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Sep. 2nd, 2011 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amorphaSo, uh. Today's Writer's Block on LJ asks about "one thing you can stop or do to prevent bullying." This is a topic that... hits very close to home for us, even though we don't talk about it a whole lot publically; I'll just leave it at that for now. But we can give you, in fact, an entire list of bullying prevention tips guaranteed to work. Inspired by, but not as clever as, Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed To Work.
1. If a kid is different in some way from the other kids in your class, don't bully them.
2. If someone in your workplace is different in some way, don't bully them.
3. If you meet someone online who is different in some way, don't bully them.
4. If someone seems vulnerable and to have no friends or allies, don't bully them.
5. If there are a lot of nasty rumours being spread about a person, don't help spread them.
6. If someone is interested in something you think is weird, don't bully them.
7. If someone doesn't wear clothes that are considered cool, don't bully them.
8. If someone looks, speaks, or moves in an unusual way, don't bully them.
9. If you don't like someone else's sexuality or gender identity, it is still wrong to bully them. Don't do it.
10. If someone has a self-identity or beliefs you think are weird, it is still wrong to bully them. Don't do it.
11. If everyone else is bullying a certain person, don't join in.
12. If all your friends are bullying a certain person, don't join in.
13. If all your friends or all the cool kids are saying it's cool to bully a certain person or group of people, don't bully them. Find some real friends who won't make bullying the terms of their friendship.
14. If someone is bullying you and promises to stop bullying you if you will help them bully someone else, don't do it. Find some way to get away from them and find allies and safe spaces.
...the last one, I guess, is particularly relevant because within the past two years, we have seen several people who were doing really strong self-advocacy work shut down their blogs, journals or Tumblrs, or minimise their posting, because of bullying. And in some cases, the bullying was perpetuated by bullies promising to leave some of their victims alone if they'd join in on bullying someone else. We also have some close friends who were basically terrorized into hiding online and disconnecting from their former online names because of bullying. We had that happen to us once, too, though it was many years ago. I think the point I am trying to make here is that many people appear to believe that bullying ends after high school/secondary school, and unfortunately, it does not. When we worked on the newspaper staff at our first community college, we were bullied and harassed by the head editor to the point where we ended up crying or having a meltdown at nearly every staff meeting. (And don't ask "Where were the faculty?" They were there. They didn't do anything. Much like the faculty who didn't do anything when we got bullied in pre-college years.)
...this is also, incidentally, why we don't like the much-touted "It Gets Better" campaign. Partly, we don't like it because of Dan Savage and his general privileged assholery (examples of which can be found here, along with other people's explanations of why they don't like "It Gets Better," which are more coherent than anything we could write right now). For too many people, it doesn't get better just because of that magical high school/secondary school graduation. In too many ways to count. Especially when "intersectionality" stuff enters the picture. It doesn't "get better" for trans people murdered for being trans. It doesn't "get better" for people who are turned away from hospitals or die in the ER because they had the "wrong" gender presentation or because everyone was more interested in what was between their legs than in the fact that they were dying. It doesn't "get better" for GLBT disabled people, people of color, and poor people who are already at higher risk for being assaulted, and may deal with discrimination within their own communities on top of that.
It also does not "get better" for people who are locked in institutions and drugged because they committed the "crime" of having a self-identity or belief system their society didn't approve of. Our high likelihood of having a potentially fatal reaction to certain kinds of drugs did not go away when we got our high school diploma. Every time someone joins in on or fails to speak out against "lolz crayzee multipuls, let's SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF THESE WACKOS AND HOW CRAYZEE THEY ARE SO MORE PEOPLE CAN LAUGH AT THEM" mockery, that's another chip on the pile of what makes the world more dangerous for us to live in. It becomes even less funny when you know several people who have almost died from drugs given to them because doctors considered their personal belief systems delusional.
...so, yeah. Stopping bullying, it's a lot like stopping sexual assault. I'll even admit there were times in the past-- not a lot, but they happened-- when we joined in on bullying someone else. On some of those occasions, we did it because of peer pressure, or because we were afraid we would become targets if we didn't actively direct the bullies towards other targets. The thing is that those are not excuses. None of those things made it okay. Nothing made it okay, because it is not okay, ever.
(By the way, comments are going to be screened on this post, but not because I want to discourage people from commenting. I have chosen to screen them in this case because I don't want anyone trying to start widgety arguments about whether there are situations in which someone forfeits their right to not be bullied or assaulted, or trolls trying to spam up the comments with reductio ad absurdum crap or worse. When you've seen people attacked in their journals by others "commenting" to post repeated pictures of dead cats and telling them they deserve to die and should commit suicide, for the "crime" of saying they had meaningful relationships with fictional characters, then yeah, that tends to kick us really intensely into "get the fuck out, not okay, not ever" mode about defending our own spaces and people's right in general to not have such things inflicted on them.)
-j mostly
1. If a kid is different in some way from the other kids in your class, don't bully them.
2. If someone in your workplace is different in some way, don't bully them.
3. If you meet someone online who is different in some way, don't bully them.
4. If someone seems vulnerable and to have no friends or allies, don't bully them.
5. If there are a lot of nasty rumours being spread about a person, don't help spread them.
6. If someone is interested in something you think is weird, don't bully them.
7. If someone doesn't wear clothes that are considered cool, don't bully them.
8. If someone looks, speaks, or moves in an unusual way, don't bully them.
9. If you don't like someone else's sexuality or gender identity, it is still wrong to bully them. Don't do it.
10. If someone has a self-identity or beliefs you think are weird, it is still wrong to bully them. Don't do it.
11. If everyone else is bullying a certain person, don't join in.
12. If all your friends are bullying a certain person, don't join in.
13. If all your friends or all the cool kids are saying it's cool to bully a certain person or group of people, don't bully them. Find some real friends who won't make bullying the terms of their friendship.
14. If someone is bullying you and promises to stop bullying you if you will help them bully someone else, don't do it. Find some way to get away from them and find allies and safe spaces.
...the last one, I guess, is particularly relevant because within the past two years, we have seen several people who were doing really strong self-advocacy work shut down their blogs, journals or Tumblrs, or minimise their posting, because of bullying. And in some cases, the bullying was perpetuated by bullies promising to leave some of their victims alone if they'd join in on bullying someone else. We also have some close friends who were basically terrorized into hiding online and disconnecting from their former online names because of bullying. We had that happen to us once, too, though it was many years ago. I think the point I am trying to make here is that many people appear to believe that bullying ends after high school/secondary school, and unfortunately, it does not. When we worked on the newspaper staff at our first community college, we were bullied and harassed by the head editor to the point where we ended up crying or having a meltdown at nearly every staff meeting. (And don't ask "Where were the faculty?" They were there. They didn't do anything. Much like the faculty who didn't do anything when we got bullied in pre-college years.)
...this is also, incidentally, why we don't like the much-touted "It Gets Better" campaign. Partly, we don't like it because of Dan Savage and his general privileged assholery (examples of which can be found here, along with other people's explanations of why they don't like "It Gets Better," which are more coherent than anything we could write right now). For too many people, it doesn't get better just because of that magical high school/secondary school graduation. In too many ways to count. Especially when "intersectionality" stuff enters the picture. It doesn't "get better" for trans people murdered for being trans. It doesn't "get better" for people who are turned away from hospitals or die in the ER because they had the "wrong" gender presentation or because everyone was more interested in what was between their legs than in the fact that they were dying. It doesn't "get better" for GLBT disabled people, people of color, and poor people who are already at higher risk for being assaulted, and may deal with discrimination within their own communities on top of that.
It also does not "get better" for people who are locked in institutions and drugged because they committed the "crime" of having a self-identity or belief system their society didn't approve of. Our high likelihood of having a potentially fatal reaction to certain kinds of drugs did not go away when we got our high school diploma. Every time someone joins in on or fails to speak out against "lolz crayzee multipuls, let's SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF THESE WACKOS AND HOW CRAYZEE THEY ARE SO MORE PEOPLE CAN LAUGH AT THEM" mockery, that's another chip on the pile of what makes the world more dangerous for us to live in. It becomes even less funny when you know several people who have almost died from drugs given to them because doctors considered their personal belief systems delusional.
...so, yeah. Stopping bullying, it's a lot like stopping sexual assault. I'll even admit there were times in the past-- not a lot, but they happened-- when we joined in on bullying someone else. On some of those occasions, we did it because of peer pressure, or because we were afraid we would become targets if we didn't actively direct the bullies towards other targets. The thing is that those are not excuses. None of those things made it okay. Nothing made it okay, because it is not okay, ever.
(By the way, comments are going to be screened on this post, but not because I want to discourage people from commenting. I have chosen to screen them in this case because I don't want anyone trying to start widgety arguments about whether there are situations in which someone forfeits their right to not be bullied or assaulted, or trolls trying to spam up the comments with reductio ad absurdum crap or worse. When you've seen people attacked in their journals by others "commenting" to post repeated pictures of dead cats and telling them they deserve to die and should commit suicide, for the "crime" of saying they had meaningful relationships with fictional characters, then yeah, that tends to kick us really intensely into "get the fuck out, not okay, not ever" mode about defending our own spaces and people's right in general to not have such things inflicted on them.)
-j mostly