It’s not a “rite of passage” for the young, nor something you forget when you’re older. It’s not just the boys; it’s girls, too. It’s not a national problem; it’s an international scar on societies.
Sometimes for the disabled, it’s deadly. Ask Brenda High, or Bethany James, or Roger Dean Kiser.
The Times in London reported how Bethany James, 15, thought she would die during a beating by two fellow schoolgirls who attacked her like “wild animals.” A photograph of Bethany, of Bradford, England, taken by her mother illustrated the problem of school bullying, disabled or not.
It took three adults two attempts to stop her attackers, who continued at a community college as the school argued the attack happened away from school grounds. One attacker asked Bethany if she could borrow her cell phone; when she refused, the beating began.
Tony the BullHealth experts have often stressed disabled people can be “more vulnerable than others to various forms of abuse, not only physical abuse such as hitting but also emotional abuse such as bullying.”
Boys as bullies or as victims may have more mental disorders as young men, a Finnish study found: Boys who bullied habitually were “more likely than peers to have antisocial disorders as young men and be aggressive or violent.” Boys who were perpetrators/victims had more antisocial disorders in adulthood.
A recent study found women who are sexually abused are treated even more harshly if they have a disability. A study commissioned by the American Association of University Women found “sexual harassment—and the bullying it entails—is pervasive. Whether words or actions, it upsets and affects everyday lives.”
Kiser, of Brunswick, Ga., has on a shelf above his office desk almost two dozen DVDs he’s made. “Every one of them, in some form or another, has been affected by bullying, so I’m probably not over it,” he says. Kiser is 62, and still recalls “Tony the Bull,” the seventh grade bully.
When Jack Gillrup became Disabled Services Director for Jacksonville, Fla. (almost all of Duval County), “my office was in an old office building NOT in a great neighborhood in those days. One morning, I went to the bathroom and while standing in front of a toilet heard someone come up behind me in the stall. He forced me to sit back in my wheelchair, got me in a choke hold, and said, ’Give me your money and your watch or I’ll KILL you’.”
He stripped Jack’s watch and repeated the wallet demand. “I pulled it out and tossed it into the next stall, hoping to draw him away. As he left, I drew my 22-caliber derringer. Before I could turn and face the stall door, he was back and leaped for the gun. He had to reach over my chair and could only get a grip on my forearms. Seeing he was unarmed, I twisted around partially and attempted a shot at him over my shoulder. The report was deafening, but I heard him howl in pain or surprise and he jumped away from me and was out the door in seconds.”
Within minutes, police took Jack’s statement. “They examined my Florida Concealed Weapons permit, and assured me I wasn’t in trouble for discharging a firearm in self-defense. After careful examination, they determined no one was injured by the projectile and discovered I drilled a spare roll of toilet paper dead-center. I had only scared the mugger, but no one ever bothered me in that neighborhood again.”
Bullying has moved from the schoolyard to the Internet: 33 percent of U.S. online teenagers have been cyber-bullying victims, the Pew Internet Project found. The frequent complaint is over private information being shared rather than direct threats. Girls were more likely than boys to be targets, and teens who share their identities online are the most vulnerable, the survey found. As more young people join sites such as MySpace and Facebook, they open themselves and personal information to more people.
We disabled don’t choose to be disabled, to endure discrimination or lack of sensitivity from the non-disabled. It’s a challenging life being treated as different. Whether it’s Aspergers or MS, disabilities draw attention and sometimes bullying. Dr. Andrew Kind-Rubin, chief clinical officer of Child Guidance Resource Centers based in Havertown, Penna., says “research shows [victims] evidence significantly lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, anxiety, and greater health problems. Those who bullied were four times as likely to have three or more convictions by age 24.”
It goes from school to the workplace, and Brenda High knows bullying first-hand. Mrs. High, founder and co-director of Bully Police USA Inc., a watchdog organization advocating for bullied children, recalls her son Jared was 12 when older students at his middle school bullied him. He had a learning disability, and trouble hit an apex when a well-known bully assaulted Jared in the gym. After that experience, Jared displayed lack of sleep and emotional outbursts. On Sept. 29, 1998, six days after his 13th birthday, Jared called his father at work to say “good-bye.” During the call, Jared shot himself —and died instantly. For healing, Mrs. High began writing Jared’s Story (brenda@jaredstory.com, www.bullypolice.org), and she has become a “passionate crusader on a mission” to stop bullying and peer abuse, which can lead to bullycide: suicide attributed to bullying.
In the workplace, bullying involves intimidation of another worker, often in view of colleagues, according to Directgov, a British employment Web site states. “It’s usually, though not always, done to someone in a less senior position. It’s making sexual comments or abusing someone’s race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Complaints can be made under discrimination and harassment laws. [You can] speak to a union official, someone in the human resources department, or a manager. “Some employers have specially-trained staff to help with bullying. Write down details of every incident and keep copies of relevant documents. To make a formal complaint, you must follow your employer’s grievance procedure; if one doesn’t exist, you can use a statutory grievance procedure.”
In the U.S., the Disability Rights Section of the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Civil Rights Division Police Response to People with Disabilities has an eight-part series designed for roll-call training. The videotape covers law enforcement situations involving people who have mobility disabilities, mental illnesses, mental retardation, epilepsy or seizure disorders, speech disabilities, deafness or hard of hearing, and blindness, or low vision. The eight segments range from 5½ to 10½ minutes in length.
Brenda High’s Tools include:
The principal admonition of people such as Brenda High is this: If a person is being bullied, tell someone; bullies depend on bystanders’ silence. If someone says he or she is being bullied, pay attention.
Dr. Dan Olweus, seen by many psychologists as a guru, has the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program to “keep victimization from spreading to adulthood.” Based on more than 20 years of study, its goals are to reduce existing bully/victim problems among elementary, middle, and junior high school children; stop new problems; and improve “peer relations that encourage people to respect each other and function better.” Olweus contends his program “isn’t a curriculum, but a comprehensive bullying prevention strategy.”
Family therapist and Philadelphia Inquirer health columnist Dr. Dan Gottlieb, himself in a motorized wheelchair, recently cited a report in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics that 90 percent of elementary school children said they had been bullied or victimized in the last year. “A number of elementary schools around the country have begun the day with meetings where a group of children can simply talk in a relaxed setting. They are taught to listen carefully and respectfully. When there is conflict, each child airs his feelings while the larger group discusses the conflict.”
Dr. Gottlieb notes Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s truth and reconciliation hearings in South Africa, and emphasizes “restorative justice” brings “both parties in front of a group, [where] the aggressor listens as the victim explains how and why he/she was hurt. This gives the person who caused the pain a chance to understand and take responsibility. It gives the injured party an opportunity to forgive. Research shows restorative justice leads to reconciliation and real behavior change. There is evidence that the process can have a healing effect on a larger community—just ask Archbishop Tutu.
The Devil Wears Prada was a spoof that showcased actress Meryl Streep as the fashionable, ruthless, cynical—and bullying—magazine editor Miranda Priestly. In Halifax, Nova Scotia in September, The Daily News reported on a different kind of fashion statement. Kings County High School 12th grader David Shepherd and some classmates donned pink shirts for “a public statement to a group of school bullies harassing and threatening to beat up a 9th grade student who came to his first day at his new school in a pink polo shirt.
The boys set up a giveaway shop in the school lobby. Students grabbed shirts and wore them. Shepherd said, “At a young age, you don’t know the difference between playful teasing and bullying.” Principal Stephen Pearl approved the protest, and noted that although the lead bully wasn’t in school for the protest, Pearl was sure he’d get the message. “Student-driven attention goes a lot further, and he’ll hear about what happened today.”
In his wheelchair, Jacksonville, FL resident Herb Drill writes and edits www.notaccessible.com and heads Able Me & Associates. He was bullied in junior high school.
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