I am highly opposed to bullying, by adults and kids. I’m always a fan of karma coming back to bite those who choose to use their life to belittle, torture or ostracize others. I also am a fan of kindness and compassion and going out of your way to be nice to someone who seems lonely, different or shy. Let’s face it, we can always use more kindness in this world. That being said, I’m frustrated by the meme that’s circling on Facebook that talks about “Walking Up” instead of “Walking out”, as in walk up and talk to the kid in the corner who’s all alone. Again, I don’t disagree that it’s good to reach out to someone who feels like they are lost and left out. However, this meme is in response to the most recent school shooting at Parkland. I like many others, have been curious as to how this young man turned into a killing machine. How did the world go so wrong for him to have turned out this way? So I’ve read every article I could find on this man’s life. There was one story that had been written after interviewing his adopted Mom’s neighbor. She saw that, even when he was a toddler, he had issues with anger and violence. She was nice to him, and her son was friends with him. She would even feed him sometimes when he didn’t get fed at home. But as he grew she saw more and more signs of a deeper personality problem, to the point where she finally told her son not to hang out with him anymore because she was concerned for his safety. He gave off that vibe. It was not an “I’m different” vibe, it was a scary “I’m dangerous” vibe. A vibe more like, “If you piss me off, I will kill you” kind of vibe. I would rather we teach our kids to be kind to everyone and go the extra mile to reach out to the shy outsiders but to also teach them to trust their gut instincts! Especially in the #metoo era, I think it’s important for kids to know when they feel something isn’t right and act accordingly. Now by “accordingly” I don’t mean bully the kid who obviously scares the crap out of you. I mean don’t talk to them, about them, or call them out. Report them to authorities (as did many of his peers) and then leave it be.
I don’t want to talk in generalities, but some of the people I see posting this meme, or similar ones about befriending people who are alone and different, are also the ones who think our youth are “snowflakes” who get offended easily and should just learn to tough it out. Well, it seems to me that you can’t have it both ways. If kids should tough it out and take the bullying, because that’s just life, then some will get pissed off and go shoot people. Otherwise, we should have the “bullying awareness education”, elevate kids’ on how to be aware of what offends people, and how it’s not acceptable be a jerk and hurt people with what you say.
I know that sometimes people get offended by comments of others who aren’t aware of an offensive term. Should one go ballistic if it was an unintentional offense or slight though? Who can say how offensive it came across except the individual who heard it. And different individuals will have different levels of tolerance to such things. Some will say something and politely explain the problem, some will scream angrily, some will cry, some will stay silent and, maybe later decide to make a very deadly response.
So we keep volleying the “snowflake” term back and forth, which stymies any progress and unity that could occur. If you call me a snowflake it’s because you are snowflake yourself and can’t stand hearing the truth that I speak- that is the message.
I don’t know what I’m asking here. Maybe just that we empower our youth to be themselves, to be confident in who they are, to judge others less, to try to understand others so that you don’t end up offending them (because offending someone is NOT a good thing. If you ever find yourself celebrating the fact that you “triggered” someone, you need to take a serious look at why that makes you feel good or why that would be your goal. Even if the person is a total asshole who likes to trigger others, wouldn’t a celebration happen if they were moved to rethink their position? Triggering them will only make them double down on any perceived idiocy.) but also follow your gut. All my worst decisions have come when I didn’t follow my gut. Wish I’d have realized that at a much younger age!
The Parkland shooting was not caused by the students. They knew he was dangerous and logically stayed away from him. It was caused by a person who had psychological issues.
The issue of mental illness is another whole topic as far as I’m concerned. There was a show I watched that was called “Most Evil” on the Discovery Channel. I found it interesting because it seemed like there were so many instances where, as children, had someone stepped in to stop the abuse, neglect or dysfunctional family situations, maybe these people wouldn’t have turned into killers. Our community only sees what it wants to see sometimes. We turn a blind eye so that we don’t have to get involved, put ourselves in possible danger, or attract drama to our lives. I’m not saying it’s always or everyone because know there are people out there who are kicking ass and taking names every day. But all it takes is one child to slip through the cracks and we may have a future killer on our hands. There aren’t a lot of details out there on the Parkland shooter’s life, but for starters, he didn’t have his biological parents, lost his adopted Dad when he was young, was raised by what seemed like a stressed-out single mom who locked the food cabinets because she needed to ration it. Then he lost his adopted mom as well. Since I can’t speak for anyone else, I’ll just say that his life sucked A LOT more than mine and most of the people I know. Add a mental illness on top of that, a system of community support that failed him and you have a recipe for disaster.
There’s my rant, bad grammar and all. Love each other, people!
