stories are so painful, and I know that their parents want us to remember their beautiful lives, not the pain of their last few days or months. But it’s hard to feel the emotional motivation to persist without thinking about them. I’ve talked before about the need for a Road to Damascus experience for everybody - something that would lift the blinkers from everyone’s eyes, and let them realise just how serious this problem is for so very many kids. Maybe I should call it a “If you could walk a mile in the shoes of a bereaved parent” experience. Because I’m beginning to think that the only way to get the perspective, and the passion, and the determination to follow these campaigns through to effective action, is if we all become bereaved, if only for a while.

How does it feel to be regularly bullied?

My last year of elementary/junior school. At the time, I lived in fear of the
bullies, but now all of my classmates (most of whom were nice kids) just look
so small and young

Bullying can be a one-off, or it can continue over days, months or even years. Some kids have been so traumatized by a single incident that it destroyed them, whilst others have endured years of bullying with stoicism. I guess it’s different for each person, so I can only speak for me, but hearing from other people, I think that my feelings were not that dissimilar.

Serious bullying started for me around age nine or ten. I was bullied by individuals and a “gang”. The word “gang” makes it sound a lot more urban than it was. I lived in a suburban town called Basildon, and I went to really quaint redbrick school called Janet Duke (which I’ll be mentioning in a positive light in a later blog). But wherever you are, when a bunch of kids orchestrates harassment and violence in such a way that the various members scout for you throughout the school, it feels like a gang to a young child. Looking back, the word “pack” would perhaps be a better term.

There was a lot of racial taunting at first, which mostly took place in the playground or in class when the teacher was not close. It used to make me feel pretty queasy and isolated, but the worst thing is, I knew if I showed unhappiness, it would only get worse. So I’d be working at my desk, and these little taunts would be lobbed across at me, digging into my heart, and making me wish I wasn’t who I was. And the really funny thing was, one at least one occasion, one of the milder bullies came up to me and said, “I like you; you’re a good sport.” Which means that I didn’t whine when I was bullied. That’s one of the first lessons the victim learns about survival – don’t give the bullies more to use against you, and don’t show weakness. It’s also one of the reasons why kids won’t report to the teacher nowadays.

The name-calling progressed to physical violence, with one group of perhaps 4-6 boys harassing me frequently during break times and lunch break. It would range from name calling to shoving, to punching and tripping and kicking, to actual beatings. The funny thing is, to the best of my memory, it never occurred to me to seek help.

Each recess/break, I had a choice to make; I could try to play within earshot and sight of a teacher or dinner lady, or I could try to find a quiet corner to hide, like the back playground, or near the school pond, or close to the huts, where nobody went. If I chose a quiet place, of course I had to be on constant alert in case a member of this gang happened upon me. If they did, I had to get out and make a break for a supervised place as quickly as possible. I won't say that my school life at this time was a wholly miserable one, but I was certainly nervous and on edge the whole time, and having to stay away from all the other kids meant that it was hard to form friendships.

Bullying at school and outside went in fits and starts for me. It would intensify for a few months, then die away.

The problem with bullying is it doesn’t even stop once you’re home and safe. For me, there were times when I had to consider if it was even safe for me to go visit people’s houses or go swimming at the local pool. Did my route take me within a risk area?

Both at school and outside, I had to be constantly vigilant about who was within a 100 yard radius of me so that I could never be cornered. Fortunately, I was an excellent sprinter and long distance runner, so with 10 yards start, there wasn’t a person in my town who could catch me.

But even if I stayed at home, the misery wasn’t over. It just sits in your mind like a spectre, looming over everything. So when the bullying was at its worst, (which fortunately was not for more than a few months I think) I might watch some TV, or play a game, or read a book, and I’d be distracted, then the second the distraction was over, I’d remember what I had to look forwards to, and the stress would fill my stomach in a sickly lurch.

If I thought about before bed, it would be hard to sleep, and the first thought in my head, even before I opened my eyes, would be this stomach wrenching lurch of apprehension about what the day would bring.

And I know compared to some kids nowadays, I had it easy. At least it was only a small group at school, and random people away from school. I was sporty, friendly, pleasant-looking, and most students were fairly neutral towards me.

It carried on for a couple of years once I moved up to senior school (junior high), although I think it became milder, and the taunts broadened to include sexual slurs, which I think is simply part of male teenage life. I certainly don’t remember needing the elaborate defensive strategies in senior school that I needed in junior school. It helped that the bullies separated and went to different schools at that time, and that I grew to well over six foot tall for by the age of 13!

Also, I was pushed so far that I finally snapped, and with nothing left to lose in my mind, I stood up to, and beat, a number of the bullies in one-on-one confrontations. It wasn’t heroic; it was desperate, and I was probably the lamest fighter ever, but there’s something very intimidating about the raw fury of someone fighting for their very survival, and the people I fought never participated against me again…

Anyone who knows me might be surprised to know that I’ve even been the victim of mild cyber-bullying. In fact, I think it’s a lot for common than people realise, even amongst adults.

I used to frequent various forums, and at one forum I liked, the forum admin kept orchestrating arguments against me. His lackeys would go on overnight, post abusive comments, then he would shut down the thread so that the comments remained but I couldn’t even defend myself verbally. I used to log on each morning, with a real sense of trepidation, not really wanting to, but unwilling to simply walk away from something important to me. My experience sounds very mild, and it is compared to what some poor kids go through. It irritates me that there are still insults against me on the internet out there now that I cannot get erased. My mom says, “Well why do people keep going back to get hurt?”, but when there’s a place where you love to go, to talk about things you like, you feel like you have a right to be there. And it’s even worse now with Facebook and the like. For many people that’s their primary social medium, and not returning is almost not even an option.

I know when I was in the middle of it, the bullying was the most important thing in my life, because it cast a cloud over everything. Now, looking back, I really wish that I had asked for help from my mom and the teachers, because if they knew how bad it was, I’d like to think that they could have helped me resolve it.

The gang at junior school was primarily lead by two tough guys, and I used to breathe such a sign of relief when the main one wasn't at school, because it meant a day off for me too, as the gang lost its purpose without him. Funny enough by about 14 or 15, both of these guys had really lost their power. They still had reputations as hard men, but the gangs they had lead, and the status they once had, had faded to nothing. By the time I left school, both had been very friendly too me, and I remember their last years at school as rather isolated and pathetic.

If I had a message for anyone reading this, it would be not to suffer in silence. Bullying is a far better understood thing now than it used to be, and tolerance for it is getting lower and lower. You don’t have to dread going to school. You don’t have to dread leaving your house. You don't have to dread going onlne. Your life can get back to normal again.

Bullying or simply being playful - Trouble with "The Line"



Emoticons can help convey mood when communicating online
But it's all-too easy for armchair warriors to give out bad vibes
from the safety of their bedroom, that they would dream of giving face to face



Since discovering the horrific impact of bullying upon people’s lives, I have become determined never to bully anyone again. I didn’t even realise I was bullying people, but reading through the list of behaviours that others may consider bullying, I’ve come to realise that unwittingly, I have been contributing to the problem.

But now I’m just plain confused. I second-guess every single word; every action. I don’t know where the line is anymore. What’s playful and what’s hurtful? People laugh when they’re being hurt, as a defence mechanism. We all know that the easiest way to draw the taunts of name callers is to show unhappiness at their words – reacting is like the beep of a metal detector telling them when they are getting closer to our vulnerabilities.

On the other hand, my friends and I often putting out low-level, peurile teasing of each other. Playing cards, computer games, soccer, or doing karate we are constantly taunting and ripping on each other, and we all take it in the spirit in which it is meant – or do we? I don’t know. My compass is spinning wildly now, and I’m not sure where the line is now.

I think of one friend and training buddy: we were both digging at each other, but nothing with any side at all. And I came up with a totally ludicrous insult; deliberately chosen because it had no possibility of relating to anything about her. I told her that she smelled of cabbage. And she laughed, and over the next few weeks, we continued our relationship as normal, with her giving out the jibes as often as she took them. I continued the cabbage joke, and I thought it was like our little pet thing, then she suddenly says all serious, “Stop, you’re making me paranoid now.” Of course, I stopped immediately, but it got me worrying that none of our jibes were really safe.

I guess amongst friends, maybe we can risk things that we would never throw out to people not in our inner circle, simply because they know our intent, and because they are tolerant of our apologies if we go too far, whereas we may not have that opportunity to clarify or apologise with mere acquaintances.

And the Internet is only making it worse. Online, unless people specifically add emoticons for clarification, (and many don’t bother) communication is devoid of the normal cues that we have to each other’s mood, and intent. “You suck” and “You suck J” may look almost identical, but they may carry a world of different intent.

I’m coming to learn that in action and deed, I’m going to need to be a lot more careful about what I do. Sometimes, I have a dryish, intellectual sense of humour that verges on acerbic. I know that that is very easy to misinterpret negatively, even though in fact, I’m not a person holds much negative emotion towards anyone, and I try to be easy-going and tolerant of other lifestyle choices, be it in dress, speech, sexuality, or whatever. When it comes to religion and politics, perhaps I’m less easy going, but then those matters rarely arise.

I would say that I am a people person, and my gregarious nature often leads me to be more familiar with people than they may feel towards me. So again, now I feel the need to tread softly with people that don’t really know me.

One person's roughhousing is another's bullying. It's all

about the participants' relationship and the mood of the moment

In the training hall, I love to roughhouse sometimes, but I’ve realised that sometimes, even though full-grown men may initiate a bout of horseplay, that their threshold can be reached suddenly, without build up, and sometimes they can take away bad feelings if I am not sensitive to their changing moods.

I think that it comes down to two things: respect and sensitivity. By extending respect to everybody, I don’t place my gratification above their feelings, and by being sensitive, hopefully I can gauge their changing moods. I don’t think that means never being playful with my friends, but increasingly I do think that means I need to err on the side of caution.

How to eliminate school bullying

An important step in the right direction

There are many ways to tackle school bullying, and I definitely feel that it’s a problem that needs approaching from multiple angles.

At the moment various groups are successfully pursuing the following approaches:

Legal

• Anti-bullying legislation forcing schools to adopt anti-bullying policies
• Upgrading many types of bullying to criminal offences
• Enabling bullies to be sued in court

Cultural and Educational

• Anti-bullying charters that schools can voluntarily sign up to, to agree a code of practice
• Encouraging spectators and passive bullies not to participate
• Changing the culture within schools to make bullying less acceptable
• Changing school culture so that victims are not ashamed to report bullying
• Educating parents to recognise bullying and act decisively and persistently if they discover that their kids are being bullied

• Using hard-hitting anti-bully road-shows in schools to impart the full horror of bullying for some victims

Practical

• Training peer counsellors (other students) who can provide support for victims
• Training school staff how to deal with bullying more effectively

I believe that most of these approaches have considerable merit within an overall strategy aimed at reducing bullying, but I think that even collectively, they will still fail to significantly eradicate bullying in many cases for two important reasons.

1. Of the three types of bullies that I consider to be a problem (venters, performers and haters), the worst (haters) does not bully for approval or popularity, so changing the culture is unlikely to change their mind-set in the short term. Long term, everyone can be changed, but kids who are suffering right now can't wait 10-20 years for the pervading attitudes to shift.
2. Schools have to have a will to change bullying, and many do not. They will sign up to charters and agree to voluntary codes of conduct. They’ll even be reluctantly bound by law to investigate bullying, but then all that happens is that they deflect victim complaints so that they do not show up in their school’s statistics.

In my opinion, the only way to FORCE schools is to deal with bullying professionally, is to have unambiguous, nationally consistent procedures that they must follow, which provide an unavoidable paper trail by which they can be held accountable.

For that to work, there will need to be clear definitions of what bullying is. One campaigner said to me that we need to keep the definitions as broad as possible so that they can encompass all types of harassing behaviour. That makes sense because some kids can be harassed by the seemingly most minor of actions.

Here’s an example of how it might work:

1. A parent or student makes a formal complaint of bullying. By formalising the complaint, we hopefully eliminate low-level complaints. I realise that a low-level complaint by one student may be severe to another, but as it is the victims themselves who decide the severity of a case to be reported, they themselves weight the complaints.
2. The complaint MUST be recorded on a two part document, listing the complainant, details of the complaint, date, etc. One copy of the document is given to the complainant who signs for it, and the other is kept by the school. The parent or student now takes their copy away, so they have proof that a formal complaint has been registered, and received by the school – no more of these “We never received a complaint” denials, and no more of these “We complained 200 times and were not listened to” accusations.
3. The school follows a national or state/county agreed upon procedure for investigating the incident. The complaint is assessed to determine whether or not it is even bullying, per se. If it is not, then the “victim” is still afforded counselling. After all, they felt victimised, regardless of the letter of the law. Read about the sad case of Matt Epling to see how something that one person might consider relatively minor, can be devastating to another.
4. The accused is afforded impartial status, so without admission, witnesses or evidence (or past form), they cannot be punished.
5. The complainant is called back in and updated upon the results of the investigation. They are given an updated copy of the incident report, detailing the results of the incident, and describing a suggested course of resolution (mediation, punishment *, counselling, or whatever). Again the complainant signs to acknowledge receipt.
6. The complainant is interviewed again for a sign off after a further interval of time (say a fortnight, or a month), to ascertain whether the course of action has been successful. At any time before this scheduled date, the complainant can report that the bullying is continuing, in which case the school jumps back to stage 2 and takes appropriately more severe action, where necessary. The victim MUST be provided with full support to ensure that they feel safe and unharrassed by this stage. At this point, even without further corroborative evidence, the likelihood of credibility is assumed for the victim, not the bully.
7. If no further incidents are reported before the sign off, and the victim is satisfied with the course of action, the victim is asked to sign off the incident report to acknowledge satisfaction in the system. If they are unhappy, they have the chance to explain why, and if their concerns do not merit further action, they can be recorded on the incident report. If the school wishes to close the case, but the complainant is unsatisfied, having gone through the entire procedure, they have the option to escalate to a county arbitrator, and beyond.

This system is a little time-consuming, but it’s thorough, and leaves a paper trail that parents can use to demonstrate when correct procedures have not been followed (eliminating personal bias – for a horrific example of personal bias by the school board costing the life of a 13 year old student, read the case of Jared High at www.jaredstory.com). Most importantly, when there is a clearly defined procedure right from complaint to resolution, it gives the victims confidence that there is a point in complaining, overcoming one of the major hurdles.

*Note: many schools cite student confidentiality protecting the rights of the bully, from letting the student know that the bully has been punished. Yet again, the rights of the perpetrator are protected at the expense of the victim. This is a ridiculous position that denies the victim satisfaction or closure. The victim knows who the bully is. The bully knows who he or she is. Confirming to the victim that justice has been done, is an essential part of healing the victim, as well as giving them confidence in the system.

A lack of faith in the ability of the school administration to resolve their issues or protect them, seems to be a consistent theme amongst the most harrowing bullying cases, where kids do not even report bullying. Misplaced faith in the system by parents is the thing that often enables bullying to escalate to lethal proportions.

Time to celebrate diversity

School Negligence

School's need to take responsibility for their student's safety now!



Julie Hart, US national school counselor of the year.
A role model that all teachers should hopefully wish to emulate -
unless it's too much trouble...

I was going to write a carefully worded piece today, trying get at the root cause of why bullying is still so widespread, in spite of the fact that most schools have anti-bullying provisions in place that have been legislated from state, county or national government. I was going to make a balanced argument, explaining the difficulty sometimes of identifying bullying behaviour. I was going to craft a piece that powerfully but tactfully made the case, (careful not to alienate the teachers and head teachers), that schools should take bullying more seriously. But you know what? Damn the feelings of the schools and damn the feelings of the teachers.

I’m sick of everyone being more concerned about the administration and the bullies than the victims.

Over the past six months, I’ve had cause on several occasions to ask local schools for a copy of their anti-bullying policy documents. Without exception, the answer has been a defensive and interrogatory, “Why?!” rather than a compassionate, “Is there someone we can help with?”

There are some facts that we are going to have to confront before bullying will ever be eradicated in schools.

• Many teachers consider the workload, before they consider the child. All they see when a child  or parent complains is the task ahead, not the pain being suffered and the damage being done
• Many schools are more concerned with their reputations or funding than their students. With league tables, government targets, and who knows what, schools are often driven to deny bullying rather than tackle it
• Many teachers are so afraid of the bullies and their parents, that they are unwilling to act. But if the teachers are afraid, what chance have the kids got?
• Many schools are blasé about bullying, especially “soft-bullying” that doesn’t result in visible injuries. Damaged minds are far worse than damaged bodies because it’s harder to assess the injuries, and the scars of disempowerment and fear can last a lifetime
• Some teachers are bullies themselves, and should be withdrawn from the system immediately, if only for the example they set
• Many schools are in denial that there is even a problem at their school. There’s a problem at EVERY school, because bullying is part of the juvenile condition – it’s just a matter of degree
• Many schools provide unmonitored computers and tools that unwittingly facilitate cyberbullying
• Just because a bullying incident may not be criminal does not mean it is unworthy of resolving
• Just because a teacher considers a bullying incident trivial, does not mean that the student feels the same way. All incidents should be investigated and resolved as best as possible for the well-being of the victim.
• A single incident can be as devastating to some students as years of bullying to others. Some kids are just so gentle and unprepared for hate that it shatters the very bedrock of their world if it’s targeted at them
• Kids frequently do not feel confident reporting bullying to schools. There many social reasons but one common and unacceptable reason is that the school lacks the commitment or competence to resolve the incident
• Many schools are so constrained by the opinions of conservative-minded bigots on the school boards and PTAs, that they don’t take action even when they know they should
• Some bullies need as much help as the victims. Many are trying to re-empower themselves for painful aspects of their own lives. This should be considered, but never at the expense of the victims
• Some bullies are irredeemable. The kind of kids who wore nooses to school after hounding Tony Cappellano to hang himself. They don’t deserve compassion or consideration. They are scum, and should be taken from the school system immediately. Let their parents handle the burden of home-schooling. After, all they’re part of the problem!



A school governor's meeting, hopefully discussing the welfare of
the students not just budgets and league tables

 The last time I wrote a (far milder) piece elsewhere highlighting the negligence of teachers in contributing to the bullying crisis, many parents wrote thanking me for highlighting a problem that they themselves had experienced, and a couple of teachers wrote to me outraged that I would dare to attack them. As expected, they threw up their hands and said “Not me; not at my school!” Maybe they were amongst the good ones. I’m sure there must be many, but I say now to the all of you, you have a moral OBLIGATION to protect the kids under your care. They are rarely there by choice. What good are all the qualifications in the world to students, if they are so traumatised by their time at school, that they are unable to live happy lives?

In the majority of cases of teen suicide, families say that they reported bullying incidents to the school, often more than once. In the last UK survey on bullying, 60% of all parents who reported bullying to a school, said that they were dissatisfied with the way the school handled their complaint. I believe that what we need is to change the monitoring system about school bullying, so that the stigma is attached to unsatisfactorily resolved cases, not reported incidents. I believe that every report of bullying MUST be officially recorded, and until that complaint is signed off by the victim, it remains unresolved. Unresolved cases should be what counts against the schools, not the number of complaints. At the moment, each logged case of bullying goes against the school’s reputation, so of course, many try to minimise or even deny the existence of bullying. But there are many factors that can produce higher-than-average levels of bullying: lower socio-economic catchment areas, an influx of transient families, a rise in local unemployment, even a single family joining a school!

Of course, schools should still work hard to prevent a culture of bullying existing within their schools, so the overall number of complaints should also be monitored, otherwise we risk the schools simply switching their attention from preventative to after-care solutions.

I believe most teachers need a Road to Damascus experience to bring about the paradigm shift in perception that will force them to give this problem the care it deserves. All-too-often that only occurs when a student commits suicide. Don’t let a fresh death at your school be the trigger. I beg of you. Let the tragic deaths of students already gone, motivate you to change. Google “bullied teen” and read the stories till you weep. Then be as courageous as you ask your students to be. Do what’s right, not what’s convenient, cost-effective or popular with the board.

A good starting place is the video below, "Bullycide in America" which shows some of the beautiuful, young lives lost to bullying. And teachers, when you look at these young faces, remember, these were some of the best your schools produced: gentle, artistic, thoughtful, creative kids who would have greatly enriched the world, if they had not been bullied to death...

Anti-bullying week November 15th - 19th 2010 – Taking Action Together

You can download this anti-bullying poster for your school or club
noticeboard. Click the picture to open it. (PDF format)

Anti-bullying week November 15th - 19th 2010 – Do Your Part
Every day, hundreds of children and teens wake up so afraid of school due to bullying, that they have stomach cramps and they feel sick. Every night, hundreds of kids and teens lie in bed terrified of the next day. That’s not right. No-one should have to live like that. You can do something about it.
Start by joining the Big March (http://www.beatbullying.org/bigmarch/) , and add your voice to the hundreds of thousands of others who want to say that bullying is not acceptable. All you have to do is register and add your name. Easy as that.

But if you really want to be the superhero of your own life, decide from now on, that you won’t tolerate bullying if you can do anything about it. If you see bullying at school, do something about it. You don’t have to put yourself in danger, but don’t stand idly by and watch either. Go tell a teacher. Go tell a parent or a lunch lady. If you’re brave enough, go stand with the bullied person so they’re not on their own.

Often bullies are cowards. They bully to be popular or because they are unhappy. They don’t want the chance of getting hurt themselves, physically or emotionally. Just seeing that their victim has friends is enough sometimes to stop them.

If you’re a bit older, you might appreciate the lyrics to the incredible song Hero, by Superchick, which says far more eloquently than I ever could, why bullying is so damaging. It was written after the Columbine shootings, but the message is timeless. Read the lyrics and hear the song here.

To see the devastating effects on young lives, of unchecked bullying, please watch this short, moving video. Young lives destroyed by bullying, and they're not the only ones by a long, long shot. Agonising though it is, we have to keep remembering stories such as these, because otherwise people quickly lose the motivation for change.

Maybe the most important thing anyone can do to stop bullying, is not to take part in it. You might be surprised what sort of things count as bullying. Here’s a list (taken from the web site of BullyingUK):

You're being a bully to someone if you do any of these things to someone else:

• You call them names
• You make up stories to get them into trouble
• You tell other people not to be friends with them
• You make remarks about their culture, religion or colour
• You make remarks about their disability or medical condition
• You leave them out when you're choosing a games team
• You take away their possessions or demand money from them
• You hide their books or bag
• You send them nasty text messages or make silent calls to their phone
• You make threats about nasty things that will happen to them
• You make remarks about them liking other boys or other girls of the same sex. This is called homophobic bullying
• You spread rumours about them
• You take their friends away leaving them on their own
• You hit them, kick them, trip them up or push them around
• You make remarks about their looks or weight
• You don't choose them to be your partner in class just to hurt them
• You damage their property
• You make jokes about them when you can see they're upset
• You indulge in horseplay when you know they are not enjoying it
• You're going along with the crowd who are doing any of these things

The theme of this year’s Anti-bullying week is “Taking Action Together”. And you should help, because you might be popular today, but the bullies are fickle, and tomorrow it might be your turn. Too nice, too horrible, too tall, too short, too black, too white, red hair, black hair, short hair, too smart, too dumb, too gentle, too gay, wrong religion, wrong address. No-one is safe. Go to the Anti-Bullying Week web site here