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The It Get's Better is a disempowering load of crap.
Really? Is the message for our bullied youth "We know you are helpless, so just sit it out and hope it gets betters some time in the future if you haven't been beaten to death in the meantime!"? I don't think so. Why isn't the message something like this, "Organize, document, demand action."
When I was in eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, I was bullied in school. Even had my arm broken by the bully in eighth grade. (No action was taken against the bully.) I could see no options at all. No options were offered up by the adults charged with my education and protection. In those days, there were no "tolerance" clubs or school activities promoting tolerance. Mostly, the authorities chocked it all up to "boys will be boys" and "they will grow out of it."
RARELY do bullies stop bullying. I haven't been physically attacked by bullies in 50ish years. That does not mean I haven't been bullied and gay bashed. Unsurprisingly, the bullies always have the same adolescent swaggering and language. (Read the signs held up by the WBC idiots to see my point.) Waiting it out is not a solution. It is depressing as hell. Wait it out? Most teens -- in fact, most people -- have the subconscious view that the way it is now is the way it will always be with a faint hope that something might change. Waiting it out, as a response, just makes the helpless feelings grow and grow.
The solution is to teach, mentor, and encourage young people HOW to take responsibility for the circumstances in their lives. In the case of bullying, and other forms of discrimination, one solution is for the bullied to band together, organize, document and demand action.
How much history do we need to study before we figure out that oppression never changes without significant ACTION by the oppressed. It does not get better until the victims of bullying and abuse stand up in mass and do something about it. Telling our stories to each other might feel like action, but it accomplishes little. You want bullying to stop? Stop being bullied. Get loud enough and bullies might hear something that changes their attitudes. Maybe. But they aren't going to have any revelations on their own.
Organize, document, demand action. Add that to "It Gets Better" and I'll be more inclined to play in that game.
In the meantime thetaskforce.org.and Center for Partnership Studiesl
Really? Is the message for our bullied youth "We know you are helpless, so just sit it out and hope it gets betters some time in the future if you haven't been beaten to death in the meantime!"? I don't think so. Why isn't the message something like this, "Organize, document, demand action."
When I was in eighth, ninth, and tenth grades, I was bullied in school. Even had my arm broken by the bully in eighth grade. (No action was taken against the bully.) I could see no options at all. No options were offered up by the adults charged with my education and protection. In those days, there were no "tolerance" clubs or school activities promoting tolerance. Mostly, the authorities chocked it all up to "boys will be boys" and "they will grow out of it."
RARELY do bullies stop bullying. I haven't been physically attacked by bullies in 50ish years. That does not mean I haven't been bullied and gay bashed. Unsurprisingly, the bullies always have the same adolescent swaggering and language. (Read the signs held up by the WBC idiots to see my point.) Waiting it out is not a solution. It is depressing as hell. Wait it out? Most teens -- in fact, most people -- have the subconscious view that the way it is now is the way it will always be with a faint hope that something might change. Waiting it out, as a response, just makes the helpless feelings grow and grow.
The solution is to teach, mentor, and encourage young people HOW to take responsibility for the circumstances in their lives. In the case of bullying, and other forms of discrimination, one solution is for the bullied to band together, organize, document and demand action.
How much history do we need to study before we figure out that oppression never changes without significant ACTION by the oppressed. It does not get better until the victims of bullying and abuse stand up in mass and do something about it. Telling our stories to each other might feel like action, but it accomplishes little. You want bullying to stop? Stop being bullied. Get loud enough and bullies might hear something that changes their attitudes. Maybe. But they aren't going to have any revelations on their own.
Organize, document, demand action. Add that to "It Gets Better" and I'll be more inclined to play in that game.
In the meantime thetaskforce.org.and Center for Partnership Studiesl
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