Our children: Bullies, suicide and sadness-For what it’s worth.
Read Time:1 Minute, 43 Second
There are some stories that need to be told time and again. This is one of those stories and the reason why I am republishing it. I thank you for your indulgence and urge you to be patient with this video.
I’m offering up this video below of a Fort Worth City Council Meeting on Tuesday (yesterday) as a furthering of the discussion inspired by the guest post by Mystal. That post made me think a lot about how the turbulence of adolescence is made violent and unnecessarily difficult by cowards who are compelled to pick on people just because they think they can get away with it. There’s a lot of “get over it” talk with regard to the current American focus on bullying by the media.
I thought that way too as I read Mystal’s post, -until I started remembering, in vivid detail, how much older, much bigger kids chased down my friends and I, because we were small, or skinny, or smart, or Hispanic… the reasons never really matter, and I realized that the only thing thing that gave me the perspective today as a 40-something-year-old that allowed me to say something along the lines of “it’s just part of growing up” was the safe distance of years.
If someone even attempted to do to me today, what one kid in third grade did to me in 1977, I’d get a gun. Period. Bullying isn’t about building character, bullies aren’t trying to toughen anybody up. They, even the youngest and smallest of them, are cowards who are entertaining themselves. It is as impossible to know how far a bully will go, as it is to know what the consequences will be.
I’m not proposing a world made of nerf, or some politically correct alternate universe where nobody curses, just an unqualified acknowledgement that this is wrong.
It always has been.
On a final note, Texas takes quite a beating on this blog network and many others. So today I tip my hat to Forth Worth.
Go Texas.
-SJ
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What a good job, SJ~! Good work!
Good for him, having the courage in Texas to do this for kids. I guess Dan Savage and his little “It gets Better” project, is hitting home for a lot of people. I’ll bet he didn’t know when he started it a few weeks ago, that it would go as far as it has in such a short while.
If you haven’t already, go check out you tube and the it gets better videos, some of them are heart wrenching but so full of hope for young LGBT and bullied children everywhere.
SJ I really want to thank you for posting this. This man has tremendous courage and fortitude to out himself this way for the sake of others.
Yeah Lazer man, it’s frankly staggering to for me watch this guy break down.
It took real courage to put himself into the issue like this and just give out his phone number.
If more of our politicians also allowed themselves to remember and consider the poor, the jobless with such direct humanity and compassion, a lot would be done to fix the country.
-SJ
As one who has lost a child I get this. As one who has responded, albeit years ago, to calls that involved the death of children as a result of bullying, I get this. It makes me sad that I get this. Is it right that I get this? Tell me. Please tell me.
Mike my friend,
You suffered such a terrible loss,all we can offer is empathy. It’s to your credit as a human being that many years ago you took suffering to heart. You still take suffering to heart, and combined with your personal loss that is a heavy burden.
If it means anything, maybe that willingness to feel so deeply gives you the ability to love and care more deeply for others too.
Be well my friend.
Thanks for reposting Mad Mike. This video is taking off virally across the internet and appropriately so. One of my actors, Michael Micalizzi posted it on Facebook and shared it with me the day of and I thought I should bring it here, where it would doubtlessly be understood and appreciated.
Thanks for all you do with this blog network Mad Mike.
-SJ
Humanity sucks – but at least some of humanity try to change it. Very very sad.
in Fort Worth no less.
Thank you to Joel Burns who is doing a brave and decent thing in the face of possible political backlash! That was a very touching video. I wish he was a councilman here. The world needs more people like him.
I’m very glad it was taped and uploaded.
What courage. Great post SJ.I believe that will help some people.
Still can’t fully embed video players at times… weird.
Got it to embed for you SJ.
You’re a gentleman and a scholar Holte.
I think it’s a firewall problem on my side of things. Sometimes it’ll embed no problem, sometimes it just remains a link.
-SJ