Never OK: Efforts to discourage bullying are hampered by mixed messages

It's a simple rule, really -- treat others the way you would want to be treated.

It's a message we teach to our kids and one we hope they abide by. But bullying is pervasive in our culture, and sometimes the mixed messages our children receive can be confusing.

Sure, no one wants to be pushed around, have their books knocked out of their hand, to be denied a seat on the bus or at the lunch table.

But look beyond that.

We have a president who incessantly tweets insults at his rivals or slights those he doesn't agree with by giving them unflattering nicknames. That's bullying.

We have an advertising industry that constantly reinforces through television and print the idea that, if you can't afford to buy product X you aren't cool, beautiful, thin or sexy enough. That's bullying.

When we see politicians or political pundits on TV who disagree with one another, the attacks quickly shift from policy to one telling the other he or she is "un-American" or "not a true patriot." That's bullying.

According to information found on the Pacer's National Bullying Prevention Center website, www.pacer.org, more than one out of every five students experiences bullying, but 64 percent of students who have been bullied do not report it.

And before anyone gives in to the impulse to bully us over this editorial, with remarks about our being "overly PC" or us requiring a "safe space" to retreat to, consider this: 57 percent of bullying situations do stop once a peer intervenes. So there is something to be said for not blindly accepting bullying as an inconsequential fact of life.

Bullying can lead to anxiety, depression, drug and alcohol use and even suicide. But according to the studies documented on Pacer's website, it is not just the victims who suffer these consequences, it is often the bullies who suffer from or develop mental illness as a result.

So, while we tell our kids to abide by the Golden Rule, the culture that surrounds us screams the opposite.

That's because adults bully each other too. Maybe all the mass shootings, the sexual misconduct cases, the president's tweets, the 24-hour cable news and sports entertainment programs with panels of "experts" screaming at and insulting each other are the best examples of the worst behaviors we as adults sometimes exhibit.

And so, as ludicrous as it all seems, maybe while we are reteaching powerful men in this country that it is not OK to force themselves on women -- especially in the workplace -- we should also remind ourselves that it is never OK to pick on or ridicule someone who cannot or will not defend themselves just because he or she might be different from us.

Published in Editorials on December 10, 2017 8:20 PM