Guess I can't do this

A couple of days ago, Mass Equality asked for people to share their school bullying stories. So fine, I have a corker. I thought about it and started to offer my story.

It's still in my drafts file because, so far, I haveon't been able to tell the story as it should be told in this context. I've told some of it before, some of it here. But never all of it. It's one thing to summarise what happened. It's another to reveal the very loaded nickname stuck on one by the bullies. And it's another to admit to the barely controlled rage that I live with more than half a century after the fact. I had a vivid reminder of that today. Three of us leaving a modest collation were unwillingly drawn into a street confrontation that didn't involve us. In such situations, my brain automatically identifies an aggressor in such a situation as a bully, and prepares me to respond very, very violently to the provocation. It may be fortunate that the would-be aggressor in this situation backed off.

I would like to tell my story, simply because it might help some young person to bear up under treatment that is, indeed, unspeakable. It just doesn't seem possible to muster the necessary separation.

I wasn't going to comment, but...

I've just crossed the line about that viral video of the Australian bullying victim smacking his tormentor down. As someone who experienced bullying on this scale and above, I'm all for the kid that did the smackdown. If I'd ever been able to catch the bully-in-chief alone, I would have done the same. But they traveled in a pack, and the only time I was able to swing back, I was the one who got in trouble.

What drives me to comment was Monday morning's interview, on The Early Show, with another in the endless line of fatuous "experts" on bullying. Her take was that the victim should have walked--or run--away and gone to the principal.

Bullshit.

Has she ever tried either tactic? I doubt it. For one thing, if you walk or run away, the bully will likely chase you down. Second, if you walk or run away, the bully wins the round on psychological points. Third, and most important, the "expert" had a naive faith in the willingness of school administrators to intervene.

They won't; they're gutless. They were gutless 50 years ago, when this happened to me. From all I've seen, the majority today are still gutless.

If we mean to be serious about smacking down the culture of bullying, let's start by fact-checking experts and pundits who don't know what they're talking about. Oh wait: fact-checking isn't in the vocabulary of contemporary journalism, especially the broadcast variety.

A dish best served cold

It probably makes sense that the broadcast media were able to find South Hadley High School parents who thought criminal charges were "too hard" for the nine students charged with bullying Phoebe Prince to death. Move along if you're looking for sympathy at this address.

I wrote this after the Virginia Tech killings in 2007, in frustration over the failure to address bullying's role in reactive violence by its victims:

“Bullied” has become a weasel word, thanks to the punditry, so I will not say I was bullied in seventh grade. I was pushed up against a brick wall and beaten three to five times a week for most of the school year, by a group of five boys. That was in addition to the much more usual tripping in the halls or on the stairs, the threatening phone calls (no Internet then), and ridicule in class or, worse, in gym. Neither my parents, nor teachers, nor administrators of the school did anything. They knew and ignored it. Before I was 13, I learnt that in such situations, I was on my own. Authority was of no use to me, and would (as once happened) even punish me if I fought back.

I am totally biased on this subject and I don't think any criminal charges can be hard enough. It's interesting how it has been the taking of two lives, by suicide, that finally pushed this Commonwealth into action. (Consider what the response would have been if Phoebe had solved her problems by blowing her tormentors away.)

A good many cynics don't think legislation will solve the problem. They trot out that stale old phrase, "we've always done it this way." In the first place, no we haven't: not at the extreme levels that lead to violent reactions. Want to know what the legislation will do? It will force school administrators, teachers, and parents to grow a spine. These people can, and should, contain this sort of harassment before it turns toxic. I've heard their excuses for half a century and I'm tired of them. If it takes statutes to smarten them up, so be it.

It sounds as if the DA is prepared to hit this case hard. Good. I hope a successful prosecution will not only put these goons away, and not just fire a warning shot across the bows of anyone who thinks this sort of thing is cool. I hope it causes every school bully, whatever age they now are, to feel a bit of a cold sweat, as every bullying victim now alive cheers on the prosecution by way of vicarious revenge.