Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns and I probably might not see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but last night at a City Council meeting, Mr. Burns shared his personal experience as a gay teenager dealing with bullying. He shared in response to a recent group of teen suicides and his twofold plea needs to be heard.
First of all, he pleaded for the kids who feel excluded and persecuted to hang in there: "Life will get better." Offering his own life as proof, Burns encouraged youths to look beyond the painful present. Then he asked for the adults around these kids to be sensitive and encouraging to them.
One of the cruel facts of adolescence is that some kids seem to shoot into adulthood while others take a bit longer. Some thirteen year olds are shaving and singing bass while kids the same age are still waiting for that growth spurt. Dr. James Dobson talks about the terror of communal showers after middle and high school gym class. In some of his earlier writings he pleaded with schools to provide private showers to avoid the problem. Kids can be cruel. I know. I went to an all boys high school in the mid sixties. The bullying could be merciless. I saw it from both ends. Usually the tough guys who were bigger would harass the ones they percieved as weaker. 'Lord of the Flies' was more than an academic excercise for us.
I got bullied by some guys early in my high school career. One guy was at me constantly, a tough cowboy type who finally pushed me too far in the lunch line one day. I rared back and punched him for all I was worth. He threw me over a table. [I wish I had a video of it]. We became good friends in the week of detention that followed. My senior year found me high enough in the food chain to actually enjoy high school for a change. That's how our Dads wanted things to work out.
Back then adults pretty much took a hands-off approach to bullying and things usually worked themselves out as everybody matured -- or it seemed like they did. Gradually we learned to appreciate each other as unique individuals. Some of the tough guys even got me to draw pictures for them. We learned to like things about each other.
But somehow that metamorphosis isn't happening for a lot of kids today. Bullying has gone viral in cyberspace and some kids never get past their peers' judgement. Teen suicide is epidemic.
If you believe in the concept of imago dei, that each individual is made in the image of G-d, this is simply not acceptable. Also, if you study how Jesus related to the Samarian woman at the well it becomes clear that he might not have approved of everything she did, but he valued her as a person.
That is the challenge before us. We must create a culture of respect that extends beyond those we normally associate with. Common courtesy should be prerequisite to the discussions of differences which we should be able to have. As adults who work with adolescents, we need to first model it and then demand it. If we believe Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are G-d given rights, we can do no less.
My daughter was bullied at school by the same mean boy EVERY day for at least a couple years. EVERY morning she awakened to such a dark sense of dread that caused her to not want to go to school. Yet she bravely went, and endured his constant torment of humiliation and degradation. This happened EVERY day, and she never told me about it until a few years later.
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