bullying...

it seems like there's been a lot of talk about bullying and the effect it can have on people. There are whole campaigns that are dedicated to eradicating it from schools...the work place...public. Bullying serves no real or legit purpose. There is no real upside to bullying...whether done on the schoolyard or in the world of international politics. In the end, the bullies are exposed for what they truly are...

I've seen and felt the effects of bullying first hand...but the thing is, despite having been bullied throughout my childhood...I survived. That doesn't mean I want anyone else to have to go through what I went through. I don't anyone to feel that their teachers let it happen...or that their classmates teasing is warranted. I know that there is a contingent out there for whom this just represents growing pains. It doesn't and it isn't! When you are being picked on or bullied about something that you have no control over, it is not about growing pains. When you are being singled out based on perceived sexual orientation and teachers and administrators stay silent and tacitly let the taunting to continue, it sends a message. When the teachers actually contribute to the taunting, it sends a very powerful message! Growing pains it is not!

I'm not angry (anymore) and I was never one that considered ending it all because of the bullying (thankfully), but so many do. In a world with as many differences as there are, why does bullying need to continue? Why does it continue? Simple, because children learn from their parents and the adults around them. When they see an adult arguing hatefully against same sex marriage, they learn to bully. When they see teachers that emphasize that the terrorists were Muslim and participate in the wink, wink, nudge, nudge that all terrorists are Muslim, they learn to bully. When children hear their parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc speak ill about a certain group of people, for no other reason than perceived difference - they learn to bully. And they learn that bullying will make them feel better because they are putting others down/in their place.

When you learn to rise above your place, and fight back...you quickly learn what the bullies are made of...empty rhetoric and more often than not, old and antiquated stereotypes that have been proven time and time again to be false. I'm reminded often of the scene at the end of Revenge of the Nerds...when Louis asks anyone who's ever been called a nerd, and picked on, put down, etc. to join him on the field. Pretty soon we see almost everyone out on the field and the bullies standing with their heads hung, perhaps in shame.

Think about it...for all of us that have been bullied...if we all stood together to put an end to it...what a force we could all be. Who out there hasn't been bullied at one point in time or another?