Where are All the Bullies?

We are constantly hearing about cases of bullying all over the world. Constantly hearing of children mocked for their weight, sexuality, grades, skin, off brand clothes or whatever the “sin” of the day is.

It seems that many of us were the victims of playground torment (or in some cases, much much worse).

But where are all the bullies? Where are these casual tormentors?

Well, one of them is right here.  I was one of those kids who made someone (or many someones) else’s life miserable.

I am not proud of it and I have no excuses for what I’ve done.

But I am sorry.  I am genuinely sorry for my words and actions to those I felt I had power over.

I’m sorry if my words are the words you have burned into your memory or if I made coming to school everyday a challenge.

However, I can’t take it back.

That’s the thing with words; once they are said, they exist. There is no way for them to disappear. And to be honest, that’s why we use them, or at least I do. Words have a lasting sting and can be our most violent weapon. The saying goes sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  And as much as I want that to be true, we all know that it’s not; thick-skinned or not, words get built into our identities, brick by brick, building walls that take years to scale.

And it’s not okay.

If we are going to start to tackle this bullying epidemic, it is not enough to share our stories of our own torment and consistently say, “It gets better”.  That is not helpful. All it does is show that things haven’t changed. Things haven’t gotten better. While they might have gotten better for you, clearly bullying hasn’t changed (or has changed for the worse).

We have to condemn the actions and how can we condemn something we’ve taken part in without admitting to ourselves that we are a part of the problem?

It’s hard to say I was a bully. It’s hard to look at yourself and admit that you were wrong. Especially years later. It’s easy to sit there and think, oh they’ve gotten over it by now. And even if they have, it doesn’t make it okay.

We have to take responsibility for our part in fostering an environment where bullying can exist; whether you were the aggressor, the one who laughed along with your friends, or the one who didn’t say anything when you saw something that you knew wasn’t right.

We must be more conscious. We must be more honest in our conversations about bullying. We must understand that we’ve created this epidemic, it didn’t just appear out of nothing; it come to be from denial, lack of responsibility, and carelessness.

Only then can we start to take action.