on bullying.
Yesterday, an old college acquaintance posts the following to his facebook account:
'I love how bullying only became a problem when it started affecting straight kids'
To say that this ruffled my feathers a bit would be a gross understatement. It raised just about every single red flag that I have.
Let me give you some background. This acquaintance is a gay male. We met my sophomore year of college, and from my recollection, he could be quite the bully. I don't know whether it was his insecurities about being gay, or about his physical appearance, or what...but the guy was a real bastard to most of the straight guys I knew. He'd often pull the "I'm here, I'm queer, and you are too, you're just too much of a pussy to have realized it yet" schtick. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it didn't exactly gain him friends. Despite that, the guy was semi-popular. Girls (both straight and lesbian) were attracted to him like he was an oversized teddy bear. And he could be quite sweet, when he wanted to. He seemed pretty uninhibited, and as a result, seemed to know how to have a good time. Whether he was actually enjoying himself is another story altogether.
I am a straight girl. I actually think I fall somewhere in the large, gray area of sexuality, but considering I am primarily attracted to men, straight it is. I was also bullied for most of my life. I was an awkward child. Very skinny, not breaking 100 lbs until my senior year of high school. I was very quiet. Smart. Poor. I guess I was well-liked, but I didn't have very many friends. You know, people thought I was "nice". And that often made me an easy target. When I was in 5th grade, a girl cornered me in the bathroom and threatened to beat me up until I "learned how to dress right". It turned out that this girl was my cousin...part of a large Italian clan with Mafia ties. A "Guidette" long before Jersey Shore. My parents talked to her mother, and once she realized we shared blood ties, she kept her mouth shut. In 7th grade, I had a crush on a boy in my class. I don't remember what it was that I liked about him, but I was 12...that may have been reason enough. Another girl in my class also liked him. While I admired him from afar, this girl threw herself at him, coughing "A***...I love you" throughout our music class. He was annoyed by her, and made this well-known. Well, they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and this pint-sized "woman" decided to turn her fury toward me. First came the threats. Then notes, stuffed in my locker, depicting stick-figure drawings of me and this boy engaged in anal sex. One day, when I became ill during chorus practice, this girl seized the opportunity to steal my glasses while I was away at the nurse's office. The glasses were paid for by a grant from the Lion's Club, because my parents couldn't afford to buy them. I can't remember how long it was before we were able to replace them. Regardless, I'm no stranger to bullying.
It set off many alarms, that this guy thinks bullying was not a big deal "until" it started affecting straight kids...and I let him know. When has bullying *not* affected straight kids? He claimed that I had missed the point. He claimed that no one cared until it started affecting popular straight kids (not what he had initially said)...and that at least straight kids have someone to go to. Gay kids are usually just as afraid to talk to their parents as they are anyone else.
Let me go back for a minute. When I was a child, the bully I feared most wasn't some kid in the back of the classroom. It was my father. I once got my ass whooped in elementary school for bringing home a paper with a big red "C" across the front of it. I had been proud of the assignment. My dad didn't give me the chance to explain that the "C" stood for "correct": I had gotten all of the answers right. When I was in high school, my father berated just about every element of my being. The way I dressed, the things I liked. He was physically and verbally abusive. If I mentioned a problem I was having, I was berated some more, and told to "get over it". And the rest of my family? Yeah, they weren't around because they didn't want to deal with my father.
I don't want to hear that "at least straight kids have someone they can go to".
Oh...and the real kicker, here? My dad is a transperson who identifies as a lesbian. A card-carrying member of the LGBTQ center.
I brought this up, and got no response. Someone else left a comment that wasn't nearly as civil as what I had said, telling this guy to "get off your homo-soapbox", pointing out that nearly every skinny, glasses-wearing, dungeons and dragons playing nerd has struggled with bullying at some point, and it isn't because they're gay.
Still, I know the guy's point wasn't that people are bullied because of their sexuality. It's that apparently, society turned a blind eye *until* straight kids started being bullied.
I'm not buying it. A number of schools I've worked in have created anti-bullying programs in the past decade. The defining event for many of them? Columbine.
It isn't a gay or straight issue. It's a kids losing their lives issue.
I've noticed an increase in other awareness campaigns, including the Trevor project.
The events that have sparked many of these are the series of suicides among young people, many of them gay, due to the constant torment of bullies.
For this guy to say that no one cared when it was the gay kids going through it is just as ignorant as what he claims society has done. I said we need to protect ALL of our children, regardless. And if it took some popular kids being bullied to get people to open their eyes and DO something? So what? At least something is being done.
I don't like the fingerpointing. I don't like the generalizations. I don't like the implications among some of my friends that gay people are somehow justified when THEY become the bullies, because they've "paid their dues".
He claims I missed the point. I think he's the one who has missed it.
I went back to his page a moment ago, curious as to how he would respond to the other person's harsh comment. Apparently, he deleted ALL of the comments, leaving just 7 people who "liked" the post.
This rubs me the wrong way, too. I'm not comfortable with the idea of making a broad, sweeping statement and then refusing any sort of discourse in response. It screams of ignorance.
Honestly, if you don't like the way that things are/have been, take steps to change them. Sitting back, placing the blame on someone (anyone) else? That only compounds the issue.
'I love how bullying only became a problem when it started affecting straight kids'
To say that this ruffled my feathers a bit would be a gross understatement. It raised just about every single red flag that I have.
Let me give you some background. This acquaintance is a gay male. We met my sophomore year of college, and from my recollection, he could be quite the bully. I don't know whether it was his insecurities about being gay, or about his physical appearance, or what...but the guy was a real bastard to most of the straight guys I knew. He'd often pull the "I'm here, I'm queer, and you are too, you're just too much of a pussy to have realized it yet" schtick. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it didn't exactly gain him friends. Despite that, the guy was semi-popular. Girls (both straight and lesbian) were attracted to him like he was an oversized teddy bear. And he could be quite sweet, when he wanted to. He seemed pretty uninhibited, and as a result, seemed to know how to have a good time. Whether he was actually enjoying himself is another story altogether.
I am a straight girl. I actually think I fall somewhere in the large, gray area of sexuality, but considering I am primarily attracted to men, straight it is. I was also bullied for most of my life. I was an awkward child. Very skinny, not breaking 100 lbs until my senior year of high school. I was very quiet. Smart. Poor. I guess I was well-liked, but I didn't have very many friends. You know, people thought I was "nice". And that often made me an easy target. When I was in 5th grade, a girl cornered me in the bathroom and threatened to beat me up until I "learned how to dress right". It turned out that this girl was my cousin...part of a large Italian clan with Mafia ties. A "Guidette" long before Jersey Shore. My parents talked to her mother, and once she realized we shared blood ties, she kept her mouth shut. In 7th grade, I had a crush on a boy in my class. I don't remember what it was that I liked about him, but I was 12...that may have been reason enough. Another girl in my class also liked him. While I admired him from afar, this girl threw herself at him, coughing "A***...I love you" throughout our music class. He was annoyed by her, and made this well-known. Well, they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and this pint-sized "woman" decided to turn her fury toward me. First came the threats. Then notes, stuffed in my locker, depicting stick-figure drawings of me and this boy engaged in anal sex. One day, when I became ill during chorus practice, this girl seized the opportunity to steal my glasses while I was away at the nurse's office. The glasses were paid for by a grant from the Lion's Club, because my parents couldn't afford to buy them. I can't remember how long it was before we were able to replace them. Regardless, I'm no stranger to bullying.
It set off many alarms, that this guy thinks bullying was not a big deal "until" it started affecting straight kids...and I let him know. When has bullying *not* affected straight kids? He claimed that I had missed the point. He claimed that no one cared until it started affecting popular straight kids (not what he had initially said)...and that at least straight kids have someone to go to. Gay kids are usually just as afraid to talk to their parents as they are anyone else.
Let me go back for a minute. When I was a child, the bully I feared most wasn't some kid in the back of the classroom. It was my father. I once got my ass whooped in elementary school for bringing home a paper with a big red "C" across the front of it. I had been proud of the assignment. My dad didn't give me the chance to explain that the "C" stood for "correct": I had gotten all of the answers right. When I was in high school, my father berated just about every element of my being. The way I dressed, the things I liked. He was physically and verbally abusive. If I mentioned a problem I was having, I was berated some more, and told to "get over it". And the rest of my family? Yeah, they weren't around because they didn't want to deal with my father.
I don't want to hear that "at least straight kids have someone they can go to".
Oh...and the real kicker, here? My dad is a transperson who identifies as a lesbian. A card-carrying member of the LGBTQ center.
I brought this up, and got no response. Someone else left a comment that wasn't nearly as civil as what I had said, telling this guy to "get off your homo-soapbox", pointing out that nearly every skinny, glasses-wearing, dungeons and dragons playing nerd has struggled with bullying at some point, and it isn't because they're gay.
Still, I know the guy's point wasn't that people are bullied because of their sexuality. It's that apparently, society turned a blind eye *until* straight kids started being bullied.
I'm not buying it. A number of schools I've worked in have created anti-bullying programs in the past decade. The defining event for many of them? Columbine.
It isn't a gay or straight issue. It's a kids losing their lives issue.
I've noticed an increase in other awareness campaigns, including the Trevor project.
The events that have sparked many of these are the series of suicides among young people, many of them gay, due to the constant torment of bullies.
For this guy to say that no one cared when it was the gay kids going through it is just as ignorant as what he claims society has done. I said we need to protect ALL of our children, regardless. And if it took some popular kids being bullied to get people to open their eyes and DO something? So what? At least something is being done.
I don't like the fingerpointing. I don't like the generalizations. I don't like the implications among some of my friends that gay people are somehow justified when THEY become the bullies, because they've "paid their dues".
He claims I missed the point. I think he's the one who has missed it.
I went back to his page a moment ago, curious as to how he would respond to the other person's harsh comment. Apparently, he deleted ALL of the comments, leaving just 7 people who "liked" the post.
This rubs me the wrong way, too. I'm not comfortable with the idea of making a broad, sweeping statement and then refusing any sort of discourse in response. It screams of ignorance.
Honestly, if you don't like the way that things are/have been, take steps to change them. Sitting back, placing the blame on someone (anyone) else? That only compounds the issue.