I have not thought about bullies in a quite awhile, at least not in depth; still, I listened to a news story this evening about a young gay teenager who committed suicide after years of being bullied because of his sexual orientation. Then I remembered all the bullies I have ever known and I really felt badly for this young man. Bullies can ruin a life if they are allowed to do so.
I remembered a young man who I will refer to as CJ. He was in my grade school and junior high classes from 1953 until 1959 in a small Texas town. He lived a miserable life. He was small, frail, scared and anxiety ridden every day that I knew him.
He harmed no one. He was disrespectful to no one. He was a better than average student, and yet he was picked out by the school bullies from the 4th grade forward to be one of the primary targets of their torture. His life must have been hell on earth and I have no idea what eventually happened to him.
I was never unkind to him, but I never really helped him either, although I tried on at least one occasion. I told him to pick out just one of the bullies. I told him to walk up unobtrusively and hit the bully in the nose as hard as he could and to keep swinging until his arms wore out.
Bullies pick on people that don't fight back. If they have to pay the price of enduring any pain whatsoever they will find someone else to torture. I told him to strike first, to yell and scream and give the impression that he was a bit of a crazy boy as he was throwing punch after punch. Bullies don't like to deal with people they believe to be demented. They avoid people who fight back. They don't like to endure any pain.
CJ just couldn't find the courage.
I'm sure the advice that I gave him as a 13 year old living in 1959 Texas would be thought of as Politically Incorrect today. I would be told that fighting in school just isn't permissible, even in self defense. I would be told that the educational system should take care of the problem. That notion is disingenuous.
School systems don't stop bullying. A kid who goes to the authorities is a marked boy or girl. The truth is that the school can do very little prior to witnessing an actual act of bullying, Bullies are good at clandestine torture and abuse.
I don't say that the school system should not be alerted. They should. I don't say that parents should not utilize this avenue first. Perhaps they should; stil, I doubt that it would work.
I wholeheartedly believe that the right to self defense is not a right exclusively retained by adults. Why should a young person not have the right to defend themselves whether they are in church, in school, or in a shopping mall?
Assault does not have to begin as a physical event. All that needs to happen is that a person be able to demonstrate that they were in fear of being assaulted and that the fear was justified. It is not always wrong to throw the first punch.
The whole notion that nothing should be done until one is attacked is, I think, incorrect. It is incorrect when dealing with the playground bully and it is incorrect when dealing with nations like North Korea or Iran. There are times when our country needs to walk up unobtrusively and punch our enemies in the nose. It is sometimes okay to hit them first and hit them hard.
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