Bullying is a perennial topic these days in the media and at dinner tables. As someone who in high school was brutally bullied, my heart always goes out to the families of teens who decide they can not handle it and turn to suicide.
The most recent example, one Jamey Rodemeyer of Buffalo New York is turning attention to a federal level though, and we are staring down the barrel of federal anti bully legislation. That we have to rely on federal regulation to force school administration and parents do their fucking jobs is beyond tragic to me. It shows a colossal failure of both entities to keep up with the technology that took torment to such an outrageous degree.
The common thread that I keep seeing is that teenagers are no longer safe anywhere. That people who chronically bully them are on social media doing it, and occasionally breaking Stalking laws and following them home. The specific torments are nothing new, usually relating to sexuality. But what shocks me is what is absent.
What I don’t understand is why the victims of bullying don’t rage out and fight back, violently if they have to. Particularly if the torment gets physical. Where is the rash of Zangief Kids out there? Where are the kids who have had enough, hit the gym, and go from Bruce Banner to the Hulk? I hate to ask this but where the fuck are the kids that get so angry that they externalize that pain and do something even worse?
I hate to go back and blame the Columbine Incident, but something happened over the past decade where kids were brought to believe that lashing out violently at people who are going out of their way to torment you is not the answer. Despite the above statement, I am not advocating a rash of bullied kits bringing shotguns to school, but I certainly think a few months at the gym followed by breaking some faces is called for. I want to see Gay-Strait alliance kids form a little muscle in their group, and deliver some Archie Slaps to the insecure fuckheads that think its okay to pick on others so THEY feel good about themselves.
Violence against bullies should not be the first solution by the bullied, but I think we need to adapt the student culture so it returns to being a viable solution. If it isn’t, and teens continue to think they have no other option but to be powerless and rely on other people, then they will behave powerless and rely on other people. The future will be dim indeed if that happens.
