What's up with the bullying at schools today?
I have not commented very much on the bullying issue because I guess that I have been in total shock/disbelief or just did not give a damn. Is it me or has today's society raised a generation of pussy-ass kids? As a child, I grew up in the 'hood' of north Memphis, Tennessee. I went to public schools that were centrally located in inner-city neighborhoods. Children bullying and teasing each other for the clothes they wore and shoes they sported on their feet was almost a daily occurrence. Your parents were even made fun of if other children found anything that could be considered weird about them. However, I can rarely recall a kid bringing a gun to our inner city school to shoot up the place or commit suicide because of being bullied and teased for being different. Even if a bully threatened to kick your ass at the end of school, you would somehow convince your teacher to let you leave class just a few minutes earlier so you could get a good head start home before the final bell rang that ended school for the day. Also, if you were bullied on the school bus, a parent or an older sibling waited at the bus stop where you and the bully both got off to kick the bully's ass. This experience taught the bully that you, the person being bullied, were not along. You had back up. Back then, after you confronted the bully, he/she usually became one of your closest friends for life.
We all knew or either learned that in order to get rid of a bully you had to stand up to the bully the same way he/she was antagonizing you. If the bully was teasing you or "Checkin" you about the clothes you wore to school, you checked him back, but it had to be funny and consistant. I was kind of funny, but very consistant. LOL! If you made the crowd laugh at him loudly, he would move on to some one else. Next, if your bully pushed you around, meaning got physical with you, you got physical with him. You ran home crying maybe once. The next time, you stood toe to toe; win or lose. You always won when stood up regardless of the outcome. You see. The bully thrives off of fear. When you showed the bully that you had, had enough, he backed off. Sometimes, when the bully was bigger than you, well, we got help. Our families (parents, siblings, cousins, friends, etc) got involved. When these people got involved, playtime was over! However, if you were in a situation where your support system was not around, you got help from a rock, a brick, a bat, a stick, a broken bottle on the street, your book bag, a belt buckle anything you could get your hands. When all else failed, you ran home for your life that day. However, the next day you were prepared.
This nonsense going on today is a total mess.Today, kids are committing suicide rather than stand up to a bully. Can you believe this? What a cop out? They even need support groups for being bullied now! Amazing! When I was a kid and a teenager back in the day, we had too much fun at school to want to kill ourselves over being bullied. OUR support group was our families and friends. They supported us by joining us in beating the bullies asses after school. All of this took place in the 'hood' and most of us are still alive today in our late 30s and early forties. What in the hell is going on now? This has to be some integration, suburban bullshit!
Today, kids in the 'hood' don't get down with bullying. Hell, even the gay students in our 'hood' schools back then did not tolerate being bullied. You could call them a faggot or make fun of them for being gay maybe once or twice. However, If you thought you were going to make a school career out of "messing" with them because they were gay, your bubble was quickly burst. They not only told you off (finger snappin, head twirkin and all) they all also kicked your ass in front of the entire school. Every male student knew that it was not cool to get your ass kicked by a gay student at school. So we pretty much left them alone. The gay students in my school existed on their own terms with very little resistance from other students. Yes. They were gay, but they did not play. They were respected. Of course, every once and a while some dooffus who just did not give a damn would attempt to viciously tease or verbally attack one of the gay males in our school. He would first be "read" his rights either in the hallways, the gym or the school cafeteria, wherever the attempted bullying would take place. As usual, the dooffus would get angry after being humiliated by the gay student want to become physical. So, he would get his ass handed to him either in the cafeteria or in front of the school, in front of all the students gathered around for the fight, after the 2:15 bell rang for us to go home.
My heart goes out to the young people who have so far killed themselves because they were bullied. However, I think today's solution for ending school or even neighborhood bullying is all wrong. The anti-bullying PSAs don't work! Movies and commercials about the effects of bullying are non-effective. These suburban parents need to get their heads out of their asses and go up these schools with bail money in the bank with fists a- swingin! I guarantee this will slow some of this bullying down. Next, stop babying these children. Teach them to protect themselves. A bully does not care about your child trying to reach him/her intellectually or therapeutically. He's a bully and your child is not a therapist! Teach your child to kick his bully's ass! Period. Also, teach your child how to "play the dozens" or check. This is how we survived in the 'hood.'
I was always a small child. Hell, I even looked like a toddler in elementary school. I knew when I arrived to junior high school that I could not be bullied. I was too little for this kind of pressure! If I were to have even allowed one bully to mess with me in the 7th-8th grades, the rest of my school years would have been disasterous. So, I nipped the bullying issue in the bud as soon as it came my way. I want to take this time to pay tribute the weapons I used back in the 80's to get the few bullies I had off my back. Thank you afro pick with the Black fist in the middle. When I stabbed that one kid in the chest.. he never bothered me again. Thank you bat and handful of salt. The salt blinded him temporarily as I popped him about three times over the head with the base ball bat. Thank you cup of boiling hot water. This kid was hiding on the side of my house waiting for me to come outside so he couldjump me. I flung the cup of hot water out the door and down his back. He ran yelling and screaming down my driveway with steam coming from the back of his very hot and wet shirt.
Finally, thank you to the pair of Traxx tennis shoes that I wore in the 8th grade. These sneakers had cleetes at the bottom of them. One forceful swap across the face of this bully (which left cleete marks and dents in his face) not only got the bully off my back, but I also gained a new friend for life. Some reading this post may not agree with the methods I used and many other children used back then to end bullying in our lives, but it sure beats suffering in silence to the point of wanting to kill myself the way that so many children in the suburbs today have obviously chosen to do instead of fighting back to back their lives. Fighting back sure helped me and hundreds of others to be here today healthy, happy and bully free. :)
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