Bullying – Is Pink Shirt Day Solving Anything?

Not everyone has been a bully or the victim of bullies, but everyone has seen bullying, and seeing it, has responded to it by joining in or objecting, by laughing or keeping silent, by feeling disgusted or feeling interested. - Octavia E. Butler

The solution to putting an end to bullying is to stop it at the source but also to find out what is causing the person to behave the way that they do. - Hunter King

Today is Pink Shirt Day, the day when politicians, businessmen, schools and churches call upon everyone to wear a pink shirt to send a statement about bullying and how it must come to an end.

We are told that to do so makes a difference.

Statistics tell us a different story, that bullying, battery, cyber-bullying and other forms of intimidation (and sometimes violence) continue to grow unabated, regardless of whatever feel-good actions we take and whatever legislation we pass.

And as I reflect upon the collision between feel-good intentions and reality, I reflect upon my own Life.

I spent my entire childhood hiding from bullies.  As part of an education experiment growing up, I had some grades combined which meant that I was accepted in college at the age of 15.

So being much younger than my schoolmates (and therefore much smaller) and more gifted academically (as evidenced by school grades), this left me ripe for bullies.

My bully from grades 2 through 6 was Cliff, who verbally and physically abused me relentlessly and incessantly.  His house was between mine and my elementary school so avoiding him was rather difficult.  <<I understand that Cliff moved on to a cocaine-filled Life filled with many complexities.>>

Poor grades on Cliff’s part caused him to be in a different part of junior high school and so he was replaced by Barry who relished his role as the destroyer of worlds (at least my world).

Barry’s bad grades separated Barry and I in high school but other people were there to fill his shoes.  Paul, Steve, Stewart, Tony, Randy and others took brutality to a new level, often mock-raping me in the shower-room, holding me down and taking turns dry-humping me.  After they finished high school, they moved on to blue collar businesses and are reasonably successful by their own definition although a trail of broken marriages and such would speak differently.

Having been accepted in college at the age of 15 in a classroom of twenty-somethings and being adept in the early world of Computer Science, I became the victim of people like Dennis, Dwight and others who assumed the role of my bully du jour before poor grades caused them to drop out.

It took a lot of years to overcome their damage but I did and I was driven to create success for myself and others.  I was also driven to lift others or to lend a hand when no one else would.

Did the bullies drive me to this?  Could it be argued that what they did to me drove me to experience the blessings that I later experienced in Life and to serve the downtrodden, the oppressed and those without a voice? 

It’s possible but I’m sure there were easier ways to experience the Life I am grateful for now.

I doubt the bullies that I experienced in my early days remember or care what they did.  Statistically, many of them are creating or have created a new generation of bullies.

I wonder if they are cognizant of this or if they care.

I doubt it but who is to say for sure.

And so as I reflect upon Pink Shirt Day today and I look back upon my early days, I wonder if such a campaign would have helped me feel better back then as I suffered in silence and humiliation?

Would Pink Shirt Day have prevented the bullies from chasing me relentlessly, somehow convincing them that they were doing the wrong thing?

I doubt it.

The reason is that they were mentally broken, many of them damaged by broken fathers or other family members.  Feel-good moments rarely have an impact on those who need to be mentally rewired.

The reality is that we need more than feel-good moments to stop the ever-increasing frequency and brutality of bullying.

We need to neutralize the process that creates the bully in the first place.

To accomplish this, we need many things, not the least of which are better role-models in the worlds of business, politics, religion and in the home because this is often where bullying starts or is identified as an acceptable practice.

For example ….

I recently disconnected from a colleague of many years because he was incessantly consumed by pointing out what a mean bully Donald Trump is.  In fact, he was so consumed by proving this that he would tear layers off anyone who dared to suggest that he move on to something more productive with his Life and he spent his days on social media sharing hateful messages designed to intimidate.  Ironically, his actions were directed towards a man who didn’t know and thus didn’t care what my colleague thought, making my colleague’s actions one of futility.

When I pointed out to my colleague that I found it ironic that he was using bullying tactics to fight alleged bullying, he and his colleagues beset upon me with insults.

When I quoted one of his countrymen, Gandhi, that “we should be the change we wish to see in the world” and I asked him if he felt that he was being a good role model for his children in solving the problems of the world, the level of brutal taunting from him and people who thought like him escalated to the point where a 25-year friendship came to an end.

He missed the irony that he was modeling the very thing that he claimed to be against.  In fact, pointing this out merely made him more angry.

Reality can be a brutal teacher.

Another example ….

Many (not all) politicians who cite being bullied online or within their political party have a dark secret themselves.  Many of them are known to their colleagues and victims as brutal bullies themselves, often firing the first shot and not merely being “strong” in an act of self defense.

Ironically (or maybe not), they can dish it out ad nauseum but it serves a useful political tool to come forward and tell people that they were bullied.

The funny thing is that if you name them publicly as bullies once they leave public office, then they will hit you with a SLAPP suit, a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.  They do this under the guise of self defense to protect their reputation but the reality is that their need to bully is just manifesting in a different way (or the need exists to stifle public awareness of their true self).

Meanwhile, the easily guided (or misguided) fall prey to the politician’s call to rally the troops around their defense, only to realize later that they have been supporting an aggressor and not a victim.

So is wearing a Pink Shirt helping today?

Look at the statistics and answer the question for yourself.

The Bottom Line

Awareness of an existing problem is all fine and good and it is important to an extent.

However, anyone who is not aware of the scale and impact of bullying has likely been transported here from another planet.

It’s fine to get all stoked up by feel-good campaigns promoted by businessmen, politicians, church leaders and various not-for-profits.

But after you have felt the love and camaraderie that comes from wearing a pink shirt like everyone else, ask yourself what you need to do to stop bullying.

Ask yourself what kind of role model you are for others.

Ask yourself what you should do when you see a failed role model in action.

After all, it’s only when we get to the core of where bullies are formed and allowed to do what they do and then neutralize the bullying at the source that we will start solving the deep, complex issues created by bullies (and how the bullies were created).

It will also give us an opportunity to heal the bully, many of whom have been broken themselves by others who are broken, thereby breaking a chain of generational bully creation.

To do otherwise would be akin to feeding a diabetic Twinkies because he aches for them while simultaneously amputating his limbs one after the other.

Feel-good gestures and awareness are fine motivators but they don’t solve much.

Action does.

Are you ready to take action today?

Are you ready to move past the feel-good of wearing a specific shirt and lazily sharing a few social media posts and instead, to become a model human being, exhibiting the traits and behaviors that you want others to emulate (especially our children) and to demand the same from our leaders in business, politics, the church and other areas?

Are you ready to do what it takes to be that model where you work, where you live and in your family?

Good, because the world is waiting for you.

What are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS I’ve often engaged in conversations with people who cite the importance of feel-good actions while simultaneously dismissing the importance of follow-on action with measurable results.  When I ask them to cite the data that shows that they are solving the problem that they intend to solve, they eventually admit that there is no data and with that admission, the conversation eventually devolves into a shouting match instigated by them.

What, if anything, does this tell us?

What, if anything, does it do to help those who are in need?

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Addendum - Irony - February 22, 2017

Someone was reading this blog while attending a Calgary Hitmen game this morning.  The purpose of the game is to promote anti-bullying and pink shirts were distributed to all the kids who were in attendance.  What was ironic according to the person who texted me was that the kids were chanting in favor of fighting when some fights broke out on the ice during a game meant to promote an end towards bullying.

Ironic indeed.

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Addendum 2 - Our Veterans - February 22, 2017

Twitter user artocracy made what I thought to be a powerful observation in comparing feel-good notions like Pink Shirt Day to Veteran's / Remembrance Day when we take one day out of the entire year to honor those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.  I found the observation to be a poignant one.  In that case, we leave our vets to suffer from PTSD, homelessness, starvation and everything else for most of the year but on one day, we honor their sacrifice.  Honoring them should include daily action to take care of those who have blessed us with freedom.  We instead opt for one day of easy, result-less feel-good "stuff", honoring them with parades, wearing poppies and the like while we forget them for the rest of the year. 

A sobering thought.

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Related Posts:

• The Significance of Insignificant Events (how bullies contributed to my career choices)
• After the Candlelight Vigils and Demonstrations … Then What?
• Harnessing the Power of an Abuser to Defeat Them
• Lip Service–The Solution to Everything
• Mitt Romney, Bullies and Red Herrings
• Bullying is Completely Fine ….

Bullies, Pink Shirts and Attaboys

Watching a particular legislator in action yesterday, taunting the government in an immature, bullying style and encouraging the same amongst her minions, caused me to think about a tweet she had issued a couple of weeks ago when she indicated that she was wearing pink to show support for the Annual Pink Shirt Anti-Bullying Day.

As I reflected on the sharp contrast between who she really appeared to be versus what she claimed to be supporting, it got me to thinking about our concerns around bullying and whether the current campaigns are effective or if we are looking in the wrong direction for a solution.

Consider these scenarios.

Education

Teachers recognize that many examples of bullying begin in the homes of their students, but the teachers don’t / can’t do anything because:

a. Some teachers don’t want to be bothered.

b. Many teachers are overworked and can’t take on that issue in a meaningful way because of their workload.

c. Many teachers would love to do something but the law doesn’t allow them to take the action necessary.

Legislation

Legislators routinely taunt and intimidate their opponents (sometimes illegally), setting a lousy role model for young people to follow.  Unfortunately given the pervasiveness of the media, the acts of our legislators are in front of our young people daily.

Social Media

Social media enables the passive-aggressive, those who don’t have the guts to say the terrible things they say in person, thus enabling and empowering them to say what they wish while hiding behind the perceived anonymity of the Internet. 

Road Rage

Driving in the safety of our vehicles allows us to gesture and scream at-will, providing an opportunity to express our road rage in the safety and comfort of our vehicle. As George Carlin once said, “Why is it that everyone driving slower than us is an idiot and everyone driving faster than us is a maniac?”.  It doesn’t leave much room for the people we aren’t judging on the road, does it? 

I am humbly reminded of an example many years ago when I was cut off by a driver but I didn’t say anything.  Suddenly a quiet voice in the backseat said “Stupid a**hole, Daddy?”.  Our greatest lessons come from children who observe us keenly and emulate accordingly.

The Church

Many churches, supposedly carrying the message of God’s love, are torn apart by cravings for power and the need to abuse others all-the-while espousing the need for us to show more love and respect to each other.

Where is it heading?

And so I find it intriguing that while we run around wearing pink shirts and promoting heart-tugging attaboys, I wonder if such actions are producing any meaningful results.  Oftentimes (not always) the awareness campaigns either do little measurable good or are actually endorsed by people who openly contradict the campaign for the rest of the year.

Which message are we likely to follow more – the one that someone lives for 24 hours or the one they live for the rest of the year?

It reminds me of an organizer of Earth Hour activities who said on the radio one day that he drives around his city in an SUV during Earth Hour to see who dares to not contribute to making a difference in our impact on the Earth.  He also didn’t notice his own hypocrisy when he stated that during Earth Hour, while his lights are out, he tapes his favorite TV programs and stays up an hour later that night to catch up.

There has to be a better way

Now in fairness, there are some great people and great organizations who ARE making a difference.  To those people, I salute their courage and congratulate them on their efforts.

Unfortunately, their difference is not attaining the critical mass they need to reach to turn the tide and for this reason, I think we are losing the war as a result.  We would be doing better in the war against bullying if more of us did something measurable, sustainable, replayable and amplifiable instead of offering a token gesture of support or awareness just in passing.

Success requires an all-in approach and with sustained effort over a lifetime.  It doesn’t happen with the purchase of a pink shirt or a few pithy tweets on one day of the year.

I think next year, I will run off a pile of pink shirts in support of bully awareness (hmmmm …. is there anyone NOT aware or NOT touched by bullying now?).

I will run off a few variations, including women’s awareness, gay awareness, immigrant awareness and the like.

I will hire homeless or battered women to distribute them.

A few corporate or celebrity endorsements will give my campaign instant credibility.

And when the campaign is over, I will send the shirts I don’t sell to a destitute village in South America.

That should cover enough feel-good causes to get me excellent media coverage and set me up to look like a “hero”.

Maybe some nice posters and a You Tube video that makes you cry would come in handy also.

Oh, I forgot. I will use a government grant to accomplish this, so that it doesn’t cost me any money to do it.

Meanwhile, the bullied will continue to suffer.

And the bullies will continue to be “hatched” where they hatch and do what they do in all walks of Life whether it be the school yard, the family home, business, media, social media, the church, government or anywhere else.

Some of the bullied will wear pink because inside they are crying out for help.

Some of the bullied will look upon the campaign and feel sadness or numbness, wondering why the cavalry never came when they needed it.  The campaign doesn’t relieve their pain and so means nothing.

And some of the bullies will wear pink and call upon the rest of us to do better while either feigning ignorance when they wish they knew where bullying stems from or espousing the fact that we are “winning the war”.

We can choose nice words ….

We can suggest inspiring actions …

But it is the measurable results that are the only thing that matter and not a pile of words and feel-good suggestions.

As the insightful George Carlin once said:

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

What truths to we conceal with the attaboy approach to solving problems like bullying or anything else?

Why do you think this is ?

The scourge of things such as bullying have deep, wide and pervasive ramifications on society.

The only way to negate things like this is to make sure that the solution is equally deep, wide and pervasive …. or even more so.

What should we do about it?

When do you think we should start?

How about now?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS A humorous story that happened to me some years ago.  I was driving in front of a driver one day who was particularly unhappy with my interest in driving the speed limit and every time we stopped on a red light, his displeasure was obvious in the way he was gesturing at me in my rear-view mirror.

At one red light, his anger finally overcame him and he stepped out of his vehicle.  Seeing him approach me from behind, I unbuckled my seatbelt.  He yanked open my door, reached in and grabbed me.  Being a big guy (6’3”, 220 pounds) I “assisted him” as he pulled me out of my car.

Having done so, he now found himself looking up at me, realizing that he was no longer within the isolated, safe confines of his vehicle.  He was also confronted with the realization that the person he chose to intimidate was in fact very intimidating himself.

We were just two men staring at each other.  After a few moments of silence, I spread my hands out and said “Well?”.

He was speechless and quickly returned his vehicle.

Bullying when the victim is unknown, when the long term impact is unknown or in this case, when attempted from the safety of distance, is a much different animal than when the bully is confronted with the realities of the situation – present or future.

The Story of Cakemix MacIsaac

I often stick my beak into things that seem to be none of my business.  This morning found me interacting with some school administrators as I expressed concern over some stories that I had heard regarding how a certain teacher ran their classroom.

Everything I do is with purpose and my action this morning was no different.

But to explain why I stuck my beak into this situation, I need to rewind the clock almost 40 years to tell you the story of Cakemix MacIsaac.

Back when I was in elementary school, corporal punishment, intimidation and humiliation were the norm and not the exception in schools. 

I’m referring to the conduct of the teachers, not the students.

Schoolmates were rapped across the knuckles with the yardstick because they wrote left-handed.

Many of us, including myself, had a turn or two in the Dunce’s Chair, wearing the hat and sitting on a chair while being taunted by our fellow classmates (at the encouragement of the teacher) because we had turned in a piece of work that did not meet the teacher’s expectations.

And then there was Bob MacIsaac (not his real name).

Bob had a slight speech impediment and learned differently than we did and so he was often picked on by his classmates. 

It’s easy to say that cruelty on the part of such kids is typical of kids.  However, it is a learned behavior …. they learn such behavior from us.

But I digress.

One day Bob turned in an assignment that was completely messed up.  It was one of those “pick a word from a list of words and fill in the blanks” type of assignment and he filled the words into the blanks in the order that they were on the list, missing the point of the exercise.

It’s intriguing to me that the mistakes he made are as vivid to me now as they were 40 years ago.  For example, instead of writing “I tan in the sun”, he wrote “I broil in the sun”.

Our teacher singled his assignment out and read each sentence out loud to the classroom to the sounds of guffaws and hysterical laughter.  A classmate of mine yelled out “It sounds like a cake mix, Miss” and our teacher replied “You’re right.  From now on we will call him Cakemix”.

He was humiliated beyond words.  Even as a very young person, I could see the pain in his face.

The name never left him.

Neither did the pain.

Even as adults, people still remember him as Cakemix MacIsaac.

And every time he is referred to as Cakemix, I know the humiliation he felt 40 years ago returns as sharply now as it did then.

Many of us overcome the taunting, bullying and humiliation that takes place in our childhood and we move on to create lives of purpose and positive impact.  I went from being a class Dunce to founding and IPOing companies in NYC. 

Some of us can leverage such a background to propel ourselves towards success.

But some people don’t - not every kid moves on from such humiliation.

In fact, for some it becomes a millstone around their neck that lives with them forever.

Bob is one of those people.  He never recovered any sense of self-confidence to accomplish much in his Life.

It wasn’t his fault alone.

It wasn’t his teacher’s fault alone.

It was OUR fault.

We all own the responsibility, the credit AND the blame for what society produces.

Our choices matter

We can’t choose to save every person that we meet nor are we required to.

However, we can choose not to intentionally set them back also.

Children may not know the difference.

But we do.

And they will model what we do.

Modeling what we do is where real education occurs and is also the most impactful and the most long-lasting.

What kind of model are you being today?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum: November 29, 2012

I do want to add that by way of this post, I am not diminishing the effort put forward by the MANY great, committed educators in our education system and the positive impact that they have on our lives and society-at-large.

My example was solely to demonstrate the impact that someone of influence can have when they are the wrong type of role model and is not directed at teachers specifically or in general.  I have too much respect for our educators to collectively disrespect them.

Mitt Romney, Bullies and Red Herrings

As news of acts of alleged bullying carried out by Mitt Romney almost fifty years ago makes its way through the media, once again we set an example to our children by demonstrating that acts of hatred in our past are best answered by messages of vehement hatred in the present.

And once again, we never have a dialog around the real issues since getting our opinion (especially negative ones) expressed is more important than getting to core truths.

Especially if the core truths ring closer to home than many of us want to admit.

As a kid growing up just outside St. John’s, Newfoundland, I was bullied throughout school and college.  In the early years, it was the typical pushing and shoving, the verbal taunts and the occasional torn item of clothing and such.  I lived in fear of my bullies and did everything I could to avoid situations where they would be.

In high school (Queen Elizabeth Regional High School in Foxtrap), the bullying took on a new flavor.  From 1978 to 1981, I was routinely mock raped at the hands of fellow male classmates, usually in the changing room prior to and after gym class.

In these mock rapes, seven or eight boys would hold me down while others would take turns “humping me”.  Sorry – there is no easier, less graphic way of describing it.

I never reported it to anyone – it was too humiliating to admit it and this is the first time I have admitted it publicly.

The boys who did this to me for years are now well-known, successful businessmen in St. John’s, Newfoundland and area.

Don’t worry guys – I’m not about to out you.  Revenge is not a dish that I savor.

As a young boy (and young man), I felt many emotions – fear, shame, anger – all tangled up in a ball that took a lot of years to unravel and understand.

In speaking to someone “in the know” a few years ago, it was revealed to me that many of these boys were the victims of verbal, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their fathers.

And this revelation gave me a different perspective.

While it would be easy to look back upon the events that Little Harry was experiencing and feel hatred or the need for revenge (after all, it would be easy to name the antagonists here and watch their lives fall apart), I now look upon the antagonists, I feel their pain and I see the reason for their actions.

They were finding outlets to release the pain they were accumulating at the hands of someone else – outlets that weren’t fair to me but it was the best they could come up with at that stage in their life development.

So instead of feeling hatred towards them, I feel sadness for the pain that they were feeling then (and possibly still feeling) and I offer forgiveness.

The Bottom Line

My point is that oftentimes, we see the bully and their actions and we immediately begin thinking of punishment and retribution.

Instead, if we examine their activities with a true understanding of cause and effect and we really get to know what is feeding their actions, then we will get to the core reasons for their behavior.

Maybe when this becomes our focus, we will then be able to cut the cycle of violence (and the long-term negative impact) that makes up the world of bullying and allow healing to take place for the bully as well as the bullied.

The truth is that many (perhaps most) bullies have been victims in their lifetime also.

I can’t speak to the Romney situation.  As with 99.999% of people who have such a strong opinion on the matter, neither they nor I were there when the incidents allegedly took place and so our opinions on THAT matter are irrelevant.

However, instead of putting our energy into the red herring that is that event, let’s take a closer look at what is going on around us (or perhaps within us).

And let’s do something about that.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS Many of the boys described in this blog are gay.  They were closet gay then but openly gay now.  Their bullying behavior had nothing to do with their orientation but came as a result of being abused at home.  When I see legislatures describe the need to protect LBGTQ people from abuse by others (especially in schools), I counter with this thought:

All people should be protected from abuse by others, regardless of the attributes of the victim or the antagonist.

To set aside one group as being especially vulnerable lifts that group to special status while suggesting that other victims of abuse don’t matter.

And as in my situation, the original abuse of the bully occurred at home – abuse that they replayed on others in school.  Legislation targeted at schools don’t reach people at home where the seeds of encouragement and destruction are equally prevalent and relevant.

Respect transcends all differentiating factors.  When we get used to seeing each other as human beings without “special designation”, we will move closer towards respecting each other as human beings overall.