Bullying

I was listening to NPR while cleaning for the holiday guests (and drinking wine), and there was a long segment about bullying. It eventually got too upsetting, so I changed it to pop music. (This may have something to do with the fall of our society, but I will leave that post to be written by someone else.) Bullying is something we've been hearing more about lately. There has been a lot of attention paid to gay children and teens targeted by bullies, particularly those who committed suicide as a result. Tonight's story pointed out how the common targets of bullies are students perceived to be gay, overweight or the disabled. In my experience, bullies like anyone different, and as Sesame Street taught us, there is something different about all of us. Of course, some of those differences we try to hide, and some of those differences don't really set us apart ("Oh, you are particularly pretty?" "Oh, you are unusually confident?") as much as others (such as those listed by NPR).

So I thought I would share two stories, because at this time in my life, I've done very well and have a self-confidence my child-hood self probably never predicted. And I want to speak to that little girl, because she was brave AND did some cool things too, things I can still say I stand for and behind.


In seventh grade, for some reason, my mother moved me to the most dangerous and gang-riddled school I'd ever attend. There were a lot of personal things going on at the time too, like her remarriage, our moving away from good friends I had finally made (I was always a little shy and awkward... you can see the foreshadowing already), so having the strength to deal with this adjustment in both academic expectation and bravado... well, it didn't happen. I went from being in a place where I was averagely-smart to a place I was freakishly-smart, and that set me apart in ways my peers were not happy to deal with. I also went from a mostly-white school to a very mixed school. This did not have the result you would expect. To the extent I was able to make friends, I could be friends with the "minority" students, but the white girls seemed exceptionally threatened by me and eventually became the biggest threats/bullies to my everyday existence. The climax of these interactions was a blond girl who threatened to kill me for a manufactured wrong-doing on my part. She punched my head through the window on the bus, screaming, "you're dead." The next day, a brunette I'd never seen before casually asked me about the incident, and I told her I didn't know what had happened. She ran back to the blond shouting, "see?! She doesn't know!" I'm sure she was trying to help, trying to be the diplomat. The blond seethed at me across the PE field.

Somehow, she got my phone number. I was a latch-key kid and had about 4 hours or so to myself after school. The phone would ring constantly during those hours. She would threaten me when I answered. I started hanging up. Pick-up, hang-up. It went on for hours. By the time my mom got home, I was broken. We weren't speaking much in those days, but she pressed me when I was more awkward than usual. I finally told her. She went to the principal the next day, who called us both in the office. I feared the retribution. She denied everything.

Later, I saw the vice-principal on my own and begged him to switch me to a different period PE class. At first he said no. I didn't want to tell him about the bully. I thought he would tell me I needed to confront her. So I told him about my parent-situation, and said I wanted to spend more time with my friend in the other period, before I moved. I cried excessively. He finally relented, but probably never wondered why I was so upset over such a small reason.


Years earlier, I think in second grade, I was even more awkward, if you can imagine. In those days, girls invited all the girls in their class to their parties, so it was less obvious. Even though I went to their parties, we didn't play at school. But there was one girl who was always nice to me on the playground, nice to everyone; I can't remember her name, so let's call her Rose. I think she was younger. I had an obsession with Garfield at the time (I know, lame. But we didn't have much in the 80s, ok?!). Rose made up elaborate stories about having a cat named Garfield who was just like the comic character (lazy and lasagna-loving), and her Garfield was in love with her other cat, and then she had a big wedding for the cats (in today's internet climate, this would be really normal). I knew it was bogus, but I never questioned it. I knew she made it up for me, to make me happy, to make me like her. How could you not go along?

Rose was in the special education class. She was what we would call Mentally Disabled, but the kids called her Retarded. She was so sweet she didn't often see it coming, see the difference between the mean, dangerous kids, and the kids that were nice or indifferent. It's the only time I remember both classes playing on the playground at the same time.

I knew at the time that, by playing with Rose, I lost credibility among my peers (what little I had) because I was nice to her and played with her on the swings. (In my opinion, she was more fun on the swings than the other kids, because it was about having fun on the swings. With the other kids, it was a competition to see who could swing highest or jump off at the highest point, which scared the heck out of me. With Rose, it was just about how fun it was to swing; no pressure.) But it never seemed right, what they did. They would chase her into the bathroom, which, everyone knew was haunted by Bloody Mary. It was scary. It was they only place she could hide. I called them stupid for chasing her, and I stayed her friend when they turned on me. I'd hide with her in the bathroom, even though I was scared of Bloody Mary. She'd tell me everything was alright.

I was her only friend outside her class. The next year, they put me in the upper-level playground. I never saw her again.

I wonder where she is now, if she's alive, if she's happy. I'm OK that she wouldn't remember me. I hope people are being nice to her, for the sweet soul she is. And I'm glad I wasn't an asshole when I was a kid.