Guest writer

A bully confesses

Hold each other accountable

— Bullying seems to be one of those behaviors that is easier to remember when one is the victim than when one is the perpetrator. It is not easy to talk about either way.

A few weeks ago, frustrated and angry over services I had not requested, I bullied an inexperienced cable company employee over the telephone. Cloaked in self-righteousness, for a little while I felt better and even bragged about it, so powerless had I felt in combating the company’s cyber curtain.

Generally, humanity has tolerated bullying as obnoxious, even shameful behavior, but not up there with, say, the national debt crisis. In today’s vernacular, we white boys from the Delta were urged as children to “man up.” Once you stand up for yourself, a bully will leave you alone. Like a lot of earnest parental advice, it is easy to give, but not easy to accomplish in our public schools, which today have the responsibility of educating all children,whatever their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic background, religious beliefs, cultural traditions and physical and emotional challenges. That’s a tall order.

Recently, bullying has been in the local news as a result of a study, conducted by University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Terry Trevino-Richard, suggesting that with a growing enrollment of Hispanic children, bullying and sexual harassment are frequent occurrences in Little Rock’s public schools.

Beginning in 2007 and continuing through 2010 with the cooperation and participation of LRSD personnel, “focus groups” of students and teachers who were guaranteed confidentiality were asked about their experiences. Trevino-Richard concluded that bullying in these schools across ethnic and racial lines occurred, but also noted, “inappropriate behavior by males toward female students is a critical issue that needs to be addressed. A number of Latino students at all grade levels surveyed reported sexual-harassment events. In general, although all groups had persons who engaged in these inappropriate activities, the far majority of them involved black males. . . . Perceived prejudicial behavior by African-American cafeteria workers and security personnel were also noted by Latino parents and students.”

It, of course, did not take a study by a professor to call attention to an issue that is so much a part of the human condition. Though it helps, you don’t have to drive by the state Capitol to remind yourself of what the Little Rock Nine went through every day at Central High School. Of course, the experiences of the Nine were only the tip of the iceberg, as initially it was black students alone who bore the burden of desegregating Arkansas schools under such white subterfuges as “pupil assignment laws” and “freedom of choice plans.”

An embittered cynic might argue that what “goes around comes around,” and, indeed it often does, but the dynamics and consequences of bullying are more complicated in the 21st Century than glibly concluding that it’s payback time or that bullying is “just” human nature.

At a recent community-wide meeting at New Millennium Church in Little Rock, held to discuss forming a community coalition to work with the LRSD to combat bullying, a number of perspectives were offered. State Sen. Joyce Elliott told the audience of about 70-which included members of the interfaith community, Hispanics, blacks, whites, Little Rock School District employees and board members and community activists-that it is precisely because black people know firsthand the pain and trauma inflicted by bullying that they should be in the forefront of the fight to stop it and reach out to the Hispanic community.Left unsaid was that we white people have a moral obligation to be part of this effort, too.

As reported by the Arkansas Times, Little Rock attorney Cristina Monterrey acknowledged that her community has “a fear of coming forward. Everything starts when it’s reported. A lot of these children, they come from a culture and they come from a background where there is this overwhelming fear of letting anyone know that something is being done to you.”

Given the current administration’s initial response-that it was not aware of Trevino-Richard’s study, that it was not really a study in the first place and that the district now already has a plan in place to deal with bullying-some might fear that that the district does not see a need to truly involve the larger community in its efforts. We need to remind ourselves that it really does take a village to raise children and hope that the district will accept how much it still has to learn (and that we all have to learn) about bullying-its causes, consequences and what we can do to stop it.

What can we do right now? Those attending the recent meeting at New Millennium all agreed that bullying has no place in the public school system and hope to build a relationship with the Little Rock School District that will result in a consolidated effort to stop bullying. We will be discussing these issues further at an open meeting at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in southwest Little Rock on December 2 from 3 to 5 in the afternoon.

It is time to hold each other accountable; no one is immune from bullying.

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Grif Stockley is the author of Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas from Slavery to the Present. Email him at grifstockley@sbcglobal.net.

Editorial, Pages 18 on 11/23/2012

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