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I'm taking an interlude between anti-Semitism
installments to write about my recent public
appearances on the subject of bullying. The first
is my experience on the Larry Elder Show. The
second was the Committee of Youth Officers
conference held in the Canadian city of Niagara
Falls.
The Larry Elder Show
As you may know from my previous mailings, I was
brought to Los Angeles several weeks ago to
appear as an expert on bullying for the Larry
Elder TV Show. Despite the expense they went
through to fly me to California and put me up at
a fancy hotel, they kept me in the front row of
the audience and left me about five minutes at
the end of the show to present my ideas . Larry
Elder did not talk to me at all before the show,
and he obviously did not read my new book,
Bullies to Buddies: How to turn your enemies
into friends, though the producers were provided
with it.
There is nothing particularly strange about
this, but the unfortunate thing is that if
Larry Elder had had any advance awareness of my
views, he would probably have loved them, and he
would have handled the show very differently. A
few months ago, after being originally contacted
about appearing on the show, I bought a copy of
Larry Elder's book, The Ten Things You Can't Say
in America. It blew me away! His political views
are identical to my psychological views. He is a
great believer in
individual responsibility, and that people
themselves, rather than the government, can best
be relied on to handle their own lives. His
first chapter, in fact, deals with the victim
mentality, and that this mentality is what is
holding Blacks back in the US (Larry Elder is
Black). And it is my view that the victim
mentality, rather than bullying, is what we
need to be combatting.
But what did Larry Elder do on his show? Did his
approach to relationships reflect his political
philosophy? Not at all. He simply did the same
bully-bashing you will find on all the other TV
shows. He interviewed two sets of kids who were
bothering each other, accompanied by their
mothers. He tried desperately to identify who
the "real bully" is in each pair. This proved
futile as each child/mother pair accused
the other of being the real bully. Throughout
the show, Larry said how terrible it is to
insult each other, and tried to get them to
apologize, as though that is going to put and end
of their conflicts. He concluded the show by
proclaiming that if kids are being bullied, they
should go for help to their parents, the school
authorities and, if necessary, involve the legal
authorities. On huge screens the show promoted
the hysteria about bullying by announcing things
like "77% of students are victims of verbal,
physical, or psychological bullying."
Larry Elder can't, of course, be an expert in
every topic on which he does a show. His shows
are created by young producers who find the
guests and prepare questions for Larry to
ask. Larry comes in and follows the instructions
prepared for him. I just think it's a shame that
a courageous and original thinker like Larry
Elder missed an opportunity to present a new
view about bullying that is actually consistent
with his own philosophy of life instead of
parroting what everyone else is doing.
Read Previous Newsletters
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COYO Conference |
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On February 24th, I spoke at the annual
conference of COYO (Committee of Youth Officers)
of Ontario, Canada, for the mental health and
law enforcement communities. Bullying obviously
remains a hot topic. Both mornings
started out with films informing us of the
horrors of bullying. We were informed that
physical injuries heal, but emotional injuries
last forever.
This is important new information.
Based on this, we should take down our shingles. I
always thought that psychotherapy exists so we
can help with emotional healing and promote
resilience. But since we now know that emotional
injury lasts forever, we have
been wasting our time!
Personally, my emotions
get hurt much more often than my body does, and
I seem to get over most emotional pains within a
couple of hours or days, while my physical pains
need days, weeks, and sometimes months to
disappear (physical healing seems to be taking
longer the older I get).
One film was about the horrors of girls'
"relational aggression." The camera pans in on a
group of cute elementary school girls in the
schoolyard. With sinister "Jaws"-like music
playing in the background, we overhear the girls
deciding who they are going to exclude this
week. The parents of these girls meet regularly
with mental health professionals, trying to
analyze the behavior of their daughters and
figure out which parents are to blame for their
daughters' character defects. The main culprit is
determined to be a petite Asian girl raised by
her adoptive White American parents. Despite her
small size and different appearance, this sharp
child became the leader of the group. She is a
talented, intelligent girl who is liked by both
her teachers and her peers, and the
adults couldn't understand how she could be an
evil bully. After much deliberation, the adults
decide that the girl's parents are to make her
apologize to the identified victim. We observe
as the girl knocks on the house of the victim.
When the victim opens the door, the "bully" sobs
hysterically while trying to utter the words,
"I-I-I-'m s-s-s-sorry." We then hear the mother
of the victim telling the other parents that she
isn't sure that the bully was sincere about her
apology. Thus, after all this intensive effort,
the mother still didn't get any satisfaction.
We were then treated to a keynote speech by a woman
whose twelve-year-old daughter committed suicide
because she couldn't stand being tormented by
other kids. This mother sued her daughter's
"bullies" for "bullycide", the first such case
prosecuted in Canada. Two of the three girls
apologized for what they did, which made mom
happy, but one girl refused to apologize and was
sentenced to 18 months probation. What really
disturbs this woman, though, is that the
grandmother of the unrepentant "bully" defended
her, claiming that the suicide was not her
granddaughter's fault. The nerve of her -
actually wanting to defend her own granddaughter
from murder charges!
The conclusion of all these presentations was
the best way to solve the problem of bullying is
for the bystanders to stand up against the
bullies. I'm sure it must make victims of
bullying feel really good about themselves to
know that adults don't expect them to be able to
solve their problems on their own, but need to
rely on protection by other kids.
I was a bit nervous about presenting my own views
after the audience was exposed to two mornings of
tear-jerking presentations about the suffering
of victims and the evils of bullies.
Fortunately, my worries were unfounded. Many or
most of the audience loved my presentation and I
was thanked incessantly by people running into
me in the hallways and elevators. Perhaps there
is hope for society after all.
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