A Bully Pulpit

I was significantly bullied only once, a few weeks after enrolling at Santa Monica High School, where I knew no one. I was still a pipsqueak, and timid, as I’d been through childhood. Waiting for PE to begin, a kid who exuded menace, an auto shop type with greasy hair and tobacco on his breath, threw handfuls of sod at me. I, with colossal injudiciousness, threw them back. He chased me, and tried to feed me the sod.

It was only a few months ago, 47 years after the fact, that I realized I’d had the option of biting off one of his fingers. I’d surely have been ridiculed as crazy and a dirty fighter in some quarters, but I suspect no one would have thought to fuck with me ever again. (Not that anyone really did, largely, I think, because I was too much a wallflower even to be noticed.)

Some people fight back reflexively, without hesitation, using whatever weapons are at hand, and some don’t. Regardless of how bright or charming or gorgeous they may be, those in the latter group get bullied. The only thing common to all bullied kids the world over is simply that they allow it.

In this regard, I’m in awe of Keith Richards, who's tiny and frail — and apparently absolutely fearless. There’s a wonderful YouTube video of him unstrapping his guitar and using it as cricket bat against some idiot who’d somehow gotten on stage and was making a run at him while he was performing with the Rolling Stones. You or I might have thought that the idiot might have a knife, or be on PCP or something, and let a security guard or roadie handle it. But Keith looks delighted by the prospect of braining the guy. And wasn’t it his kicking a mouthy fan in the face that precipitated the riot in Glasgow from which the Stones barely escaped with their lives early in their career? You or I might have thought, “Well, the guy’s taunting me, but there are about eight of us, counting roadies, and a few thousand of them, so taunt away, Jock.”

So now the US Department of Health and Human Services has a Website devoted to bullying, and what a lot of perfectly disastrous advice it offers! “So you're being bullied, huh? That can feel pretty awful. But, no matter how bad it makes you feel sometimes, you should know you're not alone. That's right...there are plenty of kids all over the world who go through the same things you do every day.” Whoopee! Can you imagine what an enormous consolation that must be to a kid who’s being humiliated every day at school?

“Always tell an adult. It's hard to talk about serious things with adults sometimes, but they can help put a stop to bullying.” Oh, great idea, Department, except for the fact that probably the one thing worse than being seen as a punk is being seen as a punk who snitches.

“Stay in a group. If you spend more time with other kids, you may not be an easy 'target' and you'll have others around to help you if you get into a difficult situation!” This would work only if the group you make yourself part of comprised a couple of bloodthirsty badasses. When my daughter was in fourth grade, and I was volunteering a lot at her school, I encouraged three of her timid boy classmates to stick together for self-protection. What a rotten idea it turned out to be. Confident that none would actually offer any physical resistance, the school bullies began tormenting the trio far more than they would have any one of the three on his own. Look how bad I am, intimidating three at a time!

"Tell the person bullying you that you don't like it and that they should stop! Keep it simple. You might just say, "Cut it out, Miranda!", and then walk away." Boy, that would solve the problem, wouldn’t it? Miranda probably wouldn’t show her face again after learning that you “don’t like it.”

Our tax dollars at work!